Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (May 29, 1910)
THE OMAIU' SUNDAY BEE: MAY irio. 3 I WHAT MA happene.d?aH KTH QUAKE ? J ImercyU r1 MO will 1 IT HATsPlTn atm It. All A DA V T II THE EARTH l! ra I I IP x 111 ra THOUGHT IT WOULD HAfPEN SOME DAT AH' HERE U IS! WE ARE BEING CATTFRED IN. vao &rAce! j Mi OUR YARD GONE? HAVE B WE MOTH IN G RIITTHF I i kWE HAVE.BU FEET OF'LAWMflrT AROUND US'. If do rou. KWOW ! I WE'RE IN AM i TP li V V. 'I1 nurt rai : I I 'OH! jim! haliets 1 1 COMET MUST HAVf H T THE EARTH! EVERT THING IS rrn SOMETHING HIT US. WHETHER, IT WAS THE COMET OR NOT! ILL GO, ANP.S.EE! THE HOUSE SEL$ TA RF All Bl-.urW w ftu I ik I M w II I BUT THE MIST; CI F THE TfWM I l? IIDLjfc Allkl I I3 ur nL.nTiiiv, IB ft: l invmonnannfl tnrlllJIlliiliiiiii if fWSfWW r. n h.fi ran WHAT IS. DOWN THERri THING IS LEFT WE CAM HT ON r IP JIIM09. THAT JTHAT NOTHING: THf 1 OTHER ilPE OF THE EARTH 15 OOINC IM tlTHE OPPOSITE 2 DIRECTION! IN .fH SECTIONS'. 1. 33 11 !l ri ra II j I'LL GO AitauNm TMe House anw (rc vaj mat twh left:- If 1 THE BACK YARD. HAS VANISHED m li m 1 AND HAS BUSTED WHOLE EAR.TH .IW SMITH tRINESfJ . ft HAS VANISHEpi Wl!r-fk'?iii THE WHOLE ToWHVVMr"!ira MilTi!. I if ''.j'rt.'K .; rj.itl?;;. ri. A't, It!" '.i.r .x '. 'J- Vl In THEWrlfM tfnusT have Jhit us AN f ; AWFUL WAlfl HOR EH? J i t SHOULD SAYI 'NSO! BUT IT P s ISN'T WHATg f ' -JWAS. IT IS ! 'ijt ' jwHAT IS' J t ..j.yj.-.: jji &v our neichmkm Eweiliam : i glad they Elfiol but wnWtl 11..-- - 'l-'.'-'VkL' UNQI IN If mm 1 , SSSd AND 1 HAD INTENDED ITO 60 SHOP PING IN THE MORNING. I I if 8 it WILL HAVE PUT THAT OFP FOR S.OME TIME 1 AM TUlUllMI ,.y-,m i i ? I SUPPOSE I ' HAD pETTEK I (GO IN AND PKEi r13 I un . i in t U FORGOT '! i? rtES! DON'T 1ASK ME TO GO" TO THE GROCERY J PrtR Ynl WfB TOW Tl' AiiW ViirS. t OitMwtTj jMMLIMWjli.r-Wwr-wr iiiir-ii wiwotaw. COPYRIGHT. 1910. BY THE NEW YORK EVENING TELEGRAM (NEW YORK HERALD COO. U Right! Rrvet MldHlAflliMft OH! I'M SO sorryA 1 ATE THAT RAREBIT LAST NIGHT! I CAM NOT SLEEP! SUCH HORRIBLE DREAMS OH. WHAT MISERY!, YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN TO ME VOU Lt YOU ? NOW VUFFER HUM! y (Copyright. 1910, by Btbb-Morrlll Co.) CHAPTER XXVI- rontlnncd. V i L X He roused at that to fceblo Interest. "I oh, of course not, If you still care to have me, I I wait wondering about thi man who Just went out, Stuart, you nay' I told his landlady tonight that he wouldn't need the room again. I hope Hhe hann't rented It to somebody elte." We cheered him as btst we could, and I suggested that we go to Baltimore tho 'Text day and try to find the roal Sullivan 'through his wife. He left some time after i-fc'ilght, and Rlchey and I were alone. iih drew a chair near tho lamp and lighted a cigarette, and for a time we were silent. I was In the nhadow, and 1 sat back and watched him. It was not sur prising, I thought, that ch cared for him: pj. Vmen had always loved him, perhaps bo- - cause he always loved thm. There was Itio disloyalty In the thought: It was the (lad's nature to give and crave affection, i (Only I was different. I had never really 'ared about a girl before, and my life had I been singularly loveless. I had fought a 'lovely battle always. Once before, in col jlege, we had both laid ourselves and our callow devotions at the feet of the same I girl. Her name was Dorothy I had f or i gotten the rest but I n-membered the 'sequel. In a spirit of quixotic youth I had rellngulshed my claim In favor of Rlchey :nd had gone cheerfully on my way, elo vated by my heroic self-sacrifice to a som- W, white-hot martyrdom. As Is often the case, McKnlght's first words showed our parallel lines of thought. "I say, Lollle," ho asked, "do you re member Dorothy Browne?" Browne, that was It. "Dorothy Browne?" I repeated. "Oh why yes. I recall her r.ow. Why?'' . "Nothing," be said. "1 was thinking bout her. That's all. You remember yoi were cray about her. and dropped back because she preferred me?" j "I got out," 1 said with dignity, "be I cause you dorl.irrd you would shoot your 1 self If she didn't go with you to something or other." "Oh. why es, 1 recall now." he mt niK'j d. He tosaed his cigarette In the genVral direction f the hearth and got up. We were both a little conscious, and he, stood with his back to me. fingering a Jlrnese vase on the mantel. TI was thinking." he began, turning the vase around, "that, if you r-o pretty well gain, and and ready to take hold, that I should like to go av.ny for a we k or so. Things are faiily well cleaned up at the office." "Do you mean you are aoins to Rich jmond?" I asked, after a sc.ncMy prc:ptl J ble pause. He turned and faced me, with Bis hands thrust In his pockets. "Ho. That's off. Iolile. The Selberti are roing for week's cruise alo::g the aat. 1 the hot weather has played hob "V ne and the crulie means seven days' bieyrkji bridge." j&ra clgareite and offered him the bufctmt be refused. He was looking hag gard and suddenly tired. I could not think of anything to say, and neither could he, evidently. The mutter between us lay too deep for speech. "Mow's Candida?" he asked. "Martin says a month, and she will be all right," I returned, In tho same tone He picked up his hat, but he had something more to say. He blurted out, finally, half way to the door. "The Seiberts are not going for a c tuple of days," he said, "and if you want a day or so off to go down to Richmond yourself-" "Perhaps I shall," I returned, as Indif ferently as I could. "Not going yet, are you?" "Yes. It Is late." He drew In his breath as If he had something more to ssiy, but the Impulse passed "Well, good night," he said, from the doorway. "(Jood night, old man." Tho next moment the outer door slammed and I heard the engine of the Cannonhall throbbing In the street. Then the quiet settled down around me again, and tht-re in the lamplight I dreamed dreams. I was going to see her. Suddenly the Idea of being shut away, even temporarily, from so great and won derful world became intolerable. The possibility of arrest before I could get to Richmond was hideous, the night without end. I made my escape the next morning through the stable back of the house, and then, by devious dark and winding ways, to the office. There, after a conference with Piobs, whose features fairly Jerked with excitement, I double locked the door of my private office and finished off some imperative work. By 10 o'clock I was free, and for the twentieth lme 1 consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after 10, with McKnight not yet In eight. Blobs knocked at the door, the double nip we had agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped In and quietly closed the door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and" a purple dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous and stealthy ex pression. "They're here," he said, "two of 'em, snd that crary Stuart wasn't on, and said you were Bomewhere In the building." A door slammed outside, followed by steps on the uncarpeted outer office. "This way," said Blohs. In a husky un dertone, and. darting Into a lavatory, threw open a door that 1 Imd always nupp uoj locked. Thence into a back hull piled hi3 with boxes slid past tho presses of a bo jU bindery to the freight el.vator. Oicatly to Blobs' disappointment, there was no puisuli. I was exhilarated but out of breath when e emrRed Into on alley way, and the sharp daylight shone ou Blobs' excited face. "Great sport, isn't It?" I panted, drop plug a dollar into his palm, Inked to cor respond with his face. "Regular walk away In the hundred-yard dash." "Gimme $2 more and I'll drop 'em down the elevator shaft," he suggested fero ciously. I left him there with his blood thirsty schemes, Snd started for the s.s,- tlon. I had tendency to look behind me now and then, but I reached the station unnoticed. The afternoon was hot, the train rolled slowly along, stopping to pant at sweltering stations, from whose roofs the heat rose In waves. But I noticed these things objectively, not subjectively, for at the end of the Journey was a girl with blue eyes and dark brown hair, hair that could had 1 not seen it? hang loose In bewitching tangles or bs twisted into little coils of delight. CHAPTKIt XXVII, THE SEA. THE SAND, THE STARS. I telephoned as soon as I reached my hotel, and I had not known how much I had hoped from seeing her until 1 learned that she was out of town. I hung up the receiver almost dlzxy with disappoint ment, and It was fully five minutes before I thought of calling up again and asking If Bhe was within telephone reach. ll seemed she was down on the bay staying with the Kamuel Korbttes. bammy Kurbes! It was a name to con jure with Just then. In the old days at college I had rather flouted him, but now 1 was ready to take him to my heart. 1 remembered that he had always meant well, anyhow, and that he was explosively generous. I called him up. "By tho fumes of gasoline!" he said, whin I told him who I was. "Blakeley, the Fount of Wisdom against Woman! Blakeley, the Great L'nkissed! Welcome to our city!" Whereupon he proceeded to urge me to come dow nto the Shack, and to say that I was an agreeable surprise, because four times in two hours youths had called up to ask If Alison West was stopping with him, and to suggest they had a vacant day or two. "Oh Miss West!" I shouted politely. There was a buzzing on the line. "Is she there?" Sam liad no suspicions. Was not I In his mind always the Great l'nkissed ? which sounds like the Great Unwashed and is even more of .a -reproach. Ho asked mo down pioinptiy, as I, had hoped, and ihrui-t side my objections. "Nonsense," he said. "Bring yourself. The lady that keeps my boarding house Is calling to ma to Insist. You remember Dorothy, dont you, Dorothy Browne? She says unlets you have lost your figure you can wear my clothes all right. All you need hero Is a bathing suit for daytime and a dinner coat for evening." "It sounds cool," I temporised. "If you re sure 1 won't put you out very well, Sam, since you and your wife are good enough, ft have a couple of days free. Gie my love to Dorothy until 1 can do It mv self." Sam met me himself and drove me out to the Shack, which pioved to be sub stantial house overlooking the water. On the way he confided to mo that lots of married men thought they were contented when they were merely resigned, but that it was ihe only life, and that Sam. Jr , could swim like a durk. Incidentally, he said that Allison was his wife's cousin, their respective grandmothers having, at proper Intervals, married the same man, and that Alison would lose her good looks If she was not careful. "I say she's worried, and X stick to It," he said, as he threw tho lines to groom and prepared to get out. "You know her, and she's the kind of girl you think you can read like book. But you can't; don't fool yourself. Take a good look at her at dinner, Blake; you won't lose your head like the other fellows and then tell me what's wrong with her. We're mighty fond of Allie." He went ponderously up the steps, for Sam had put on ! weight since I knew him At the door ho turned around. "Do. you happen to know the MacLure's at Seal Harbor?" he asked Irrelevantly, but Mrs. Sam came into the hall just then, both hands out to greet me, and, what ever Forbes had meant to say, he did not pick up the subject again. "We are having tea In here," Dorothy said gaily, indicating the door behind her. "Tea by courtesy, because I think tea is the only beverage that Isn't represented. And then we must dress, for this is hop night at the club." "Which Is as great a misnomer as the tea," Sam put In, ponderously struggling out of his linen driving coat. "It's bridge night, and the. only hops are in the beer." He was still gurgling over this as he took me upstairs. He showed me my room himself, and then began the fruitless search for evening raiment that kept me home that night from the ciub. For I couldn't wear Sam's clothes. That was clear, after a perspiring seance of a half hour. "I won't do it, Sam," I said, when I had draped his dresscoat on me toga fash ion. "Who am I to have clothing to spare, like this, when many a poor chap hasn't even a cellar door to cover him. I won't do It; I'm selfish, but not that selfish." "Lord," he said, wiping his face, "how you've kept your figure! I cun't wear a belt any more; got to have suspenders." He reflected over his grievance for some time, sitting on the side of the bed. "You could go as you are," he said finally. "We do It all the time, only tonight happens to be the annual something or other, and" he trailed off into silence, trying to buckle my belt around him. "A good six inches," he sighed. "I never get into hansom cab any more that I dor.'t expect to sea the horse fly up In the air. Well, Allie Isn't going either, the turned down Gran ger this afternoon, the Annapolis fellow you met on the stairs, pigeon breasted cap and she always gets a headache on those occasions." He got up heavily and went to the door. "Granger is leaving," he said, "I may be able to get his dinner coat for you. How well do you know her?" he asked, with his hand on the knob. "If you mean Dolly?" "Alison." "Fairly well," I said cautiously. "Not as well as I would like to. I dined with her last week in Washington. And I knew her before that." Forbes touched a bell instead of going out, and told the servant who answered ti see If Mr. Granger's suit case had gone. If not. to bring It across the hall. Then he came back to his former position on tho bed. "You see. we feel responsible for Allie near relation and all that," he began pom pously. "And we can't talk to the pejpls here at the house- all the men are In love with her, and all the women are jealous. Then there's a lot of money, too, or will be " "Confound the money!" I muttered. "Tht Is nothing. Razor slipped." "1 can tell you." he went on, "because you don't lose your head over every pretty face although Allies moie than that, of course. But about a month ag she went away to Seal Harbor, to visit Janet Mac Lure. Know her?" "No." "She came home to Richmond yesterday, and then came down here Allie, 1 mean. And yesterday afternoon Dolly had a let ter from Janet-soinelUli g ab-iut a second man and saying she was disappointed not to have had Alison there, that she had promised them a two weeks' visit! What do you make of that? And that isn't the worst, Allie herself wasn't in the room, but there Vere eight other women, and be cause Dolly had put belladonna in her eyes the night before to sco how she would look, and as a result couldn't see anything nearer than across the room, some one read the letter aloud to her, and the whole story Is out. One of the cats told Granger and the boy proposed to Allie today, to show her that he didn't care a tinker's dam where she had been." "Good boy!" I said, with enthusiasm. I liked the Granger fellow since he was out of the running. But Sam was looking at me with suspicion. "Blake," he said, "If I didn't know you for what you are, I'd say you were in terested there yourself." Being so near her, under the same roof, with even tho tie of a dubious secret be tween us, was making me heady. I pushed Forbes toward the door. "I Interested!" I retorted, holding him by the shoulders. "There Isn't a word in your vocabulary to fit my condition. I am an Island in a sunlit sea of emotion, Sam, a empty place surrounded by longing a-" "An empty place surrounded by long ing!" ho retorted. "You want your din ner, that's what's the matter with you" 1 shut the door on him then. He seemed suddenly sordid. Dinner, I thought! Al though, as matter of fact, I made a very fair meal when, Granger's suit casa not having gone. In his coat and soma other man's trousers, I was finally fit for the amenities. Alison did not coine down to dinner, so it was clear she would not go over to the club houso dance. I pled my Injured arm, und a fictitious, vaguely located sprain from the wreck, as an ex cuse for remaining at honu S.ira regaled the table with 'accounts of my distrust of women, my one love affair with Doro thy; to which I responded, as was ex pected, that only my failure there had kept, me single all tlieso years, and that If Sam should be mysteriously missing dur ing the bathing hour tomorrow, and so on, And when the endless meal was over, and yards of white veils had been tied over pounds of hair or Is it, too, bought by the yard? and some eight ensembles with their abject complements had been packed into three automobiles and trap, I drew a long breath and faced about. I had just then only one object In life to, find Alison, to assure her of my absolute faith and con fidence In her. and to offer' my help and my poor self, If she would let me, in her service. She was not easy to find. I searched the lower floor, the verandas' and the grounds, circumspectly. Then I ran Into a little English girl who turned out to be her maid, and who also was searching. She was concerned because her mistress hud had no dinner, and because the tray ot food she carried would soon be cMd. I look the tray from her, on the glimpse ot something utile on the shore, and that was how I met the Girl again. she was sitting on an overturned boat, her chin In her hands, staring out to ses. The soft tld of the bay lapped almost at her feet, and the draperies of her white gowr. melted haxily into the snnds. She looked like a wraith, a despondent phan tom of the sea, although the adjective Is redundant. Nobody ever thinks of a cheer ful phantom. Strangely enoUKh, consider ing her evident sadness, she was whistling softly to herself, over and over, some dreary little minor air that sounJed like Bohemian dirge. She giancd up quickly when I madn a misstep and my dli-hej (in fried. All considered, the tray was out of the picture: the sea. th" misty starlight, the girl, and her beauty even the sal little whistle that stopped now and then to go bravely on again, as though it fought against the odds of a trembling lip. And then I came, accompanied by a tray nf little silver dishes that Jingled and an un mistakable oior of broiled chicken! "Oh!" she said quickly; and then, "Oh! I thought you were Jenkins." "Tlmeo Danaos what's the rest of It?" I asked, tendering my offering. "You didn't have any dinner, you know.' I Rat down bcnido her. "See, I'll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? 'Little goat bleat: little goat appear!' I'm perfectly willing to be the goat, too." She was laughing rather tremulously. "We never do meet like other people,, do we?" she asked. "We really ought to shake hands and say how are you." "I don't want to meet you like other people, and I suppose you always think ot mo as wearing the other fellow's clothes," I returned meekly. "I'm doing it again: I don't seem to be able to help it. These are Granger's that I have on now." She threw back her head and laughed again, joyously, this time. "Oh, it's so ridiculous," she said, "and you have never seen me when I was not eating! It's too prosaic!" "Which reminds me that the chicken Is getting cold, and the Ice warm," I sug gested. "At the time, I thought there could be no place better than the farm house kitchen but this is. I ordered all this for something I want to say to you the sea, the sand, the stars." "How alliterative you are!" she said, trying to be flippant. "You are not to say anything until I have had my supper. Look how the things are spilled around!" But she ate nothing, after all and pretty soon I put the tray down in th sand. I said little; there was no hurry. We were together, and time meant nothing against tho age-long wash of the sea. The air blew her hair in small damp curls against her face, and little by little the tide i ' treated, leaving our boat an oesis in a iste ot gray sand. "If seven maids with seven mops swept It for half a year, Do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?" ihe threw at me once when she must havo known I was going to speak. I held her hard, and as long as I merely held it she let it lie warm in mine. But when I raised It to my lips, and kissed the soft, open palm, she drew it away without dis pleasure. "Not that, please," she protested, and fell to whistling softly again, her chin in her hands. "I can't sing," she said, to break an awkward pause, "and so, when I'm fidgety, or have something on my mind, I whistle. I hope you don't dislike It?" "I love It," I asserted warmly. I did; when she pursed her lips like that I was mad to kiss them. "I saw you at the station," she paid suddenly. "You you were in a hurry to go." (I did not say anything, and after a pause she drew a long breath. "Men are queer, aren't they?" she said, and fell to whistling again. After a while she sat up as if she had made a resolution. "I am going to confess something," she announced suddenly. "You raid, you know, that you had ordered all this for something you you wanted to say to me. But the fact is, I fixe! it all came here, I mean, because I knew you would come, and I had something to tell yeu. It was such a miserable thing I needed the accessories to help me out." "I don't want to hear anything that dis tresses you to tell," I assured her. "I didn't come here to force your confidence, Alison. I ime because I couldn't help It." She did not inject to the use of her name. "Have you found the your papers?" she caked, looking directly at me for almost the. first time. "Not ytt. We hope to." "The police have not Interfered with you?" "They haven't had any opportunity," I equivocated. "You needn't distress your elf about that, anyhow." "Hut I do. I wonder why you still believe in n.e? Nobody else does." "I wonder," I repeated, "why I do!" "If you produce Harry Sullivan," she was saying, partly to herself, "and if you could connect him with Mr. Bronson, and get full account of why he was on ths train, and all that, it It would help, wouldn't It?" I acknowledged that It would. Now that the whole tiutli ws almost In my posses sion, I was stricken with the old cowardice. I did not want to know what she miKht tell me. The yellow line on the horizon, where the moon was coming up,, was a broken bit of golden chain: my heel In the sand was again pressed on a woman's yielding fingers: I pulledmyself together with a Jerk. "In order that what you tell me may help me, if It will," I said constrainedly, "it would be necessary, perhaps, that you tell It to the police. Since they have found the end of the necklace" "The end of the necklace!" she repeated slowly. "What about the end of the neck lace?" I stared at her. "Don't you remember" I leaned forward "the end of the cameo necklace, th part that was broken off, and was found In the black seslBkin bag, stained with with blood?" "Blood," she said dully. "You mean that you found the broken end? And then you had my gold pocketbook, end you saw the necklace in it, and you must have thought" "I didn't think anything," I hastened to assure her. "I tell you, Alison, I never thought of anything but that you were un happy, and that I had no rlgftt to help you. God knows, I thought you didn't want mo to help you." She held out her hand to me and I took It botwecn both of mine. No word of lov had passed between us, but I felt that she knew and understood. It was one of the moments that come seldom in a lifetime, and then only In great crises, a moment of perfect understanding and trust. Then she drew her hand away .and sat, erect and determined, her fingers laced In her lap. As she talked the moon came up slowly and threw its blight pathway cross iho water. Rack of us. In the trees beyond the sea wall, a sleepy bird chirruped drow- ' slly, and a wave, larger and bolder than its brothers, sped up the ssnd, bringing tho moon's silver to our very feet. I bent to ward the girl. "1 am going to ask Just one question." ' "Anything you like." Her voice was al most dreary. "Was It because of anything you are golrg to tell me that you refused Rlchey?" She drew In her breath sharply. "No," she said, without looking at me. "No. That was not th reason." CHAPTER XXVIII. ALISON'S STORY. She told her story evenly, with her eyes on the water, only now and then, when I. too, sat looking seaward, I thought she glanced at me furtively. And once, In the middle of it, she stopped altogether. "You don't realize It, probably,' she pro tested, "but you look like a a war god. Your face Is horrible " "I will turn my back. If It will help any," I said stormlly, "but. If you expect me to look anything but murderous, why, you don't know what I am going through with. That's all." The story of her meeting with the Curtis woman was brief enough. They had met li Rome first, where Alison and her mother had taken a villa for a yeur. Mrs. Curtis had hovered on the ragged edges of society there, pleading the poverty of the south since the war as a reason for not going out more. There was talk of a brother, but Alison had not seen him, and after a scandal which implicated Mrs. Curtis and young attache of the Austrian embassy, Alison had been' forbidden to see the woman. "The women had never liked her, any how," she said. "She did unconventional things, and they were very conventional there. And they said she did not always pay her her gambling debts. I didn't Ilka them. I thought they didn't like her be cause she was poor Hid popular. Then we came home, and I almost forget her. but last spring, when mother was not well -she had taken grandfather to the Riviera, and It always uses her up wt went to Virginia Hot Springs, and we met them ll.eie, tre brother, too, this time. His name was Fullivsn, Harry Plnckney Sulli van." "I know, flo on." (To Be Continued.)