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THK 8T0RT.
AUATCTB GUERNSEY'S bop, of fear ii too
dread of acandal. Her father committed autade
when ha was diacovered In a Ualmn with a choroa
Sirl. Her mother died of a broken heart aoon after
ward. Therefore Allayne has no Dtty when
SPKN8EB BOORKB. her flanc to arreted In .
(mid on a cay party at a roadhouas. She will liaten
to no explanation,, and break, the enracement forth,
with. Aa a matter of fact, the raid waa " framed "
BT
HAMET. amooth crook who haa
FV"1 " toto aonety and haa hia eye on the
Inherited Guemeey millions. Somewhat to hia own
OTprieo. Haleey eacceede in playtna- on Allayne's
eutrared teelinva and perauadins her to marry him.
They atart on their honeymoon?
E08A HAL8EY. who haa been ton briderroom'i
cwmpanton In crime.
SECOND INSTALLMENT.
The Great War had broken out in 1914,
Just ao Mr. Guernsey had completed plans
tor a tour of Europe with Allayne. In the
even years that had elapsed Allayne had
thought hundreds of times of the day when
he would visit Europe. Halsey's glowing
plana, so carelessly uttered, awakened a re
aponse In her. To see Europe In company
with this charming, distinguished English
man sought after by all of New York that
counted . . . Having decided to accept
Halsey, he became colored with that glam
orous romance with which lovers are In
vested. If deep down In her heart she was regret
ful of young Spenser Bourke, the Iron pride
that she had Inherited from her mother
made her refuse to recognize regret If her
quick acceptance of Halsey was due In part
to her sudden severing of her engagement
to Bourke, if she even subconsciously wanted
to show Bourke how little she cared, she
was not aware of it. She agreed to marry
Balsey as he wished.
Gelsteln had become the least bit restive.
He wanted action. But when Halsey showed
him the license, and told him where the
ceremony was to occur, the Gelstein suspi
cions evaporated. He even insisted on shar.
tag a pint of champagne, procured fromV
Some Illicit source. With Halsfiv ahnrtlv K-
fore the ceremony. Thus started, Gelstein
found It difficult to stop. The share of the
pint was followed by a quart His heart was
mellow and his tongue was loose when he ran
across, about the time that Allayne Guernsey
was becoming Mrs. Bennett Halsey, Rosa.
Gelstein had not seen the woman for five
years, but no one who had ever seen her
Hthe figure, slim, catlike, surmounted by the
sullenly beautiful face, could ever forget her.
It waa on Broadway, near Times Square, and
she was hurrying, apparently for a Subway
entrance. Gelstein Interposed his formidable
hulk squarely in her path.
" If it ain't Rosa," he exclaimed cordially.
. The woman started. For a moment it
seemed as though she meditated flight Gel
stein read her mind. He waved his hand.
"It's all right, Rosa,- he said, "me and
Benny fixed up that money matter."
The color came back into her cheeks. Sr.c
bad been cognizant of the affair between
Halsey and Gelstein. She could not be in
volved In it, nevertheless ft was unpleasant
facing Gelstein If he happened to be In a
bad humor.
" I'm glad of that," she said cordially. It
was true; she much preferred peace to war,
honesty to dishonesty. "Benny never told
me about If
Gelstein waved a chubby hand; his hug
diamond ring glinted In the sunlight
" Oh, It's been since you quit Benny that
w fixed it up," he said.
"Oh," said Ross, Her Jaw dropped slight
ty, so slightly that Gelstein did not notice
the expression.
" Come In have a cup of tea," Invited
Gelstein.
. Rosa followed him Into the corner hotel.
She permitted her host to order tea for
her, the while her sharp mind pondered on
the meaning of what he had said.
" When'd you leave Paris?" asked Gelstein,
fcs the waiter went off to fulfill the order.
"Oh a while back," said Rosa vaguely.
"Ton and Benny, he tells me, didn't hit it
Iff very well," said Gelstein.
Rosa shrugged. Also, her glance was coy.
Beneath ft Gelstein felt his pulses beat a
trifle faster.
" Kind of fun showing you the town, Rosa,"
be suggested.
"I've heard worse propositions," she ad
mitted. "How Is oM Benny r she asked. If
Benny Halsey was telling old acquaintances
that he was through with her, she wanted
to know chy.
Gelstein chuckled.' "He's the same old
Bve one," be said. " Can you Imagine him
beta' married?"
"Whatr- Only by aa effort did she re
train from screaming the question.
Now, even liquor could not ordinarily make
Gelstein Incautious. But Rosa was, he
thought, a very beautiful woman. Also, she
was unattached. But In the past she had
been devoted to Benny Halsey. Might not
there still lurk within her breast some spark
of attachment to Halsey? If so, It would
Interfere with his own sudden desire for her.
So he forgot to be cautious.
"Sure. Today," he asserted.
" You're crazy," she sneered.
"All right, then I'm crazy," said Gelstein. '
"Only, I left him half an hour, and he was
n his way to the minister's then, with a
ring and a license and everything, and tickets
n the Montreal Express you can get a
drink up there without risking Jail, you
know. Oh, he's married, all right"
" Who's the woman?" demanded Rosa.
Gelstein looked up. Something that he
saw in her eyes frightened him. He pushed
back his chair. 1
" Say. look here, Rosa, what's eating you?
What difference does it make to you whether
Benny Halsey gets hitched or not?"
" Answer me," she said.
Gelstein was afraid of no man who walked.
Women were different Sometimes they cried
and ran away, and sometimes they cried and
ran right over you. Rosa's hand was resting
on the teapot She might, as he phrased it to
himself, " crown " him with It
"Gal named Guernsey," he said sullenly.
Got a load of Jack. What difference does It
make to you, anyway? "
But Rosa didn't hear his question. Before
Gelstein could Interpose his fat bulk she had
passed by his chair and was on the way from
the restaurant
So! Benny Halsey was double-crossing her,
going off with another woman. This was why
be was going away on a business trip. . . .
Her brain seethed as she crossed the sidewalk
and stepped into a taxi. But when wrath
assailed her most strongly her brain was
Boost clear. She did not know from which
station the Montreal Express departed. She
knew little of New York. But she did know
tnat ther?, was a ticket office, the Consoli
dated, on Forty-second street. Rather than
waste time going from one station to the
other, or by braving the telephone service,
she drove to the ticket office. There she
learned that the Montreal Express left the
Grand Central In ten minutes.
A traffic block at Fifth avenue delayed her.
She reached the train gate Just as Halsey and
his bride were passing through. Halsey
turned. Allayne did likewise. She saw the
flaming eyes of the woman who seized Hal
sey's arm, shrank from them as though they
were the fire that they seemed.
Incoherent, stumbling, Rosa could not
make herself clear. Allayne heard the words
"No right to marry mine belongs to
me."
Then Halsey's arm broke loose from the
woman's. Rosa fell back Into the crowd
about the train gates, and the bride heard her
husband's cool voice say:
" Better remove her, officer. Insane, I take
It Never saw her In my life before."
Then, dazed, shamed by the scene, Allayne
stumbled along the platform to the train.
They had arrived at the last minute. Before
they were settled In their drawing room the
wheels beneath them had begun to move and
they were gliding toward the tunnel.
"Sorry, dear girl," said Halsey. "Most
embarrassing situation I ever encountered In
my life. Demented woman annoying us that
way! An outrage, an butrage."
Allayne stared at him. She had not the
slightest doubt of Halsey. But her forehead
puckered slightly.
" I wonder," she said, " how she happened
to know your name? "
" She didn't," he said.
Allayne frowned again. " I distinctly heard
i m r r - a. a m
her cry Benny,' " she said. " I remember It
now."
Halsey frowned now in apparent bewilder
ment " That make It more amazing," he declared.
" I declare, the woman Is a menace! " he cried.
Allayne, shaken, sank down upon one of
the seats. Halsey knelt beside her; his arms
went around her lissome waist He drew her
close to him. She interposed her hands be
fore his eager lips. One remembers, after the
event things that one did not know one saw
while the event occurred,
"I thought" she said slowly, "that you
recognized her when she screamed."
Halsey laughed. " How could I recognize
her when I never saw her in my life before? "
Allayne's laugh Joined his, only hers was
shaken, uncertain. Doubt did not shake It,
make It uncertain. She was unnerved, un
strung, but still no suspicion of Halsey
clouded her heart. But Halsey, himself dis
honest and therefore always suspicious, read
Into her natural reaction following so violent
even though brief, a scene, the thing that
was always uppermost in his own heart,
suspicion.
Allayne stared at him. Of court she be
lieved him; was he not her lawfully wedded
husband? But even as she was assuring her
self that she did believe him, doubt, the doubt
created by Halsey's own Insistence, was being
born in her mind. She pushed, half con
sciously, Halsey's greedy lips farther away
from her.
"Why why, Ben," she said, "you you
when she screamed and you looked so queer
you said something, too. I remember It
now. You said ' Rosa.' I heard you."
Now, Halsey had waited all his life for the
big killing. It was at hand at last He had
that infinite patience which people, nations,
sometimes possess until the sought for goal
seems near at hand. Then patience leaves
them and they are Impetuous, casting away
in a moment of rashness the thing for which
they labored, perhaps, years. ;
Allayne Guernsey had been married to him
an hour ago. Her lips belonged to him; her
fortune was his. .But at the moment he
thought of her lips more than of her money.
She was enticing, attractive, Irresistible.
That she had dismissed Bourke because of a
carefully engineered scandal was all very
well. Bjut Bourke had not been married to
her. He, Bennett Halsey, was.
" You heard nothing of the sort," he said.
"You Imagined It"
Once again he tried to take her in his arms,
and once again she avoided him. He laughed
impatiently.
It had never been hia hope to hide from her
all evidences of his past among which Rosa
must stand foremost But he had known that
not -for the wealth of "New York would Rosa
permit him to marry, even for a moment, an
other woman. However, once the deed was
done, Rosa would be enough of a philosopher,
when she had time to think It over, to forget
it and pocket her share of the loot So Hal
sey firmly believed. To avoid trouble he had
arranged a quiet marriage. But now that
trouble had not been avoided, why worry?
Why, his bride's hatred of scandal would In
Itself act In his favor!
"Well," said he. "suppose that I did know
her? I dont owe her anything, you may be
sure of that."
Allayne stared at her husband. , Into her
eyes crept that same fiery hardness that had
been in them when she had sent from her
side young Bourke. Had Halsey been used
to dealing with gentlewomen, had his knowl
edge of well-bred people been sometblns
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deeper than it was, he would not have mad
the mistake of assuming immediately that
the fire in Allayne's eye was that of anger,
and that It was caused by Jealousy.
He looked upon Allayne as a species of
" nut'N He knew that she was obsessed by
the fear of scandal. Yet because his ac
quaintance with women was confined to
Rosa Halsey's type, he believed that the main
reason that Allayne had rid herself of
Bourke was Jealousy. Bourke had run
around, as Halsey phrased It with some
careless .women. At least, Allayne had
thought so. Now, there'd be a few tears
and that would be all. Of course, If she really
cut up. . . . But she wouldn't. She'd do
anything rather than have scandal.
So he smiled and reached once more for
her.
" Shell never bother us again, dear girl,"
he said, " So let's forget her."
Allayne sat bolt-upright
" Let's not forget her," she said, harshly.
" What do you mean by that? " demanded
Halsey.
" I mean that I want to know exactly who
and what she Is," Insisted Allayne.
Halsey shrugged. The conversation was
beginning to annoy him. Also, it was get
ting beyond his depth. There were, of
course, women men, for that matter who '
hated Immorality of any sort But that sort
of woman asked only a clean slate from the
wedding date. After the ceremony was per
formed even the most meticulous woman
thought that the time for questions had
passed.
"She said," went on Allayne, "that you
had no right to marry me; that you belonged
to her. What did she mean? "
Allayne was unsophisticated; Halsey rec
ognized that. .But he had failed to realize
that there are certain situations in which
the unsophisticated person is less likely to
be deceived than the wisest cosmopolitan of
us all. Sometimes too much of worldly wis
dom dulls our perceptions. Children, who
have no sophistication at all, are frequently
conscious of an evil that escapes the vision
of their elders.
So now, Allayne, unversed in worldly mat
ters, had, by the knitting of her pretty brows
as she fought for recollection of each quick
incident of the scene by the train gates, wor
ried Halsey, caused him to say more than he
would have dreamed of saying to a wiser
person. To a wiser person he would have
offered a laugh. To Allayne he had over
acted. But the girl whom he had Just married
was a grown woman. They were starting
on their honeymoon trip; she wanted her
Jealousy soothed; well, she had five million
dollars, a large portion of which he intended
to get, and she was lovely to look upon. She
waa entitled to a little Boothing.
"This Isn't quite the time, dear girl, to
discuss that sort- of woman. . Some time,
when you're calmer but not now."
But once more she fended off his caress.
" Now," she said. What is she to you? "
" Certainly nothing now," he said sullenly.
" Can't you drop it? If It will make you feel
any better I knew her yes. But sbs hasn't
a claim on me. Is that enough? "
She shook her head.' Life was In ruins
about her. But Halsey did not know that.
He thought that scandal was the horror of
her life. For that matter, it was. But scan
dal, after all, was merely the trumpet that
announced worse things, and it was the
worse things that Allayne hated.
"Why. if she hadn't a claim on you, did '
ft
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rnf
J
Ik
1 jr
" Ones again h triad
to taka Acr in hia arm,
and ones again aha
avoided him."
she com to the train, scream, say that you
had no right "
" Women sometimes do those things," said
Halsey. " Poor thing, she's probably gone a
little bit off her head "
"Because of your desertion," flamed
Allayne.
"Is it my fault that a woman loves me
too much?" he asked.
" I don't know," she retorted.
Into Halsey's laugh crept something
brutal, something that Allayne had never
heard there before.
"Don't you think you've been playing a
tragedy queen long enough? Tragedy
queen? Queen of melodrama! You're a
grown woman, Allayne. Be sane. After all,
we're married."
"I understand that" she said quietly.
"But marriages can be unmade."
" What do you mean?" he cried.
"I mean that I want you to tell me ex
actly what was your relation to that woman,"
she said.
Halsey laughed again. After all, perhaps
it was easier this way. To get it over with
at once. . . .
" The relation," he sneered, " was the usual
thing."
Allayne's lips tightened. For a moment
she looked something like her father, not
the man who had surrendered In. a cowardly
moment to despair, but the man who had
fought his way lip from poverty to wealth,
meeting every situation with every ounce of
courage and ingenuity that he possessed.
"The usual thing," she repeated slowly.
Her voice was so calm that Halsey mis
took her attitude.
"Of course," he said, pleadingly. "Noth
ing out of the ordinary except that she
made an idiot of herself at the train. She's
probably ashamed of it by now. We'll never
hear from her again. It was nothing but
an attempt at blackmail anyway."
"I should think that she'd have tried It
earlier," said Allayne.
" She didn't know that I was going to be
married," said Halsey.
Allayne's eyebrows lifted. " That perhaps,
was one of the reasons why you wanted so
quiet a wedding. To escape from her."
Halsey smiled patiently. The smile seemed
to say that Allayne was a persistent child,
who must be humored, but who was making
the matter difficult by her unreasonableness.
" There wasn't any question of escape from
- her," he said.
" You mean," said Allayne quietly, " that
there shouldn't have been any such question;
that you should never have left her."
Halsey shrugged. "It's a bit late to dis
cuss that, Allayne."
She shook her head. " No, it Isn't."
Halsey's eyes opened wide. "But we're
married!"
" We had no right to be married," she ex
claimed. "I deny that," he asserted. "But any
way we are married!"
"And the -marriage can be unmade," she
stated. .
For a moment their eyes met. Hers were
suddenly haggard, sunken. And through
them she saw this man, her husband, as she
had not seen him heretofore. All the
glamour of his greater experience, the suav
ity of manner that travel had engendered
these things were stripped from him. She
saw him as a rascal who would not hesitate
to treat a woman dishonorably. As com
pared with his offense the sin of Bourke
seemed nothing. How could she, even for
a moment hav Judged so harshly th vouth
whom she had loved, whom
God forgive her she loved at
this moment?
For suddenly she realized
that she had never ceased to
love Bourke, that pride had
driven him from her, had
wrecked her life. Wrecked it:
For upon the ruins that she
had made of life no clean and wholesome
structure could ever be erected. What had
happened could never be undone. For the
noisome formalities of a divorce court would
leave her always stained, soiled. And yet
what else could she do? This woman at the
train gates her claim was a prior one to
that of Allayne.
Claim? She, Allayne, had no claim, no
wish to maintain one. She only wanted to
be alone, away, far from the filthy tangle In
which she had become enmeshed.
Something of what waa going on In her
mind communicated itself to Halsey. His
eyes, too, grew suddenly haggard, afraid.
" Look here, Allayne," he said, " you aren't
igolng to be unreasonable, are you?"
"Unreasonable? I'm going to ask you to
leave me," she said.
Halsey tried to bluster. " That's nonsense."
" I don't think that the conductor will say
so," said Allayne.
He stared at her. "You mean that youll
disgrace yourself by"
"I won't disgrace myself," said Allayne.
"I'll protect myself!"
Once again their eyes met Then his
hands gripped her shoulders. But she was
years younger than he, lithe, strong. She
released herself easily, whereas the effort
whitened his lips, made his heart, that tricky
heart of his, race and pound against his
ribs.
" Will you go? " she asked quietly.
" What will I say to the porter the con
ductor? " he asked. In this moment of crisis
in his whole life, his usual wit deserted him.
He thought as people caught in a fire think
of wastebaskets, of such matters as the opin
ions of the train hands.
"You had no difficulty in thinking of
things to tell me," she said coldly.
He was dazed; only the fact that his racing
heart warned him against any violence pre
vented him from seizing her again, striking
her. ... He had planned so highly, and
had accomplished so lowly. . . . And he
realized, as one realizes the inevitability of
the oncoming sunset, that Allayne was un
changeable. That was the great outstanding
quality of her. He knew exactly what she'd
do. She'd divorce him. He knew that her
lawyer would employ men who would find
plenty of evidence of so many kinds against
him that he would not dare to contest a divorce-Out
of the wreck he might gather a few
thousands. . . . To avoid scandal Allayne
might pay. . . That was dangerous and
dubious. And yet Gelstein wouldn't -wait.
Gelstein would demand his money; falling to
get it Gelstein would whisper into the ear of
the nearest policeman. ...
Halsey almost staggered as he left the
drawing room. Outeide, in the small smoking
room at the other end of the car, he sat
down, a cigar clenched between his teeth,
to think on what should be done. Hours he
sat there, while the other passengers
climbed into their berths and a surprised
porter exchanged confidential whisperings
with an amazed conductor.
Around midnight the train stopped. A
man, carrying a handbag, paused In the
smokeroom a moment that the porter might
examine his berth-check in the better light
that the room afforded. Halsey recognized
him, himself unnoticed. It was Bourke. The
crook wondered what accident had brought
Bourke aboard this train, what he would
think if he knew of Allayne's wedding. 0,
well, the account of the marriage would be
in the morrow's newspapers, and the account
of the separation. ...
The porter timidly suggested to him that
he'd like to make up his own berth on the
smokeroom lounge. Halsey wearily arose.
" Have you a spare berth? " he asked. " My
wife isn't well, and I thought I'd sleep
in a berth outside.' '
The porter grinned amiably. He picked
up the handbag which Halsey had brought
from the drawing room and led the way down
the curtained car. Ten minutes later Hal
sey was in bed. Two hours later, still awake,
he felt himself flying through the air.
He picked himself up, dazed, reeling from
the frightful crash. Screams of agony tore
the darkness. How he escaped from the
blazing wreckage he never could coherently
explain. He only knew that he found him
self standing upon an embankment, free
from the train, staring down upon the
dreadful agony of scores of his fellows. Un
hurt, he made no effort at assistance, though
cries for aid came from every yard of the
telescoped train.
A man staggered up the bank and dropped
by his side. In the light from the burning
cars Halsey could see him clearly. He mar
veled that so mutilated a body could have
escaped, to. live even for a moment. Even
the face was unrecognizable.
It needed to be no physician to realize that
he had died almost as he had dropped,
wearied, tormented, upon the ground.
Halsey had been one of the first of those
few who escaped. But now, from the other
train into which, he Judged, the Express had
plunged, came passengers and trainmen to
the work of rescue. The flare Just below
Halsey burned Itself out He sat In dark
ness, watching. In a daze, what went on a
few yards below him, offering his weak heart
as excuse for not Joining In the rescue.
From the farther end of the train he saw
two people stagger. The flame burned
brightly there, and by its light he saw that
one carried the other, and that the one
being borne was a woman.
Shock had mad htm forget much. Stu
oldlv. Incoherently, he bad known thai, h
had married Allayne. that she waa aboard
this train. . , , But self-preservation hai
been first in his frlghtenod brain. And now,
lightning-like, hope, that had been dashed
from him, came back.
Suppose ... If she were dead. . . ,
His share of her estate . . . He crept
along the bank until he could look down upon
the couple. The woman was Allayne, and
he might have guessed that the man would
be Bourke. And she was unhurt. A glance
told him that Bourke could not be badly
injured, either, or he could not have torn
her from beneath the blazing timbers, car
ried her to safety.
And she lay in Bourke's arms, her eyes
opened, staring up at the young man. . . .
Halsey could read the future. There would
be a divorce, and then remarriage. Bourke
would have the girl whom Halsey coveted,
have her money, and he, Halsey, would rot
in some Jail. ... He tiptoed away from
the couple below. No thought of assertion
of his marital rights entered his mind. He
would not he mused, put it past her to ask
Bourke to drive him away.
Back, a score of yards away, beside the
man who had died at bis feet Halsey cursed
the fate that had let him live. If only he'd
been killed in the wreck, to be forever free
from the fear of JallN . . . And then he
shuddered; he was a coward, and he feared
death. Those blazing timbers Just below,
this dead man at his feet. ... He looked
down at the dead man. Idly he noted that
the man's pajamas were of the same silken
pattern as his own.
He sat suddenly down, overwhelmed with
an Idea. Fortune was lost, but liberty not
yet If he were supposed to be dead. Gel
stein would forget him, pocket his loss, and
let the matter fade from his memory. To
begin all over again, with the Inestimable
advantage of being thought forever gone
from this world. . . . London, Paris; these
were again open to him if once he were be
lieved to be dead. New York was lost but
New York was not everything. He was
fascinated by the thought If the Continen
tal police thought him dead they would ceas
all further search for him. ...
He looked at the mutilated fee besid
him. Put a card, a letter with the address
of Bennett Halsey in the man's pajama
pocket. . . . Better still, take the pocket
book that was in his own pajaraa pocket,
remove the money that he needed, put it
in the pajamas of this dead mar., remove
the dead man's purse he, too, carried him
valuables In his breast pocket and Bennett
Halsey would be written down as killed in
a railroad accident
The man's face was unrecognizable. Ther
would never be the slightest suspicion. Gel
stein would be thrown off the trail. . . .
He could even write, secretly, to Rosa, beg
her forgiveness for what he had done Ross
was easy; he'd square it with her. And he'd
like to have Rosa with him again. He waa
fond of Rosa. . . . Ho was transferring
Identifying articles to the dead man's par
Jamas even while his brain raced ahead t
the future.
Men were coming akmg with lanterns,
summoned from nearby farm houses. They
put htm In a motor car. They took him
into a warm kitchen, gave htm hot coffee,
supplied him with clothes. To one of then
he mentioned the vital business appoint
ment In Montreal with which not even th
wreck could be permitted to Interfere. Th
man's sympathy was easily aroused; he drove
Halsey to a nearby railroad Junction. And
there, shortly thereafter, Halsey caught a
train, not for Montreal, but back to New
York.
To anotKer farm house nearby Allayne waa
carried. There, in the morning, the newt
was broken to her that her husband's body
had been identified. It was Bourke who ar
ranged for the funeral; it was Bourke who,
hiding his shock at learning of her wedding,
took the widow to New York, attended to
those hundred and one things that must be
done. Tactfully, gently, he filled the p!ac
that a brother might have filled. And when,
finally, there was no more to be done for
her, he bade her good-by.
- She gave him her hand.
" Spence.'l she told him, " you've been good
to me. The kindest man Spence, I was very
unjust to you a while ago."
That was all she said; she could hardly
say more. Bourke merely stammered some
thing incoherent and left her. Yet he knew
that he was coming back. She knew that
he was coming back. It was wrong of her
to know It, to permit herself to know it But
it had not been accident that made Bourke,
on a business trip, board the ill-fated train;
it had been Destiny. And she knew it. For
the heart will never listen to the brain.
The brain may Insist that a thing is wrong,
but the heart does as it wills. And youth
is youth and will not be denied. She loved,
had always loved, would always love, Bourke.
And for him there was no other woman in
the world. That she had sent him con
temptuously from her meant nothing; that
she had married another man meant noth
ing. When she would come to him his arms,
until then aching for her, would be wide to
greet her.
Twelve months later they were married. -The
wedding was quiet, but the newspapers
would not be denied. She was wealthy; she
, had been married quietly once before and
had lost her husband in a dreadful tragedy
a few hours later. Here were the elements
of a first page story, and the newspapers
gave it Its Just due.
Allayne smiled at the extravagant accounts
in the press; she was amused at the details
given later, of her marriage, in the so-called
society magazines. She was grateful that
nothing of Halsey's past had leaked out
Only Bourke knew of that scene at th
train gates. And the woman who had cre
ated that scene had apparently faded out
of existence. The station police had let her
go, Allayne supposed. . Bourke, at Allayne's
behest, had tried to locate her, but to do so
was absurdly impossible. Allayne knew only
her first name, had had but one brief glance
at her. She could not be found. Therefor
Allayne could offer her no help.
And as months passed the shadow of scan
dal lifted from Allayne's shoulders. Sh
thought, with a rare shudder, how narrowly
she had escaped its blackening touch. Sh
sometimes, at night, awoke to think of the
woman at the train gates. Then she would
force her mind to something else. Scandal
would never touch her now.
Yet even as, in the Hillstown home where
she and Bourke were beginning life together,
she gave herself this assurance, Halsey, in
a South African hospital where he was re
cuperating from his latest heart attack, was
reading the account in a society magazine
of her marriage to Spenser Bourke. Allayne
could not know this. Neither could sh
know, until her experience was greater, that ,
what w fear Is always our master until
we cease to fear it
(Continued Nasi Sunday)
(Copyright, 1121, by Arthur Soman Roche). I
