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Show P unci be r fflS jgp h- muJLova w$L meS PEGGY )FIN w.n.u. release "But that's perjury," she whispered whis-pered faintly. Her father's face darkened angrily. an-grily. "Don't be an idiotl You did not kill her. Neither did I. So what possible difference can it make il nobody knows that we went for a walk? I'm absolutely positive that I wasn't seen; I feel equally sure you were not. So Where's the harm If we protect ourselves in a situation situa-tion that could easily become very unpleasant?" She hesitated and he said quietly, "Because,' Megan, if it becomes known that you and I were not in bed and asleep that you were out on the Ridge with Fallon it's not only going to be extremely unpleasant unpleas-ant for you, but It's going to finish him, once and for all. He'll never be able to get another Job as a teacher no matter how innocent and accidental your meeting was. People Peo-ple will remember Alicia's little thrust about your spending 'hours together on the Ridge,' and people are good at adding two and two and getting six or seven." . Megan said quietly, "Where were you, Father?" N with the thing that was In her heart; the thipg that had been there who could say how long? but whose presence, she had not discovered until un-til under the shock of Alicia's death. "I like to talk to him, Miss Meggie ef yo' think he ain' comin' anyhow, any-how, how 'bout yo' calling him up and askin' him to? So I could talk to him?" Annie was grave-eyed and portentous. Megan, jerked out of her unhappy abstraction by Annie's tone, looked up at her curiously. "Why, Annie, what's wrong? Why do you want to talk to Mr. Larry?" she asked, puzzled. Annie drew herself up a little and there was a gentle, yet implacable dignity about her as she said firmly. "It's a private matteh, Miss Meggie but it's powahful important. Yo' call him fo' me?" "Yes, of course, Annie," Megan answered and Annie thanked her and went out of the room, padding softly in the heelless felt slippers that she wore to "ease" her feet. But Megan did not have to call Laurence, for at about four o'clock he came down the road and turned in at the gate grinning at her warmly and happily. "I came over with the coroner and some of the county officers," he told her cheerfully, dropping down on the steps at her feet and baring his head to the soft wind. "Pleasant Grove's certainly getting her name in the papers. There was a newspaper correspondent for one of the Atlanta papers at the Inquest." Megan asked, after a moment, "What what did the inquest find" "Death by means of a sharp instrument in-strument at the hands of a party or parties unknown," answered Laurence, Lau-rence, looking up at her white, drawn face with surprise. "Oh look here, darling, I had no idea you were such a close friend of hers." "I wasn't, really,"-admitted Megan. Me-gan. "But I knew her and it's been a shock " "Of course," said Larry gently. He took her hand In his and held it closely. "We won't talk about it" "Yes!" said Megan so sharply that Laurence turned surprised eyes upon her. Megan managed a faint smile and said, "I I really want to know whatever they could learn" "Well, it wasn't much," said Laurence. Lau-rence. "No trace of the weapon, a knife or a dagger of some sort. No trace of robbery or anything of that kind. The girl at the bank said she had cashed her usual monthly income in-come check for fifty dollars, a few TriE STORY THUS FAR. "Alicia Stevenson has been murdered!" The tory was all over Pleasant Grove la minutes. Late in the afternoon Tom topped by to get milk, and they talked about Alicia's death. Meg was upset, and Involuntarily Tom put his arms around her and called her "darling." That evening Meg and her father sat looking at each other, each remembering remember-ing that the other was out late the night before. "Did you do It?" she finally asked. "No did you?" She was stunned. Jim MacTavlsh suggested they make a bargain: "You forget that I was out of the house I'll forget you were trysUng with Tom Fallon." A bot tide of crim- son covered Meg. CHAPTER XJ She caught her breath and could not believe she had spoken, though the words seemed to quiver in letters let-ters of fire between them. Her father fa-ther stiffened with a little Jerk. His face was white and hard and his eyes were veiled, so that she could not guess his thoughts. For a moment that seemed a century cen-tury long his eyes met hers, and then he said very softly, "No, my dear did you?" "Father!" It was a shocked, incredulous in-credulous gasp that came scarcely O above her breath. "How how can you even think " Her father lifted his shoulders In a gesture that was not quite a shrug and drawled coolly, "Why not? You teemed perfectly willing to believe I hadl" "Oh, no, Dad." In that breathless moment the endearing diminutive came easily from her tongue. "I didn't think you had I couldn't ever believe you had " "Yet you put the question very easily," he reminded her dryly. "It it was only that I heard you come In last night a little after one " "A few minutes after you came In, if I remember," said her father calmly, his eyes never leaving her White, ravaged face. "Suppose we make a bargain, my dear Megan." Her father's voice came softly, low-pitched, scarcely above a whisper, in the tone of one conspirator to another. "A a bargain, Father?" she managed faintly. He nodded. "You forget that I was out of the house I'll forget that you were er trystlng with Tom Fallon on the Ridge," he said in that gentle, gen-tle, yet somehow terrifying drawl. A hot tide of crimson poured over her face and reached from the collar of her neat cotton print frock to the very roots of her hair. "I wasn't trysting with Tom Fallon!" Fal-lon!" Her mouth twisted with distaste dis-taste at the thought, and the impli- " 'Scuse me, sun but could I talk to yo' fo' a few minutes?" He sat very still for a moment, his eyes clinging to hers, and she thought he scarcely seemed to breathe. And then he said casually, "I went for a walk." And as proof that he had had his say on the subject and no Intention of speaking again, he got up and left the room. She couldn't oelieve that her father fa-ther had killed Alicia Stevenson. It was an incredible thought; but he had been out of the house, and he was very anxious that no one should know about that. And she thought of herself and Tom Fallon, on the Ridge. And then she remembered his face tonight and the tone of his voice when that little word "darling" had slipped out the look in his eyes, naked and poignant and unashamed, un-ashamed, the warmth and tenderness tender-ness in his shaken voice that had been like a shining garment wrapped about her chilled body. "Oh, no no I won't hav it like that! I won't be in love with him I won't!" she wailed, deep In her frightened, stricken mind. But her heart went relentlessly on, "You can't help it! You can't stop it. You didn't ask for it; but you can never deny it! He knows it, too he feels as you do you saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice tonight. You love him and he loves you and he has a wife who has a greater claim on him than if there were children. Your love can never, never nev-er mean anything except heartbreak and self-denial! You know that but you can't stop loving him! Any more than you can stop breathing!" The inquest was held the following afternoon in the rickety, nondescript little frame building where the Draft Board met, and it seemed that, except ex-cept for the few bedridden in the town, everybody was there. Everybody, that is, except Megan and her father. For contrary to Jim's uneasy fear, neither he nor Megan had been called to appear. Little Betty Hendrix, Bill Logan, Mrs. Stuart, and a few of the others who had been first on the scene had been called. Megan did not quite know whether to be more relieved, or more frightened that neither she nor her father had received orders to appear. But she had firmly declined Mrs. Stuart's hearty invitation invi-tation that she go. anyway. Megan made herself keep busy throughout a day thai seemed agelong. age-long. When Annie put midday dinner din-ner beside Megan and asked, a taint uneasiness in her voice, "Miss Meggie. Meg-gie. is Mist' Larry comin' tomorrow night?" "I suppnse so, Annie." Megan answered, an-swered, and quivered a little inside at me thought of facing Laurence days ago, and her purse was found with more than thirty dollars in it. They feel sure that if she had surprised sur-prised a burglar at work, he would not have left the purse. They believe be-lieve that she was killed by someone she knew or at least, someone she was not afraid of. There were no signs of a struggle In the place." Megan sat very still, her hands locked tightly in her lap. Killed by someone she knew! Someone she was not afraid of! "There was one sensation," said Laurence after a moment, not looking look-ing at Megan. His eyes were on the garden, where, despite the fact that it was almost Christmas, a few late zinnias and marigolds were still in bloom and the chrysanthemums were great shaggy things of glowing beauty. "That was when the telegram tele-gram from her husband arrived " "Her husband?" she repeated incredulously. in-credulously. Laurence nodded. "That seemed as much of a shock to everybody there as it is to you," he told her. "But it seems that when the detectives detec-tives were going through her papers yesterday they found that she had a husband and that be was the one who was sending her fifty dollars a month. They wired him and the answer was brought to the inquest this afternoon. The husband is somewhere in the west, but he's fly-ning fly-ning east to claim the body. Should be here tomorrow or next day, they thought." "But she was a widow!" Megan protested, dazedly. "Apparently not," said Laurence, looking up as Annie appeared behind be-hind the screen door that led into the hall. "Hello, Annie how about putting another plate on the table and letting me stay for supper?" "Yessuh, Mist' Larry us sho' be glad to," she assured him, beaming, and then asked uneasily, " 'Scuse me, suh but could I talk to yo' fo' a few minutes?" Laurence looked surprised, but got to his feet, "Of course, Annie don't tell me you want to divorce Amos, after all these years!" he laughed, excusing himself to Megan as he moved towards to-wards the screen door which Annie held open for him. "I ain't suah. Mist' L.arrJ( dat I ain't gwine git rid o' dat shlf'less, no'-count nigger, sho' nuff!" she assured as-sured him darkly as she led the way to the kitchen. Megan got up from the chair where she had been sitting for more than an hour. In the late afternoon, after-noon, the sunlight had been warm and pleasant here, but with the coming com-ing of dusk, a chili little wind got up and tiptoed through the trees, and she went into the living room, ! where she built up the fire, making I it hrisk and cheerful. I (TO BE CONTINUED) cation. "But you did meet him there " "Purely by accident!" she flashed. Her father smiled thinly. "I believe be-lieve you, my dear though I am a little doubtful as to whether other people would, If it ever became necessary nec-essary for other people to know of that er accidental meeting." She put her face in her hands for a moment and her father watched her with a curious tensity. "But, of course, I can see no reason rea-son why anyone save the two of us should know anything about it," he went on smoothly. "Surely if my daughter and I wish to go for a walk In the fresh night air, it is nobody's no-body's business but our own. Unfortunately, Un-fortunately, in a murder investigation investiga-tion a great many seemingly unrelated unre-lated facts come out. Of course, there's no likelihood that we should be In any way connected with this O terrible affair. Neither of us had any motive to want Alicia out of the way that is, I had none. I hoped to marry her!" She stared at him, caught by some odd note in his voice. And after a moment he answered the look in her eyes, "Of course if it should become known that you were violently opposed op-posed to me marrying her, that you resented the thought of having her here In the house, and had been unable un-able to persuade me to give up my plans to marry her well " Once again he lifted his shoulders in that gesture that was not quite a shrug, but that was an effective dismissal. Megan drew a long, hard breath. "You know I couldn't possibly have " She set her breath against the sob that clutched at her throat. "Of course, my dear I know that you are completely incapable of any Osuch deed of violence!" her father assured her, and there was a warmth that was very close to tenderness ten-derness in his voice. "But it won't be what I know that will count, Megan Me-gan it will be what we can prove or disprove!" He let her sit huddled in a heap for a moment as though to think that over. And then he said quietly, quiet-ly, "That's why I say there is no reason why anyone should be told that you and I were out of the house though, unfortunately, not together togeth-er for several hours last night!" "Whom did you think I'd be likely to tell?" she asked him huskily, after a moment in which she fought to pull herself together so that speech was at all possible. "There will be , an inquest, of course," he reminded her. "Undoubtedly "Un-doubtedly we, as her closest neighbors neigh-bors and I suppose her closest acquaintances ac-quaintances will be called to testify. testi-fy. And if we simply say that we went to bed a little after ten " |