OCR Text |
Show is SYNOPSIS. At th rxirnn of a soiled hat Ib-bert Oritie savin irom arrest a Kill In black louring tar who ha caused a traffic Jam n KlalR street. He buys a new hat and Is given In change, a live dollar bill with: "Kemeiiibrr the person ynu pay this to." written on It. A second time he helps the lady in the black cur, and learns thai In Tom and Hi-Kitle W'alllnghnm they have mutual rrl.-mln. but gains mi further hint of her Identity. Beimr I'orltol, Smith American, calls, and claims the marked bill. Orme refuses, and a fight ensues In which I'orltol Is oven nine. He calls In henor Alcatrante. minister from his country, coun-try, to vouch for him. Orme still refuses to give up the hill. orme goes for a walk and sees two Japs attack Alcatrunte. lie rescues him. Kelurnlng to his rooms Orme Is attacked by two Jnps who effect ef-fect a forcible exchange of the marked bill fur nnolher. I iron- muls the K'irl of the black ear waiting for him. 8I also wants the bill, orme tells his storv. Hue recognises one of the Japs as her father's butler. Muku. A second Inscrip'lon on the bill is the key to the hiding place of Important papers stolen from her father, lloth Japs and Houth Americans want the fHHrs. Orme ami the "lilrl" slart out In the black car In quest of the papers. In the university ground In Uvanston the hiding place Is located Maku ami woollier wo-ollier Jap are thei Oriee fells Maku nil the other Jap escapes Orme finds In Maku' pocket a folded sl'li of paper. He takes the K'H. whose ume Is mill unknown un-known to htm, to the h.'ne of a friend In F.vanston. Upturning to the. university ground UrniH sets In conversation with a fruard ut the life-saving station. They lear a motor boat In trouble In the darkness dark-ness on the lake. They find the crippled boat. In It are the Jap with the papers and "Olrl." Khe lumps Inlo Urine's boat; but the Jnp eludes pursuit, orme rinds in the paper he look from Maku the address, ";HI N. J'arker street." He goes there and finds Arlma. teacher of JIu-JHsu JIu-JHsu Is on the third onr. He calls on Alia, clairvoyant, on the fourth Moor, fleseenils by the fire-escape and conceals himself under a table In Arlma's room. Alcatranie. i'orltol and the Jap minister enter Orme tlnils the papers In a drawer under the tnhie and substitutes mining prospectuses for them. He learns that the papers are of International Importance Impor-tance with a time limit for signatures of hat night midnight. The substitution Is discovered. The. girl appears and leaves again alter being told that the American has the papers. Orme nttenipts to get way. Is discovered and set upon bv Arima anil Maku. He eludes them and Is hidden In a closet by the clairvoyant. Orme escapes during a seance given by Alia. On the sidewalk be encounters Al-cfitrnnte. Al-cfitrnnte. Orme (roes to llnd Tom W'al-llngham. W'al-llngham. Alcatranie bangs on and tries to get the papers. I Hiring the excitement caused bv one of Alcatrante's tricks to delay Orme. the latter sees the girl and follows her hark to Walllngham's office. He and the r'.rl are locked In a giant pcclnien refrigerator by Alcatranie. CHAPTER XIV Continued. He reached out and found her hand, and she did not withdraw It from his , , clasii. ,k "The rascal has locked us In," he said. "I'm afraid we shall have a long alt." "Will It do any good to shout?" "No one could hear us through these walls. No, there's nothing to do but remain quiet. Uut you needn't stand, Gill." lie led her to the wall. Removing his coat, he folded It and placed It on the floor for a cushion, and she seated herself upon It.' He remained standing near by. "The papers," he said, "are In that coat you are Bitting on." He laughed, with a consciousness of the grim and terrible humor of their situation which he hoped she had not realized. Here they were, the hard-sought hard-sought papers In their possession, yet they were helpteas even to save their own lives. "I wish you would shout," she said. "Very well," he said, and going over to the door, he called out several times with the full power of bis lungs. The sound, pent In that narrow room, fairly crashed in their ears, but there was no answer from without. "Don't do It again," she said at last. Then she sighed. "Oh, the Irony of It!" site exclaimed. "1 know." He laughed. "Hut don't give up, Girl. We'll deliver those pa-fts pa-fts yet." "I will not give up," she said, gravely grave-ly "Hut tell me, how did you get the papers?" Orme began the story of the after-Bon's after-Bon's adventures. , "Why don't you sit down?" she asked. "Why" he stammered "I " He had been ao conscious of his feeling toward her. so conscious of the fact that the one woman In all the world was locked In here alone with h'm, that since he arranged her seat h had not trusted himself to be near her. And she did not seem to understand. under-stand. She wished him to sit beside her. not knowing that he felt the almost overpowering over-powering Impulse to take her In his arms and crush her close to him. That desire would have been more easily controlled, had he not begun to believe that she In some degree returned his leeling for her. If they escaped from this black prison, he would rest happy In the faith that her affection tor him. cow, as he supposed so largely friendly, friend-ly, would ripen into a glorious and rompdilrg love. Hut It would not be right for him to presume to take ad-vantage ad-vantage of a moment In which she might think thnt she cared for him more Jian she actually did. Then, too. he t 'ready loresaw vag'iely the possible necessity fur an act which would make it befit t?pf she should not hold him too dear So long he stood silent that he M ol.e hgaln. 'I'd ut down." she said. " mill jln- j i; 1 pirt of your co-it." '; S i r ".a a tremulo.is note in her lauch. I ut as he seated himself, h apoke mUti great seriousness. "When two crt-ous understand acb other i veil as you and I." she said, "and are as nesr d sth ss you and I. they need act t tularraksed by conventions." "We never have been very conventional con-ventional with each other," he replied, shakily. Her shoulder was against his. He could hear her breathing. "Now tell me the rest of the story." "First I must change your notion that we are near death." He could feel that she was looking at him In the blackness. "Don't you think I know?" she whispered. "They will not find us until tomorrow. There isn't air enough to last. I have known It from the first." "Some one will open the door," he replied. "We may have to stay here quite a while, but" "No, my friend. There is no likelihood likeli-hood that it will be opened. The clerks ure leaving for the night." He was silent. "So finish the story," she wtnt on. "Finish the story!" Thut was all that he could do. "Finish the story!" His story and hers only Just begun, and now to end there In the dark. Hut with a calmness as great as her own, he proceeded to tell all that had happened to him since ho boarded the electric car at Kvanston and saw Maku sitting within. She pressed his hand gently when he described the trick by which the Japanese had brought the pursuit to an end. She laughed when he came to the meeting with the detective de-tective in his apartment. The episode vlth Madam Alia he passed over lightly, for part of it rankled now. Not that he blamed himself foolishly; but he wished that it had not happened. "That woman did a line thing," said the girl. He went on to describe his efforts to get free from Alcatranie. "And you were under the table In Arlma's room," she exclaimed, when he had finished. "I was there; but I couldn't see you. Girl. And you seemed to doubt me." "To doubt you?" "Don't you remember? You said that no American had the papers; but you added, 'unless ' " "Unless Walsh, the burglar, had played a trick on Foritol and held the true papers back. I went straight from Arlma's to the jail and bad another an-other talk with Walsh. He convinced me that be kuew nothing at all about the papers. He seemed to think that they were letters which I'orltol wanted for his own purposes." "Then you did not doubt me." Glad relief was In his voice. "I have never doubted you," she said, simply. There was silence. Only their breathing breath-ing and the ticking of Orme's watch broke the stillness. "I don't believe that Alcatranie knew that this place was unventllated." she remarked at last. "No; and he didn't know that you were here." "He thinks that you will be released In the morning, and that you will think It wiser to make no charges. What do you suppose bis conscience will say when he learns " "Girl, I simply can't believe that there Is no hope for us." "What possible chance Is there?" Her voice was steady. "The clerks must all have gone b" this time. We can't make ourselves heard." "Still, I feel as though I should be fighting with the door." "You can't open It." "Hut some one of the clerks going out may have seen that It was bolted. Wouldn't he have pushed the bolt back? I'm going to see." He groped to the door and tugged at the handle. The door, for all the effect ef-fect his effort had on It, might have been a section of solid wall. "Come back," she called. He felt his way until his foot touched the coat. As he let himself down beside be-side her, his hand brushed over her hair, and unconsciously she leaned toward him. He felt the pressure of her shoulder against his side, and the touch sent a thrill through him. He leaned back against the wall and stared Into the blackness with eyes that saw only visions of the happiness that might have been. "We mustn't make any effort to break out," she" said. "It Is useless. And every time we move about ami tug at the door, it makes us breathe that much faster." "Yes." he sighed. "I suppose we can only sit here and wait." "Do you know," she said softly. "I am wondering why our situation does not seem more terrible to me. It should, shouldn't It?" "I hardly think so," he replied. "The relative Importance of o ir worldly affairs." she went on dreamily, dream-ily, "appears to change when one sees j that they are all to stop at once. They Itcede into the background of the I blind. What counts then is. oh. I don't 1 want to think of It! .'Uy lath -r he " ' Her shoulders shook for a mci ert tin- d r the strips of Hidden grief, hut 1 the quickly regained br control ' "Th"re. now," she wbispeicd. "I won't ' d' that " j For a time they sat in silence Ills own whirling thoughts were of a sort th;.t he could not fsthen. thy pox-tested pox-tested him conip etely, they destroyed. i-"en,tng!y. all power of analysis, they made h.m dumb; and they were tan-g'cd tan-g'cd Imxtrlcably In the fended lm-1 lm-1 . prvsslons of lostestion find loss. |