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Show policy. They didn’t reckon on the interpretation thing’s being split.” “Split? No, really, do you think that possible?” Kerr inquired, and Flora caught a glimmer of irony in his voice. “Well,.can you see one of the chaps trusting the other with more than half of it?” The judge was scornful. “And a fellow needs a whole ring if he is ) after a reward.” He rolled his head waggishly. “Oh, I could have been a At a private view of the Chatworth crook myself!” he chuckled, but his personal estate, to be sold at auction, the was the only smiling face in the «Shatworth ring, known as the Crew Idol, muysteriously disappears. Harry Cressy, party. ~who was present, describes the ring to For Kerr’s was pale, schooled to a Wis. Sancee: Flora Gilsey; and her chap-. - eron,.Mrsa. Clara Britton, as being like a rigid self-control. heathen god, with a beautiful- sapphire And Harry’s was crimson and swolset in’ the head.. Flora meets Mr. Kerr, an Englishman, at the elub. In dislen, as if with a sudden rush of blood. eussing the disappearance of the ring, the His twitching hands, his sullen eyes, exploits of an English thief, Farrell ‘Wand, are recalled. Flora has a fancy responded to Judge Buller’s last word that Harry and Kerr know something. as if it had been an accusation. about the mystery. Kerr tells Flora that She has met Harry somewhere, but cannot “It makes me damned sick, the way «place him. $20,000 reward is offered for you fellows talk—as if it was the easiZhe return of the ring. Harry admits to Harry takes est thing in the world to—”’ He broke ‘ -€lora that he dislikes Kerr. ‘Flora to a Chinese goldsmith’s to buy an off. It was such a tone, loose, harsh -engagement ring. An exquisite sapphire and uncontrolled, as made Flora . «set in a hoop of brass, is selected. Harry surges her not to wear it until it is reset. shrink. MOL CMSner LUSI2 ON AL COPVRIGIL 7908. By “BOBLS~ MERRUL C0. SYNOPSIS. “The possession of the ring seems to cast a spell over Flora. She becomes uneasy and apprehensive. Flora meets Kerr at a Hox party. She is startled by the effect on him when he gets a glimpse of the ‘g@apphire. The possibility that the stone is aa part of the Crew Idol causes Flora wmuch anxiety. Unseen, Flora discovers Clara ransacking her dressing room. ‘Flora refuses to give or sell the stone to Kerr, and suspects him of being the thief. ‘Plora’s interest in Kerr increases. She decides to return the ring to Harry, but ihe_tells her to keep it for a day or two. "lia Buller tells Flora that Clara is seting her cap for her father, Judge Buller. #lora believes Harry suspects jKerr. CHAPTER “But XV.—(Continued.) Judge Buller’ has already wouenued for that man,” she said quickkv, “so he must be all right.” Kerr inclined his head to her with @ smile. “Buller is easily taken in,” said Harry calmly. insolent felt Under meaning her face of the direct, his grow look the Flora hot—her hands cold. Harry could sit there taunting ¢thig man, hitting him over another gaan’s back, and Kerr could not resent %t. He could only sit—his head a little canted forward—looking at Harry with the traces of a dry smile upon his lips. “ _ She thought the next moment every- As Buller bad action gayly. “Your of another,” friends are she said being slan- dered.” ; Harry made a movement as if he would have stopped her, and the expression of his face, in its alarm, was comic, But she paid no heed. She laid her hand on Harry’s arm. “Mr. Kerr is just about to accuse us Of bejing impostors,’ she announced. She ‘had robbed the situation of its peril iby gayly turning it exactly inside out. The judge blinked, puzzled at this «extraordinary statement. Harry was disconcerted; but Kerr showed an asstonishment that amazed: her—a concern that she could not understand. ‘He turned at her. Then he laughed xrather shakily as he turned wwith a mock gallant bow. “All women impose upon to her wus, ma- ‘dam, And as for Mr. Cressy”’—he ‘fixed Harry with a look—‘T could not :accuse him .of being an impostor since -we have met in the sacred limits of St. dames. se |: The two glances that crossed before Flora’s watchful eyes were keen as thrust and parry of rapiers. Harry ioowed stiffly. 2 “{ believe, for a fact, we did not meet, but I think I saw you there once—at some embassy ball.” “The words rang, to Flora’s ears, as af they haG been shouted from the ‘heusetops. In the speaking pause that: followed there was audible an un‘known “hortatory voice from the smojing room. “YT <tell -you it’s a damn-fool: way to -manage‘it! ‘What’s the good of twenity thousand ‘dollars’ reward?’ Flora ‘clutched nervously at the back of her chair. ‘She-seemed to see the danger of discovery: piling up above Kerr like a2 mountain. “The judge chuckled. “You see what you. saved: me from. They’ve been at ‘it hammer .and tongs all the .even- *fng. 7 Every man:in town has his idea .on that subject.” “Kor: instance, what is-that one?” ‘Kerr’s casual voice was in: contrast to ‘his guarded. eyes. The judge looked pleased. “That sone? ’ Why, :that’s: my own—was, at was But staring at him, that aspect grasped but reached said the judge emphasiz- it. She moved away the passage. Some and closed the step with her. her, but she could:not leol. “And we see the thing is at-a.dead‘lock, don’t we? Well, now,” the judge went on triumphantly, “we know if ‘any .one person ‘had the -whole ring it would be turned-in by ‘this ‘time. ‘That is the weak=sspot im :the reward known. dark “T head don’t quixotic to know child, yourself one followed speak why but low. you you in this way, son whatsoever.” The light of the it, you not for ex- any erowded rea- rooms burst upon them again. “Oh,” she turned to him beseechingly, “can’t you get me away?” “Surely.” His manner was as if nothing had happened. His smile wes ‘reassuring. “Till cali your Carriage; and find Mrs. Britton.” When Flora came down from the dressing-room she found Clara _ already in the-carriage, and Kerr mounting guard in the hall. As he ‘handed™her in, Clara leaned forward, Where is Mr. Cressy?” quired. ae “He sent his apologies,” plained. ‘He is not able to just now.” she in- Kerr exget away Flora lay back in the carriage. She was dimly aware of Clara’s presence beside her, but for the moment Clara had ceased to be a factor. The shape that filled all the foreground of her thought was Harry. He loomed alarming to her imagination—all the more so since, for the moment, he had seemed to lose his grip. That was another thing she could not quite un- derstand. That burst of violent irritation following, asi it had, Judge Buller’s words! If Kerr had been the speaker it would have been ratural enough, since all through this interview Harry’s evident antagonism had seemed strained to the snapping point. But poor Judge Buller had been harmless enough. He had been merely theorizing. But—wait! Shemade so sharp a movement that Clara looked at her. _The judge’s theory might be close to facts that, Harry was cognizant of.For herself she had had no way of finding out how the sapphire had got adrift. But hadn’t Harry? Hadn’t he followed up that singular scene with the blue-eyed Chinaman by other visits to the goldsmith’s shop? ‘Why, yesterday, when he was supposed to be in Burlingame, Clara had seen him in Chinatown. The idea burst upon then. Harry was after the whole ring. He counted the part she held already his, and for the rest he was groping in Chinatown; he was trying to reach it through the imperturbable little goldsmith. But he had not reached it yet—and she could read his irritation at his failure in his violent outburst when Judge Buller so innocently flung the difficulties in his face. She knew as much now as she could bear. If Harry it would be did. not suspect strange. But—Harry Kerr, wait- ing to make sure of a reward before he unmasked a thief! It was an ugly ‘he evidence of that, risk his putting was making ready to get eut. She braced herself to face Clara in -the light with a casual exterior—but when she had reached her own rooms she sank in a heap in the chair before cher writing-table, and laid her head upon the table between her arms. In her wretchedness she found her- sense Mrs. Her- started forward. as if she had received on account of it, all the had had more amused and anxious to talk to her. She felt herself judged—judged | from the outside, it is true—but still there was justice in it. She had been flying in the face of custom, ignoring common good behavior, in_ short, sticking to her own convictions in defiance of the world’s. And she must pay the penalty—the loss of the possibility of such a friend. But it was hard, she thought, to pay the price without getting the thing she had paid for. It was more like a gamble in which she staked all on a chance. And never had this /appeared more improbable chance to her than | now. For if Kerr valued the ring 'than he valued his safety, what ment was left her? CHAPTER her — did must the She Flora winced been, from door. Some one caught It was Kerr. He bent respon- a blow. The other people who heard the same gossip of her dimly, ‘Idol’? when he -ine with blunt forefinger. “The .crook } his hand on the has avpat That’s probable, tan’t it?” grasped the thief? The carriage was stopping. Clara Harry nodded. Flora: felt Wexer’s -eyes upen vat him. - Kerr her great But Mrs. Herrick, presenting instantly her profile, drew the -young girl's hand’ through her arm and moved away. - in least, half an hour ago. “You see, vabout. that <twenty-thousand-dollar thought! proposition—” They moved nearer’ to | And would he wait for the rest now dim. Shey stood, the four; around ‘the (—-now that the situation was so gallMight not he just dered. velyet-covered table, like people ing to him? waiting to be served. “The trouble is cide to take the sapphire, and with right here.” ever him toward the door Kerr had opened for her. She passed from the light of the crimson room into the dark of pose the movement Flora for the fear of him was uppermost. Her arm still burned where he had “Judge Buller,” she called. There was a sudden cessation through fog. ‘aVell, well, Miss Flora,” he wanted’ to know, “to what bad action of mine do I-owe this good fortune?” She retreated, beckoning him to the midile of the room. “You owe it to that It gave had opened the door through which she had entered, and now, turning his back upon Harry, silently motioned her out. She had a moment’s fear that Harry’s grasp. even then, wouldn’t: let go. Indeed, for a moment he stood clutching her, as if, now that his rage had spent. itself, she was the one thing he could hold to. Then she felt his fingers loosen. He stood there alone, looking, with his great bulk, and his great strength, and his abashed bewilderment, rather pathetic. his talk: a movement of forms dimly seen én the thick blue element; and then *hrough wreaths of smoke, the judge’s face dawned upon her like a sun sensed her rick’s presence always brought her, of protection, of security, and the possibility of friendship finer than she had her, he turned upon her furiously. “Well, are we going to stand here all night?’ He took her by the arm. She felt as if he had struck her. thing would be declared. She sprang up, and, with an impulse for rescue, went to the door of the smoking-room. of if he upon sibility. These people around her seemed poor indeed, absorbed only in petty considerations, and seeing everything down the narrow vista of the “correct.” Her eyes. followed. the young girl’s course through the room, easy to trace by her shining blond head, and the unusual deliciousness of her muslin gown. She stopped beside two women, and with a certain sense of pleasure and embarrassment Flora recognized one of them—Mrs. Herrick. \She caught the lady’s eye and bowed. Mrs. Herrick smiled, | with a gracious inclination in which her graceful shoulders had a. part. “| Mean. It, | Mean It,” He Assured Her. heavily! before she dared uncover the jewel. But he wouldn’t move. In spite of all she had done, he wouldn’t. How kind he had been to her! He had not even spoken of himself, though Across the room that very afternoon she caught the twinkle of his re- he must have known the were closing over his head. sisting smile. then for two self turning to he had endured have borne Kerr. it all, on How stoically though it must him most. shadows In the gray hours of the morning she wrote him. She dared not put the perils into words, but she implied them. She vaguely threatened; and.she implored him to go, avoiding. them ali, herseif more than come here, though he’d been biddén to stay away; though he had been warned to keep away from all places where she, or these people around ne might find him; though he had any; and, quaking at the possibility that he might, after all, overcome her, she declared that before he went she would not see him again. She close€ with the forbidden statement that whether he stayed or went, at the end of three He had had her letter days, and still he had on. implored to” go; finally, as far Away as the round surface of the world would let him. By what he had heard and seen in the red room that night, he must know her warning had not been ridiculous. And there was another threat days she would make a sure disposal less apparent on the surface of things, of the ring. She put all this in reck- but evident enough to her. It was the less black and white and sent it by change in Clara after she had begun the hand of Shima. Then she waited. her attack on the Bullers, her appearShe waited, in. her little isolation, ance of being busy with something, with the sapphire always hung about | absorbed with, intent upon, something, her neck, waited with what anticipawhich, if she had not'secured it yet, tion of marvelous results—avowals, at least she had well in reach. And ideal farewells, or possibly some in- that thing—suppose it had to do with credible transformation ‘of the grim the Crew Idol; and suppose Clara face of the business. And the answer should play into Harry’s bands! was silence. For Kerr’s escape Flora had been holding the ring, fighting off events, CHAPTER XVI. and yet all the while she had not wanted to lose the sight of him. The Heart of the Dilemma.’ There is, in the heart of each gale of events, a storm center of quiet. Tt is the very deadlock of contending forces, in which the individual has space for breath and apprehension. Into this lull Flora fell panting from her last experience, more frightened by the false calm than by the whirlwind that had landed her there. Now she had time to mark the echoes of the storm about her, and to realize her position. From the middle of her calm she saw many inexplicable appearances. She saw them everywhere, from the small round of Clara’s movement to the larger wheel of the public aspect. Clara was taking tea with the Bullers, and the papers had ceased to mention |} the Crew Idol. It had not even wonder. been a nine days’ It had not dwindled. sion. . To Flora forces ‘working had it so It had shadowed secretly, that they with ..concentrated of publicity. extinguished so some surely, the light They must be going on tivity in cycles, not yet touched and_ which her. terrible perhaps ac- had So, seeing Maj. Purdie among the crowd at some one’s “afternoon” where she was pouring tea, she looked up at his cheerful face and high bald dome with a passionate curiosity. why the press had He knew been extinguished, and what they were doing in the dark. She knew where the sapphire was— and where the culprit was to be found. And to think that they could tell each other, if they would, each a tale the other would hardly dare- believe. Amazing appearances! How far away, how foreign from the facts they covered! But Maj. Purdie had the best of its, He He was at least standing where they met, large houses was doing his stiffly on one duty: side, while-she hesitated between, trying desperately to push Kerr out of sight pre crowded with people, the eye of the world was upon her. For how long had she forgotten it—she who had been all. her life so deferential toward it! Even now she remembered it only because it interfered with what she wanted te do. For the eye of her small society | was simply dropped from head-lines to nothing; and after the first murmur of astonishments at this strange vanishing, after a little vain conjecture as to the reason of it, the subject dropped out of the public mouth. The silence was so sudden it was like a suppres- Well, now, when she had made up her mind finally to resign herself to the dreariness of that, might he not at least have done his part of it and decently disappeared? So much he might have done for her. He was playing her own’ trick on her, but her chances for getting at him again were fewer than his had been with her. She could not besiege him in his abode; and in the places very keenly upon Kerr. She re- alized, all at once, that he had become a personage; and _ then, by smiles, by lifted eyebrows, by glances, she gathered that her name was being linked with his. She was astonished. How could their luncheon together at the Purdies’, their words that night in the opera box, their few minutes’ talk in the shop, have crystallized into this gossip? It vexed her —alarmed her, how it had got about when she had seen him so seldom, had known him scarcely more than a week. It was simply in the air. - It more argu- XVI. The Demigod. On the third day she opened her eyes to the sua with the thought: Where is he? From the windows of her room she could see the two pale points and the narrow way of water that led into the western ocean. Had he sailed out yonder west into the east, into that oblivion which was his only safety, for ever out of her sight? Or was he still at hand, ignor- ing warning, defying fate? She drew out the sapphire it in her hand. The and cloud held of events had cast no film over its luster, but she looked at it now without pleasure. For all its beauty it wasn’t worth what they were doing for it, Well, to-day they were both of them to see the last of it. To-day she was going to take it to Mr. Purdie, to deliver it into his hands, to tell him how it had fallen into hers in the goldsmith’s shop —all of the story that was possible for her to tell. She had made it out all clear in her mind that this was the right thing to do. It hadn’t occurred to her she had made it out only on the hypothesis of Kerr’s certainly going. It had pot occurred to her that she might have to make her great moral move in the dark; or, what was worse, in the face of his most gallant resistance. In this discouraging light she saw her intention dwindle to the vanishing point, but the great move was just as good as it had been before—just as solid, just as advisable. Being so very solid, wouldn’t it wait until she had time to show him that she really meant what she said, supposing she ever had a chance to see him again? The pos‘sibility that at this moment he might actually have gone had almost escaped her. She recalied it with a dis- agreeable shock, but, after all, that was the best she could hope, never to see him again! She ought to be grateful to be sure of that, and yet if she were, oh, never could she deprive him of so much beauty and light keeping of the sapphire as then have taken away from She would come down had her then, indeed, level with plainest, palest, things—people and facts. mance—she by he would her! hardest Her ro- seen it;. she had had it in her hands, and it had somehow eluded her. It had vanished, evaporated. She leaned and looked through the thin veil of her curtains at the splendid day. It was one of February’s freaks. It was hot. The white ghost of noon lay over shore and sea. Beneath her the city seemed to sleep gray and glistening. The tops of hills that rose above the up-creeping houses were misted green. Across the bay, along the northern shore, there was a pale green coast of hills dividing blue and blue. Ships in the bay hung out white canvas drying, and the sky showed whiter clouds, slow-moving, like sails upon a languid sea. She looked down upon all, as lone oval of her garden. She hung over the window-sill. She looked directly down upon him, foreshortened toaface, and even with the distance and tha broad glare of noon between them she recognized his aspect—his gayest, of diabolic glee. There lurked about him the impish quality of the whistle that had summoned her. 5 “Come down,” he called., All sorts of wonders and terrors were beating around her. He had transcended her wildest wish; he had come to her more openly, more daringly, more romantically than sha, could have dreamed. All the amaze- ment of why and how he had braved the battery of the windows of her house was swallowed up in the greater joy his of seeing him “grays,’ with there, stiff standing in black hat pushed off his hot forehead, hands behind him, looking up at her from the middle of anemones and daffodils. “Come down,” he called again, and waved at her with his slim, glittering stick. How far he had come since their last encounter, to wave at and command her, as if she were verily his own! She left the window, left the room, ran quickly down the stair. The house was hushed; no passing but her own, ne butler in the hall, no kitchen-maid on the back stair. Only grim faces of pictures—ancestors not her own—glimmered reproachful upon her as_ she fled past. Light echoes called her back along the hall. The furniture, the muffling curtains, her own reflections flying through the mirrors, held. up’to her her madness, and by their mute stability seemed to remind her of the shelter she was leaving—seemed to forbid. She ran. This was not shelter; it was prison. He was rescue; he was light itself. The only chance for her was to get near enough to him. Near him no shadow lived. The thing was to get near enough. She rushed direct from shadow into light. She came out into the sun, into the gar den with its blaze of wintry summer, its’ whispering life and the free air over it. The man standing in the middle Gothic of it, for all his: pot stick, was none the hat and less its demigod waiting for her, laughing. He might well laugh that she who had wriften that unflinching legter should come thus fiying at bis cali, but they was more than mischief in him. high tide of his sparkle of ‘his spirits- was excitement. evident that he was thing of mighty Was there with importance it that her letter The only the It was sone: to say. had finally touched him? Had he come at last to transcend her idea with some even greater purpose? She seemed to see the power, the will for that and the kKkindness—she could not call it by another word—but though she was beseeching him with all her silent atti- tude to great thing ment, tell her was, looking instantly he kept at her what it back the a mo- whimsically, in- dulgently, even tenderly. “IT have come for you,” he said. “Oh, for me!” she murmured. Surely he couldn’t mean that! He was simply putting her off with that. “I mean her. real, it, I mean it,” he assured “This doesn’t make it any less my getting at you through a gar- den. Better,” he added, ‘and sweet of you to make the duller way impossible.” She took a step back. It had not been play to her; but he would have it nothing else. He, too, stepped back and away from her. — “Come,” he said, and behind him she saw opened hill, the on lower the swinging garden grassy idle gate pitch and of open. that the The sight of him about to vanish lured her on, and as he continued to walk backward she advanced, following. “Oh, where?” she pleaded. “With me!” Such a guaranty of good faith he made it! She tried to summon her reluctance. “But why?” ; “We'll talk about it as we goalong.” His hand, was on the gate. “We can’t stop here#you know. She'll be watching us from the window.” Flora glanced behind her. The win- dows were all discreetly draped— most likely ambush—but that he should apprehend Clara’s eyes behind them! -Ah, then, he did know what he was about! He saw Clara as she did. She would almost have been ready to trust him on the strength alone. Still she hung back. of that was in her attitude and in his, but ‘But my things!” she . protested. how far it had gone she-did not She held up her garden hat. “And my dream, until in the dense crowd of some and lonely as a deserted lady in a gown!” She looked dowm at her frail one’s at-home she caught the words tower, lifted above these happy, peacesilk flounces, Was ever any woman of a young girl. The voice was so ful things by her strange responsibiligeen on the street like this! sweet and so prettily modulated that ty. Her thoughts could not stay with “Oh Ta; la, la,” he icht her ezent, at its first notes Flora turned involthem; her eyes traveled seaward. She “We can’t stop to dress the part. untarily to glimpse the speaker, a parted the curtains and, leaning a litYou'll forBet ‘em.’ slender creature in a delicate mist of tle out, looked westward at the white She smiled at him suddenly, looked muslin, with an indeterminate chin sea gate. back at the house, put om her hat— -and the cheek of a pale peach. A'‘whistle, as of some child calling) the garden hat. The moment she had “Just think,’ Flora heard her say- his mate, came sweetly in the silence. dreaded was upon her. Tn spite of her ing, “he went to see her three .times It was near, and the questing, expecwarning reason, in spite of every: ‘in two days, but to-day, did you notant note caught her ear. Again it thing; she was going with him. -tice, he wouldn’t look at her until she }eame, sharper, imperative, directly be(TO BE CONTINUED): went up and spoke to him. I don't neath her. She looked down; she Insufficient Data. see how a girl can! Harry Cressy—” was spéechless. There was a sudden Blebbs—What is Guzzler like when She moved away and the words wild current of blood in her veins. he’s sober.?. were lost. Flora looked after her. For There he stood, the whistler, neither lebbs—I don’t know. I've OnLy the moment she felt only scorn for child nor bird, but the man himself the creatures who had clapped that -—Kerr, looking up at her from the gay | knewn him about. nine years. i : nme benef |