OCR Text |
Show SHORT SHORT STORY Complete in This lu scarcely see how we can do it an-ether an-ether year. Mrs. Ryker, our boarding board-ing mistress, would not ask higher board until we received higher pay, yet we knew she was not making anything and it Is her living. We made her take more, but it's crippling crip-pling to our finances." Stetson pocketed the papers. "Oh, I got my raise," he declared easily. "I had a better offer, and told them I must either have more money or go." "So that alarmed Mr. Haight and, having secured your Increase, you agreed to help him bind the rest of us without telling the secret" Stetson was amazed at the white I scorn In Molly Wyatt's face. 1 "What's the matter. Miss WyattT" he stammered. I "You really don't see?" she asked ! euriously. "You ask the lmpossl-j lmpossl-j ble, Mr. Stetson. I cannot open the I eyes of one bom blind." , The years of the war started Stet-I Stet-I son toward success. On his thirty-fifth birthday, newly made president of the bank, he possessed pos-sessed all he had hoped to have at that age, except Molly; and of late Molly had seemed kinder. It was, he thought, a happy omen that he should see her walking toward to-ward him as he came down the bank steps. He lingered to Join her. "Whence and whither, Miss Molly?" Mol-ly?" he asked, swinging along beside be-side her. "Talking with Bridget Molloy, and home," she answered soberly. His face clouded. Bridget Molloy Mol-loy had paid regularly the Interest on her thousand-dollar mortgage, which the bank had renewed year I after year. This year, 111 and un- fortunate, she could not pay and I consequently had been told that un-i un-i less the full amount was paid when j due, foreclosure proceedings would j follow. "Couldn't you do something about i it?" asked Molly, confident of his j understanding, j He shook his head slowly. I "We must protect our interests, j Bridget is old. It is unlikely that i she will ever be able to pay. The j property is worth no more and, of ! course, it deteriorates." "I meant personally," explained ; Molly, carefully, fearful of making j too presumptuous a claim upon his friendship. "There would not have been a mortgage but for her hus-j hus-j band's accident. What would you and I and others have done without her in the influenza epidemic? Couldn't all her friends Join forces to help? Isn't there a chance that her little strip of land may one day have a greater value? Then she could pay, and have some left for herself." 1 He glanced at her shrewdly. There was a chance that one of the : infant industries started on each side of Bridget's land might succeed suc-ceed and, wishing to expand, pay an excellent price for her holding. That, however, was in the future. ' "I could do it because it was ! good business," he answered truthfully. truth-fully. "But not for sentimental considerations. con-siderations. That isn't the way to j get ahead." "Don't you ever do anything Just because it's honorable or kind or i tender?" she asked pleadingly. "Molly! Molly! I'll do it for you. I love you and want you to marry me." The words defied repression. His heart shone in his eyes. They had stopped at her doorstep door-step and she stood looking at him sadly. "For me, if I'll marry you, but not for Bridget, who gave us both i what money could not pay for. Oh, : I could have loved you I could j have! It wouldn't matter so much about Physical blindness, but this is i spiritual. The answer is No." Though he felt numbed as from a blow, the man's muscles obeyed his will, and he walked away. Bridget Molloy met her obligation on the appointed date. Stetson, familiar fa-miliar with all the business of the small bank, knew that Molly Wyatt's Wy-att's slow savings were less by a thousand dollars. He tried to believe be-lieve that it had been done with a hope of future profit. Inwardly, he agonized because he could not understand. |