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Show , . TIWST Pf fP FTTTT -r I AUTHOR OF "THE SILVER vVii mJJoJ vUiliiiiJL?il JI JEiSTSiiL" 9(J" -MRS. WILSON WOQDROW 11116 I - ' NINTH STORY The Weaker Strain When Tom Price asked Laura Bidden to marry him. he set forth to her the following account of his lortune : "In two tilings," he said, "I am a multimillionaire in love and hope. As fur as actual cash goes, I've nearly seven hundred dollars. As for prospects a fairly eilicient young architect ought to be able to pick iii a living, even in a small up-state town iiUe this. All I ask is a chance. And, some day or other, that chance is bound to come." I'erhnps a more mercenary girl than Laura would have hesitated u long time before linking her life to ft man of such meager prospects. But Laura Bel-den Bel-den was anything but mercenary. So they were married. They set up light housekeeping in a tiny house that Laura made very pretty and homelike. And Tom spent eight hours a day (in his cheap little office with its glaring new sign) waiting for the big orders that were to make him rich and famous. The orders, it is true, seemed in no hurry to arrive. ar-rive. But Tom waited, hopefully. As for Laura, she outdid Tom himself in the art of hoping. It would not have surprised her at all to learn,, any clay, that her wonderful husband had secured a contract to design a cathedral ; or at the very least a pork king's summer palace. Meantime, Laura went on with the study of music, -which she had taken up long before her marriage. mar-riage. She had a really unusual lyric soprano voice. And Professor Sargent, her teacher, prophesied prophe-sied a great career for her. ' At last came Tom's longed-for "chance." A small office building was going up at the corner of Temple and Maple streets. And. among fifteen architects' bids for the Job, Tom Price's was chosen. He was radiant with delight. One morning as the Prices sat at the breakfast table, Laura said, rather wistfully: "You aren't the only member of this family who has a' 'chance.' Tom. Only you can take advantage of yours. And I have to reject mine." "What do you mean?" asked Tom, looking up, curiously, from some notes he was scribbling on the back of an envelope. "Yesterday, when I went to Professor Sargent for my lesson," said Laura, "he made me a splendid offer. He wants me to go on a concert tour." "Concert tour?" echoed Tom, frowning. 'Non-gense 'Non-gense !" "I was afraid you'd say so," she sighed. "I told him you wouldn't allow me to. J3e was ever so disappointed. dis-appointed. He said it was one opportunity in a thousand. You know Paul Legrand, the composer?" "No," snapped Tom, "and I don't want to. He has a name for making love to every woman under fifty and over fifteen. I've no use for lady-killers." . "I mean," she corrected, "you know his work. You like his songs, too. Professor Sargent has given me dozens of them to learn. He says they fit my voice better than any others and that I sing them better than any other soprano." "You sing everything better than anyone else can, little girl," put in Tom, "and " "And yesterday," continued Laura. "Mr. Legrand happened to be at the Sargent studio when I was taking my lesson. Professor Sargent made me sing several of his songs. And Mr. Legrand went wild over the way I sang them." "The pnppy!" grunted Tom. "Of course, he'd " "Then he called Professor Sargent aside," went cn Laura, "and they whispered together for a long time. Then Professor Sargent came back to me and said that Mr. Legrand is planning to finance a concert con-cert tour to push the sale of his own songs and that he has been looking everywhere for the right soprano so-prano to sing them. As soon as he heard me, he decided no one can do justice to the songs as I can. And he wants me to make the tour. He's to play the accompaniments himself. The tour starts in two months. Oh, Tom," she finished, in childlike appeal, "can't I go? I want to, so much!" Tom Price came around to his wife's side by the table. She had risen. He put his arms tenderly around her, as he made answer : "Sweetheart, I feel like a brute, to refuse you anything any-thing in the world. And if it were really for your happiness, I wouldn't stand iu your way for one moment. But it isn't, dear. The truly happy woman wom-an is the woman with a home and a husband of her own. Not the. woman who must, knock around the country on stuffy trains and sleep in cheap hotels, picking up a living as a singer or an actress." "Just as you say, Tom," she agreed, meekly. He kissed ber goofl-by and hurried off for his morning inspection of the new building. Laura looked from the window, watching until he was out of sight. Thou she turned back to her household duties. She carried a heavy heart all morning, as she realized the hope she must throw away. She carried a far heavier heart during the weeks that followed. For, at noon, Tom Price was brought home to her on a stretcher senseless, inert, terribly ter-ribly injured. The ambulance surgeon, who escorted es-corted the stricken man, told Laura the story of the accident. Tom had been standing on an upper-floor framework, frame-work, watching the unloading of au elevatorful of brick and mortar w hen the elevator rope broke. A workman who was still in the elevator had leaped for the scaffolding to save himself from a fail. Tom had sprung forward to catch him. The workman's convulsively outflung hands had dragged Tom from his precarious balance at the edge of the elevator shaft. Together, the two men had fallen lo the ground floor. Both had been picked up unconscious. Tom hud recovered his seuses long enough to whisper a demand de-mand that ho be taken home Instead of to the hospital. hos-pital. The surgeon reported that Price's right leg bad doubled under him iu the fall, sustaining a compound com-pound fracture In tw-o places. Also that he was a mass of contusions and abrasions and might perhaps per-haps be Injured internally, as well.' Laura installed herself as assistant to the two trained nurses the family doctor brought. Specialists Spe-cialists were called in to determine the extent of the internal hurts. And the dreary routine of sick-room life began. The little nest egg in the savings bank melted as if i! had been a snowball on a hot siove. Two months had passed since llie accident. Tom. fully dressed at last (but with his bandaged leg stuck straight before him on a bench and his crutches at his side), sat in the little living room of i the Hat. It was his first day outside his own room. And he glanced about him in perplexity. "This room seems, somehow, changed, since I was out here before." he said to Laura. "It's different and and barer." She hesitated an instant, then said, very quietly: "It's the absence of my piano that makes the room look (jueer." "Your piano?" he repeated; "that's so. Where is it?" "I soid it. Last week." "Sold it? Are you joking?" "It isn't much of a joke," she replied, "at least, not to me." "Rut why did you do such a thing?" he demanded. "Why did you sell it? You were so fond of it. And you needed it so, in your practicing." "There won't be any more practicing, just now," she told him. "I have stopped my music lessons." "But I don't understand," he stammered. "They meant so much to you. They and your piano." "Dear." she said, softly, "they meant nothing to me nothing at all compared to your precious self. Our money ran out. You had to have the right food, the right medicine, the right nursing. There was only one thing left to do. So I gave up my expensive ex-pensive music lessons. And I sold my expensive piano. When the piano money is gone I will fry to figure out some new way to meet expenses until you are strong, enough to work again." A mist of tears arose in the eyes of the illness-weakened illness-weakened man. "You sacrificed your beloved piano for me!" he muttered, brokenly. "Oh. thirling, how can I ever make up to you for that?" "By not thinking about it any longer," was her cheery reply, "and by getting well again as soon as "You misunderstand me." answered Sargent. "I meant to say " But Legrand cut him short, by interrupting: "Look here, Mr. Price, let's speak plainly. I've made inquiries about you. I learn that you're flat broke, that you've got nothing laid by in short you're up against it, and witli no hope of going out to make a living for some months to come. I " "That is my affair!" snapped Tom. "It isn't," contradicted Legrand. "It's your wife's. It's she who suffers by it. a long shot worse than you. All this smug old-fashioned talk about a wife's place being in the home may be correct enough, as long as her husband has a fairly comfortable home to give her. But you can't give her anything. Sargent Sar-gent says she has even had to sell her piano to keep you from starving. If you were a musician you'd understand what that means to her. It's like giving up her right hand. You can't give her anything. She'll starve to death with you. Yet you refuse her a chance to make a living and a reputation." "You are mistaken," said Tom, coldly. "I am giving her a chance to keep her reputation. As for my not being able to provide for her, that is no concern con-cern of yours." "Tom !" protested Laura, troubled at her husband's hus-band's rudeness to their guest. Price's eye met hers. He saw, in her face, the sharp disappointment involved by his refusal. He recalled all she had done for him all she had suffered suf-fered and sacrificed on his account all that this "chance" meant to her. Moreoverie reflected, what right had he to refuse her the opportunity to make a livelihood, now that he could no longer earn one for her? "How long is the tour?" he asked, hesitatingly. "Ten weeks," replied Legrand, with sudden eager ness. We open next Monday night m Galveston, we Close in iew xork just ten weeks later." "Tom !" cried Laura, joyous incredulity bringing a Hush to her cheeks and a new light to her eyes, as she read Price's expression. "Tom ! Do you mean you are really going to let me go?" Tom nodded, in silent wretchedness. "Good for you. old man !" applauded Sargent. "I congratulate, you on coming at last to your senses, Mr. Price," added the delighted Legrand. "You will never be sorry for this. I thank you with all my heart." "I don't want your thanks," growled Tom, ungraciously. un-graciously. "I'm doing this on her account. Not on yours. I owe it to her. And I pay my debts." Three days later Laura Price set forth from home to join the Legrand Concert company at Galveston. Tom could hobble painfully around the flat by this time.. The funds from the piano's sale would provide pro-vide for him. for the present, and for the wages of an elderly woman who had been hired to keep house for him in his wife's absence. Before the ready money should he gone the family exchequer would be re-enforced hy such sums as Laura could forw-ard to him from her salary. Laura was jubilant. Her life-dream had at last come true. "It's for Tom! It's all for him! It will be his success as well as mine." As for Tom, once having made up bis mind, he said not a word to indicate the heartbreak that was his. From the outset the concert tour scored a genuine success. Aud tile success piled up as the tour continued con-tinued and as its fame preceded it from nty to city. The bull; of the honors went to the hitherto un-known un-known young lyric soprano. Laura Price. Before the tour was half ended, she was overwhelmed over-whelmed by offers from managers and agents. Her uame and fame and fortune were made. Owing to her personal success the tour's receipts swelled beyond Legrand's most airy hopes. Laura's percentage of the profits assumed a size that dwarfed the memory of all the money she and Tom had ever possessed. Her month's salary alone, apart from percentages, was more than poor Tom Price had earned in a year. Throughout she did not lot victory go to her brain . or make her other than the charmingly girlish and simple woman she had always been. Her dally letters let-ters to Tom were full of innocently vain accounts of her triumphs, but they were also full of the almost al-most maternal love she bore the Invalid, and of her longing to be with him once more. One cloud alone apart from absence from Totn marred the sunshine of the trip. From the outset Legrand had assumed toward her an air of half-protective half-protective tenderness, that was so subtle as to ren-der,It ren-der,It difficult to prevent aud still more difficult to resent. He was always at Laura's side, under ome pretext pre-text or other, always guarding her welfare and looking look-ing out for her comfort, beyond that of the other members of the troup. Legrand's manner toward her was wholly deferential, deferen-tial, but it was proprietary, too. Laura felt that the other singers and the manager must certainly draw erroneous conclusions from It. Yet she could do or say nothing to deter her admirer. Legrand was a shrew-d student of womankind, and a pastmastcr in the art of love-making. He said nothing he did nothing that could give her cause for anger or for reproof. Yet always he wove about her a subtle web of attentions that was daily becoming stronger and less easy to escape from. Vaguely she felt this. But she could do nothing 3 Her Fingers Closed Convulsively About It. i v' JfeM until some overt word or deed should bring the man 1 "I Did It, I am Ready to Pay." it 4 f ICs, 1 within the reach of her scorn. f f jl Y i i fv I it As for writing a word of all this to Tom she was you can. The doctor says you will be able to walk K af ; i f. far too sensible to do such a fatal thing. She knew in another month or so. Isn't that splendid?' ( Sri I PJhlk'l l!is JeaIol,6y and tnat a mere nint 'tras enough to "In a month or two," he supplemerited, "I hall "J " ? if"-! Iff j fan it: int0 murderous flame. So, sorely puzzled have to go limping around in search of work. For, t; SMs P"wS;: " to what she ought to do, she kept her own counsel Doctor Sprague tells me, the Stuytoff Construction & v 1 1 and waited. company went, last week, into the hands of a re n i ?T. 4 "Its that onuckle-neal3e(i husband of hers who celver, and the Lord alone knows when I'll get any Jj ' v kP V-j& keeps us apart," Legrand once told his chum, the money on what they owe me for designing that Jtf "i j-S"2jk manager. "If I could get him to give her up she'd miserable building for them." T i t 1 .! marry me in a minute. I know she would. I don't A ring at the doorbell interrupted her. She an- 8 h4 , ' -jsgi,ik believe she lpves him." swered the summons, admitting two men.' 4 1 T1 The tour w-as nearing an end. On the morning Tom recognized the older of the two visitors as ffi, - ; - 4 - M after the first coacert in Boston- Legrand sent for Professor Sargent, his wife's singing teacher. The f f t ( ! 'JwtSEtti Laura ancl the contralto to come to his suite of younger was a strikingly handsome man, scarcely hf S lif rooms in the hotel at which the company was stay-thirty stay-thirty years old ; and with a graceful, self-as ured it J 1 , , inS- He wished, he said, to go over new songs with manner which jarred on Price. ' Is i LsN Atffe5 each of them. Laura welcomed the newcomers cordially. Pro- '' "Did you see the papers?" he asked them as they lessor Sargent was warmly sympathetic in hi " $! S 'A, , I came into his sitting room. "They ve given us the greeting to the invalid. Laura introduced the , V , " 4 best notices we've had yet. At this rate we 11 carry stranger to Tom, as "Mr. Paul Legrand." 2 vk V V$M ew York by storm. As usual Mrs Price, he V rf 1 - T k 1 critics are crazy over your singing. And, by the Professor faargent came at once to the object of ( f 'V way, would you care to glance over these press the visit. 4 v 4 notices for the New York engagement while Mrs. "Mrs. Price," he began, "this is probably no sort . J P McDonald and I run over this encore song of hers?" of time to come here talking business. But Le ;H ' J In remarkably short time the contralto had sung grand badgered me until I consented to. His toui l-SL T the encore song to the composer-accompanist's sat- starts in a week. He still declares that no soprano iTTTTTTTlifTTTI TtT A X ttiflTltWWITIII isfaction. Pleading a shopping appointment she but yourself can do justice to those songs of hi WWM i " ."H went out, leaving Legrand and Laura together. And he seems to think I have enough influence t,to.,,A1..,,,W,,fa..mM,,,,l,fnii,,,M,,8llt J Of late Laura 'had begun to notice people seemed 1"Mr. Legrand Went Wild Over the Way 1 Sang Them." 2 "I Have Stopped My Music Lessons." 3 Her Fingers Closed Convulsively About It. 4 "I Did It, I am Ready to Pay." you can. The doctor says you will be able to walk in another month or so. Isn't that splendid?' "In a month or two," he supplemerited, "I shall have to go limping around in search of work. For, t)octor Sprague tells me, the Stuytoff Construction company went, last week, into the hands of a receiver, re-ceiver, and the Lord alone knows when I'll get any money on what they owe me for designing that miserable building for them." A ring at the doorbell interrupted her. She answered an-swered the summons, admitting two men. Tom recognized the older of the two visitors as Professor Sargent, his wife's singing teacher. The younger was a strikingly handsome man, scarcely thirty years old; and with a graceful, self-assured manner which jarred on Price. Laura welcomed the newcomers cordially. Professor Pro-fessor Sargent was warmly sympathetic in his greeting to the invalid. Laura introduced the stranger to Tom, as "Mr. Paul Legrand." Professor Sargent came at once to the object of the visit. "Mrs. Price," he began, "this is probably no sort of time to come here talking business. But Legrand Le-grand badgered me until I consented to. His tour starts in a week. He still declares that no soprano but yourself can do justice to those songs of his. And he seems to think I have enough influence over you to make you change your mind. He also authorizes me to add twenty-five per cent to the terms he offered you before and to promise you, as a bonus, a percentage on the receipts." "I'm afraid it's no use, professor," said Laura, her sweet voice vibrant witli a regret that did not escape Tom. "My husband does not " "Mr. Price!" broke in Legrand, impulsively, "perhaps "per-haps you don't realize what this means to your wife. As a mere business man, you may not know that I am just now one of the most popular music com-' com-' posers in America. The concert tour Is to exploit my songs: sung as I intended them to be sung. I, myself, shall be at the piano. That, by itself, insures in-sures the success of the tour. I am offering your wife an opportunity for which many lyric sopranos of established reputation would be humhly grateful. I am conferring a high honor on your wife by asking ask-ing " "The highest honor a man can confer on another man's wife." interposed Tom. "is to let her alone. At least. thaU is the way I regard such things. I may be hopelessly oM-fashioned. But- " "You are." Legrand assured him. quire untouched by the snub. "and. let me tell you. if she sings in these concerts of mine, and if she scores a success in them, her fortune is made. She will be besieged be-sieged by oilers from managers. She " "That is true. Mr. Price," said Professor Sargent. "It is stated rather less modestly than you may care to hear it. But it is entirely true. Mrs. Price will not only receive far higher terms for the tour than ever I have known an untried singer to get. hut she will also have a ohauce to make a name for herself. A name that she can coin into money. With a voice like hers " "She has already made a name for herself, sir." retorted Tom. '-She marie ii at the altar. The name of 'Price.' Not an exalte.! name, perhaps. But I believe and hope she is quite content with it. She needs no other." until some overt word or deea snould bring ihe man within the reach of her scorn. As for writing a word of all this to Tom she was far too sensible to do such a fatal thing. She knew his jealousy and that a mere hint was enough to fan it into murderous flame. So, sorely puzzled to what she ought to do, she kept her own counsel and waited. "It's that chuckle-headed husband of hers who keeps us apart," Legrand once told his chum, the manager. "If I could get him to give her up she'd marry me in a minute. I know she would. I don't 1 believe she lpves him." The tour w-as nearing an end. On the morning after the first concert in Boston. Legrand sent for Laura and the contralto to come to his suite of rooms in the hotel at which the company was staying. stay-ing. He wished, he said, to go over new songs with each of them. "Did you see the papers?" he asked them as they came into his sitting room. "They've given us the best notices we've had yet. At this rate we'll carry New York by storm. As usual, Mrs. Price, the critics are crazy over your singing. And, by the way, would you care to glance over these press notices for the New York engagement while Mrs. McDonald and I run over this encore song of hers?" In remarkably short time the contralto had sung the encore song to the composer-accompanist's satisfaction. sat-isfaction. Pleading a shopping appointment she went out, leaving Legrand and Laura together. Of late Laura had begun to notice people seemed to have a habit of going out and leaving them alone together. She perplexedly wondered why. As soon as the contralto had gone Legrand arranged ar-ranged a sheet of manuscript music on the piano. "It's a florid, melodramatic thing." he told her. "I call it the 'Dagger Song.' I picked up a queer old dirk at a curio shop the other day. And It suddenly occurred to me that, though there are dozens of 'Sword Songs,' no one ever wrote a 'Dagger Song.' So I wrote this. Here," picking up an antique knife from the table, "is the dagger that inspired it." He handed her the weapon. She looked shudder-ingly shudder-ingly at its rusty blade. I "I like to think those dark sluins on the hilt are of blood !" he said. "Ugh!" she shivered, dropping the dagger on the piano top and rubbing her fingers witli ber handkerchief. hand-kerchief. She tossed the handkerchief down on the piano, aud bent over to read the music, as Legrand began to play the prelude. After a time she departed io her own rooms, taking the song with her. She had not been gone two minutes when the outer door of Legrand's sitting sit-ting room was flung violently open. Tom Price stood on the threshold. "Where is iny wife?" he demanded, without other form of greeting, his angry eyes searching Ihe sitting sit-ting room. "At the office desk they said she wasn't in her rooms. I met your manager In the lobby. Ue told me I would probably find her in your suite." "She just stepped out." answered Legrand, a sudden sud-den idea flashing into his mind. "But if you care to wait, she'll be hack again in a few minutes." "You seem pretty sure of ii," said Tom. pugnaciously. pug-naciously. "Why shouldn't I be?" v a: (lie careless rejoinder. "I ought to be by this time." A false note in the elaborate carelessness caught Tom's attention, though he only in part translated it. "1 don't believe you," lie declared. "I don't be lieve my wife comes to your suite at all. I believe you're lying. I " "When I talk to a drunkard or a crazy man." scoffed Legrand, "I don't resent things he says. But if you want any proof," his insolent gaze roved over the room, "that's a handkerchief of hers lying on the piano yonder." Tom swooped down upon ihe handkerchief, shaking shak-ing it out and holding it to the light. In one corner it bore Laura's familiar monogram. The husband let It flutter to the floor. "What tire you doing here, anyway?" asked Legrand, Le-grand, well pleased with the impression he had created. "She told me you were still too lame to walk." "The doctor told me my leg was sound again three days ago." said Tom. "I didn't write her about it. I ran on here instead to surprise her. She" "It'll surprise her," assented Legrand, with a sneering grin, "though maybe not quite in the way you were fool enough to hope. She counted on your being tied by the leg iu your own little rube town for another two weeks at the very least. She said she was counting on that much more vacation anyhow." any-how." "She did not say that," said Tom. lifting his head and staring dazedly at his tormentor. "You lie." "I told you I pay no attention to lunatics' ravings," rav-ings," returned Legrand. "But now you're here there is something I do want lo say to you, if you have sense enough to understand me." "I want to hear nothing from you. I " "But you'll have to hear it just the same." resumed re-sumed Legrand. "It concerns your wife. I love, her. She loves me. We want to marry. You stand In our way. In the way of her happiness. Have you manhood enough to set her free so she can ha happy?" Tom gaped dully at him, scarce comprehending. Legrand, raising his voice a little, as though addressing ad-dressing a deaf man, continued impatiently: "Will you set her free? Or are you cur enough to go on for life, living on her earnings? We are willing to pension you if you insist on such blackmail. black-mail. But " He got no further. With a wordless yell of fury Tom Price leaped forward. His left fist caught Legrand Le-grand squarely on the point of the jaw. The composer crashed to the floor like a felled or, and lay quivering and senseless at Price's feel. With scarcely a glance at his foe, Tom strode from the suite. Along the corridor he reeled, his brain afire. Around a corner he went blindly, aimlessly, aim-lessly, then around another. Presently he found himself at a stairhead. Without waiting for the elevator he lurched down the two flights of stairs to the lobby. There he sank into a chair and tried to think clearly. It was a long time before his brain could be forced Into normal reasoning. Then, bit by bit, he began to review the scene he had just enacted with Legrand. Le-grand. And on cooler reflection, Tom was more aud more impressed with the belief that the composer had been lying to him. None of Price's memories of Laura bore out Legrand's Le-grand's Tile hints. She loved her husband. She had solemnly promised to be true. She would not break her pledged word. For Rome purpose of his own Legrand had tried to blacken her In Tom's eyes. "That man needs a good deal wose thrashing than I gave him," muttered Price at last, getting to his feet. "And I'm going back to give It to him. I'll hammer him into confessing the truth about Laura, even if I go to jail for It." He retraced his steps toward Legrand's third-floor third-floor suite. The composer in the meantime had gradually recovered re-covered from the knock-out blow. A tap at the door aroused him, and cleared his muddled brain. For he recognized Laura's voice calling for admittance. "Come in," he answered. "Where is he?" queried Laura, eagerly looking about her. "Where is who?" he evaded. "Where Is Tom? I met the manager In the ball just now. He says Tom Is here and that he came to your suite to find me." Legrand was doing some rapid thinking, despite his brain's jarred condition. He had lost his carefully care-fully planned game. Tom's arrival had spoiled everything. And more than probably when Laura should hear what had passed between her husband and himself, she would abandon the tour. Unless unless she really loved Legrand. And that must ba decided at once. "Where did Tom go?" she was asking. Without answering, Legrand ought her in his arms, and held her there despite her struggles. He sought to raise her face to his. She pushed him back, but he grasped her the more closely to him. Her outflung hand fell by cbauce upon the. hilt of the dagger that lay on the piano. Her fingers closed convulsively about it. Scarcely realizing what she did, and thinking only to fend off the hateful face that pressed so fiercely toward her own, the frantic woman struck out wildly at the man who had seized her. i Legrand's grip relaxed. He gave a coughing gasp, then collapsed in a lifeless heap at her feet. Laura, still holding the dagger whose keen edge , bad severed Legrand's carotid artery, looked down blankly at the dying man. Seeing the blood ou the blade she shrieked again and again, until the whole corridor re-echoed with her cries. Tom Price, nearing the suite door, was first of fifty running people lo reach the spot. As he entered en-tered the room Laura dropped the dagger and ran toward him with arms outstretched. 1 "Tom!" she wailed hysterically, "oh, Tom! I have come buck to you at last. You were right when you said this was no life for me. Take me home!" "Here!" rasped the house detective, rushing Into j the room at the head of a dozeu gucsls and servants, serv-ants, "what's the trouble?" He caught sight of Legrand and of the dagger at his side. ' "Who did this?" he demanded, whirling about to 1 face Tom. "Was it you?" "Yes." answered Tom evenly, "I did it. I'm ready to pay. It was worth " "He did not!" screamed Laurn. "If was I! J killed him." j "t'ome along, both r,f you." ordered Ihe house detective, de-tective, pulling handcuff.-, from his pocket. "!fp. up to I he court to decide which of .nu in golug lo i the chair. All I've got lo do is lo turn jnu over to Ihe co is. Come along !" (END OF NINTH STORY.) |