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Show ' By geii nmEs twiiinms CHAPTER XI Continued F 24 "Don't come again, Phil," Mr. Sentry said. Mr. Hare stepped away jo that they might speak alone. Phil felt suddenly empty. "But father, mother will want to come!" Mr. Sentry smiled. "Of course! If 5he wishes. But not you children, rather you didn't; and certainly ' not the girls." And he asked, "How are they?" "Fine." J "Mary happy with Mr. Endle?" i "Yes." ' "Barbara well again?" I "Yes." i Mr. Sentry nodded. Phil waited; ( and his father said at last: "Phil I . don't know that it matters now. But i 1 want you to know a thing or two." i Phil felt his cheek stiff with pain. "About my testimony, Phil." The older man faced his son fairly. "All ; I said about that night was true. I ' didn't know Miss Wines was there. I j shot her by accident And I had had nothing to do with her." Phil's throat was full; but he managed man-aged to speak. "I believed you, father," fa-ther," he said. "We all did. That I it was an accident!" Mr. Sentry cleared his throat "About the woman last summer," he said, "and the other, long ago. 1 All that is between ypur mother and . me. She knows they didn't touch t what she and I had together." Phil could not speak; and the old-1 old-1 r man said: "About the appeal. Ap-. Ap-. peals, delays, tricks wouldn't help in the long run. I hope you under-f under-f stood my decision." Phil said slowly: "Yes sir! But 5 you don't need to consider us. We're up to it" He added: "Of course, Mr. Hare says perhaps the GovernorWell, Gover-norWell, I mean if we can make him believe you " Sentry shook his head. "No, Phil. That's the jury's province, to de-1 de-1 cide whether I told the truth or not. If they didn't believe me, the Gov-, Gov-, ernor has no right to say they were 1 wrong." , ' "Mr. Falkran says he could get j a new trial " ! J "1 had a fair trial! Bob Flood let Falkran get away with a lot of things." Mr. Sentry's lips set. "I won't put you all through that again 1 Phil!" And he said, almost curtl So that's all, then. Good-byl" Outside, Phil found himself trem-iling. trem-iling. He said apologetically to Mr. Hare, "I feel about ten years old, light now." "So do all men, sometimes," Mr. ! Hare assented. "But they never let nyone guess, except their wives." April slipped away; and Phil missed Linda more and more. But ' on the first day of May, he reached the office at the usual hour, rang for a stenographer and Linda came in. Phil stared at her. She seated herself at the end of his desk, opened a notebook, laid sharp pencils pen-cils ready. He cried: "Linda! What are you 1 doing here?" : "Came to take your letters." "But how did you get here?" "I persuaded Miss Randall to give ne the job." ' "But you can't " t "Don't you believe it," she retort-d. retort-d. "Nobody can .get a job under ! Miss Randall unless they can prove ley're good. Certainly' not a girl I ke me. You know, one of the idle rich? We have to prove we've got : everything." "But vou " I I "Shorthand, typing, business I forms, everything," she assured him gaily. "If you don't believe , me, try me." And she said then: ' "I ought to be good! I've been work-; work-; hig at it studying twelve hours a 1 Jay for six weeks, and practicing : besides. Hence these dark shad-1 shad-1 ;ws under my lovely eyes. Notice?" And when he could not speak, she I demanded: "Mean to say you ' aven't missed me? Haven't you 'en noticed that I'd quit being underfoot un-derfoot around your house all the I ::me?" "Gosh, I've missed you awfully. But Lin, what's the idea?" "The idea, young fellow-me-lad," : sne said, speaking lightly lest her Lj I throat swell with tears, "the idea is : at I have diagnosed your case, 1 and written your prescription, and - ne prescription is me, taken regu-'ar'y, regu-'ar'y, in large doses. So when you jj So into business, into business go I. 3 When you sit all day at a desk, I pull my chair up to the corner of he same desk. You'll be spending lost of your time here for a while. ''. so will I." "What do your folks think about fll I?" Highly approve," she assured SS m. "Would you like me to get my ''tier's consent?" jjh. you can't do this, Linda!" ' Of course I can." Be here all day with me?" ""e spoke huskily. "Be anywhere, J :ays, Phil, with you." ,j ..y 11 marry somebody " jte 1 40u you'll have me." . I ,,'ou know I can't, Lin!" oif en 31 least I can be youi c- ok' u re so doggoned stubborn." :i but efficient!" , He grinned. "All right" he said. "You know it will be grand for me, having you around." "Me too, Phil." "Take a letter!" Her pencil poised; began to fly. CHAPTER XII Phil accepted Linda's presence in the office, but with misgivings. He reported the matter to Mrs. Sentry that night "Do you think it's all right, mother?" moth-er?" he asked. "She's sure to be talked about." And he said, thinking think-ing aloud: "Linda's so darned fine. If things were different But they're not, of course. Never can be. I never can marry, or have children. I realize that." He added tenderly, almost lightly: "Besides, my job is to take care of you." She said: "Yes, Linda's sweet; but she knows that I need you. . I shan't always be selfish about you, Phil, but I shall need you and Barbara, for a while." He thought doubtfully of Dan, but marry her, and raise about nine children and keep her so busy she won't have time to think about all this. People think too much any way!" Phil said: "I know; but he looks at it just the other way. He says we have to face it, live it down." And he confessed, half-angrily, "To hear him talk, you'd think he wanted her to wear a placard telling the world who she Is." Dan said scornfully: "That stuffed shirt! He's like a woman. He wants to be a martyr. You know, the old line: T could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.' " "I don't blame him for testifying. Do you?" "Hell, no! I'd have done the same. But why should he rub it in now? I'll go see him tonight and tell him so." . But Dan's arguments were unavailing una-vailing too. Professor Brace chose a Sunday afternoon in May for his confession. There had been tennis. Linda was there. When it was time I She did not speak. He stood like one awaiting judgment; but Dan said honestly: "He wasn't to blame, Barb. He was summoned, had to tell or lie. I'd have done the same." "Of course," she assented. "I don't blame him for testifying. But Mac, I do blame you for telling me." j "Oh, Barbara, you can't fool your- I self, pretend to ignore what has j happened!" Barbara faced him for a moment; then suddenly without a word she turned, turned and ran, ran into the house and away. He called her name, but he did not pursue her. Dan said disgustedly. "You may be a professor, but you're the darnedest fool I ever saw!" I "She will see I'm right, in the end!" Brace insisted. But he was wrong in this predic- ! tion. Barbara thereafter avoided him, and when he came to the house she was quick to disappear. Yet Barbara began to wish to know all that had happened at the triaL She asked her first questions on the Sunday following. Dan came, "Mac and I Have Never Teamed Up," Barbara Confessed. he promised: "Sure, Linda knows. We'll be here, mother. Don't be afraid!" It was the first day of May when Linda came into the office; and during dur-ing that month, July seemed far away. Business problems arose to worry Phil. Once he sought Mr. Loran's advice; but the Loran home was closed. Mr. and Mrs. Loran, he heard, had gone to Europe for the summer. So Phil turned to his mother, and every evening he consulted con-sulted with her, asking her counsel, by his demands upon her forcing her to find strength to meet them. Also, Barbara was better every day, the flood of spring which flowed across the city surging through her too. But Barbara never mentioned her father. It. was as though she had deliberately de-liberately put him out of her mind. The others, recognizing this, did not speak of him in her presence; and they sought for her sake to protect her in every way, to find a routine, to live as near normauy as pussiuie. Dan was often at the house; and sometimes Phil wondered how his mother could be blind to the bright devotion between Dan and Barbara that was so plain to his informed eyes. Once Dan wished to speak to Mrs. Sentry, to tell h'er their secret; but Phil's persuasions restrained him. Yet Dan came often, and Professor Pro-fessor Brace too; and the tennis court had use again. If Sundays were fair they might all be there, Linda and Barbara, the Professor and Dan and Phil. Sometimes Mrs. Dane, or Mrs. Urban or other friends of Mrs. Sentry dropped in, and after tennis there was tea . . . It was Professor Brace who in the end shattered the insulation of silence si-lence with which they had conspired to protect Barbara. He insisted on confessing to her his damning testimony testi-mony against Mr. Sentry at the trial. tri-al. He warned Phil in advance of what he meant to do; and Phil, unable un-able to dissuade him, told Dan what Brace intended. "I tried to talk him out of it" he explained. "Probably Barb can stand it now, though. She's a lot better I'm more worried about mother. She doesn't show tilings on the surface much, but she s awfully aw-fully shaky inside. Every once m a while, she shivers." "I know." "And lately her left eyelid keeps twitching." Sure, she's pretty well worn out." Dan reverted to Barbara "But Phil Professor Brace is a darned fool! What Barb needs is to forge all this business; never speak of it or think of it again. As soon as l can get a job somewhere else I m going to take her away from here, for tea, she and Phil and Mrs. Sentry Sen-try went into the house, and Dan and the Professor played a set of singles, Barbara looking on; and when the set ended Professor Brace won Barbara said warmly: "You're good, Mac. We'll teach Dan some tennis yet, before we get through." Dan retorted cheerfully, "Maybe I'm not so good, but Linda and I can give you two a lesson, any time." "Mac and I have never teamed up," Barbara confessed. "But it wouldn't take us long to learn." The professor said suddenly: "We teamed up once, Barbara. The first night I met you. The night we followed fol-lowed your father home." Barbara s color drained away. Dan said furiously, "You darned fool!" But Barbara said: "Hush, Dan. Mac didn't say that just to make me unhappy, did you, Mac? What are you trying to tell me?" "I just want you to know, Barbara, Barba-ra, that I testified against your father, fa-ther, told the jury about our seeing him that night, helped to convict him." She was white as ivory; and he said: "You had to know some time. I wanted it to come from me." after dinner; and Barbara, ready for tennis, met him with a bright challenge; and Phil and Mrs. Sentry followed them out to the court to watch the game. Dan and Barbara had played together before, and at first Dan had been able to win at will; but as Barbara's strength returned, re-turned, she had easily the better of their matches, opposing her graceful grace-ful swiftness and disciplined strokes to Dan's furious energy and awkward awk-ward force. This day Dan, running back for a perfect lob, piled headlong into the backstop and rebounded and sat down hard; and Barbara laughed aloud, and then called in quick solicitude: so-licitude: "Hurt, Dan?" "No, not a bit!" he retorted, and scrambled to his feet "Hit 'em in my reach, you big bullyl Come on!" Phil thought their words, their happy voices, were eloquent. He looked at his mother a little anxiously; anx-iously; but he saw that her eyes were curiously serene. "Did you hear her tone when she asked Dan whether he was hurt?" she asked softly. He pretended surprise. "Her tone? No. Why?" "She's growing fond of him." (TO CONTINUED) |