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Show marriage. But I'd fight for him till we both died, if anything threatened him. Families are like that" He rose and moved absently near her and laid his hand for a moment on her hair. Jill took the hand and pressed it, looking up at him, terribly ter-ribly sorry for him. He must, she was thinking, have loved that lost child very much, and no doubt the hurt of that loss had turned him in upon himself, made him bitter and misunderstood, made him the person Spang and others called Old Cyanide. Jill got up, a little disturbed by the sharpness of her own emotions. "You said you wanted to see my sister-in-law." She made an awkward awk-ward effort to get back to commonplace common-place ground. "Shall I call her now?" "I suppose so." He seemed to pul! himself back from some remoteness, re-moteness, with difficulty. "I came to take her away. I'm taking her back to her husband." "I'll get her," Jill said. "I hope she'll go with you. Captain. Though, to be awfully crude and terribly Pi Richard McFarlane, who disappeared during the first World War, leaving bis wife, Julia, and two children, suddenly returns 25 years later and Identifies himself as Captain Mackey, stationed at the same camp as his son, Rlc, ervlng In World War II. Rlc has become be-come lnvolvod with Sandra Calvert, a divorcee who Captain Mackey knew at one time. He threatens her, but she tnd Klc marry anyway, and she arrives ar-rives at Julia's farm to live. She startles Julia by recognizing a picture of Richard Rich-ard as that of Captain Mackey. Sandra and Jill, Rlc'a sister, have a quarrel during which Sandra demands $10,000. That night Captain Mackey arrives, saying say-ing he Is there to take Sandra to Rlc. CHAPTER XIX "Gordon? No, I don't know where he was assigned. Some flight training train-ing school. I think. He was a splendid splen-did fellow." "I heard a plane go over a little while ago." Jill let water run to fill the ice tray, wondered if she should offer him another drink. She wasn't used to this aspect of hospitality, hos-pitality, usually her grandfather did it, or sometimes Dave. "I thought about all of you Spang and you, all you air men," she babbled on, a bit nervously, wondering why he had picked up that awful old wooden wood-en potato masher. Mamie had left it lying out it was a thousand years old and all scarred where Ric had gnawed it when he was a baby. "I envied you," she ended, thinly. He perched on the kitchen stool and lighted a cigarette. "Smoke these?" he asked. She shook her head. ' "Now and then. But Mother doesn't like it much." "Tell me a little about yourself. You're not in school?" he asked, coolly. "Good gracious, no!" Jill laughed. "I'm practically middle-aged. middle-aged. I'm almost twenty-seven years old. I was a war baby last war. I've never seen my father. He didn't come back." "In every war some of us don't come back," he said slowly. "But we're all vain enough to hope that we'll be remembered." "It's the old urge for immortality, isn't it?" Jill said, sensing something some-thing in this man's mood that answered an-swered the aching thing she had kept in her heart so long, the part of her that belonged to Spang. "So, I you see I have to be my father's j immortality. Ric and I are his fu- j ture all the future he has. In school I used to read all those weird books, ail about the transmigration of souls, and metempsychosis, and all that fantastic stuff, and for a while I pretended to myself that I was my father, that perhaps he'd been killed just at the very moment I'd been born, and that his soul had gone into my body, and that really I was Richard McFarlane." t An oddly gentle smile moved over his face. "Perhaps that did happen. Perhaps his soul did go off and leave him and come to rest in your body. And if it did and if he knew I'm quite sure he wouldn't wish for anything better than to live on through some one so lovely and sweet as you!" She led him back to the living-room, living-room, and found an ash tray for i i him, and forgot for the moment that I i he had really come to see Sandra. She said, when the silence had stretched a little, "Do you have a daughter, Captain Mackey7" He looked up sharply, and she saw his lip twitch a little. Talk About a Lost Daughter "I lost my daughter," he said, quietly. "Oh, I'm sorry!" "It was a very great loss," he went on. "Now that I've seen you I know how great my loss was." "I'm sorry. We've both lost, haven't we? A daughter needs her father terribly, and I suppose fathers fa-thers need their daughters, too, don't they?" "They need them very much. But sometimes they fail to realize the need until it's too late. I'm quite sure I didn't appreciate my daughter daugh-ter when I had her. I had mj mind full of other things." "But of course your daughter that you lost can be a sort of glory ti on his experience," John I. argued. "Now, take a man that had never had a thought for anybody but himself, him-self, his experience might not be much help to him that is unless he changed his ways a lot." "Only fools and dead men never change," returned the captain. "Experience "Ex-perience can teach a man a great deaL It can teach him, for instance, in-stance, that there's a time for speech and a time to be silent." John I.'s black eyes sharpened and then grew sober. "If you've learned that, sir, you've learned the most important thing in human experience," he said, "I'm an old man and I know." "And being an old man, you'll give a younger man credit for trying?" try-ing?" "I am always glad," John I. McFarlane Mc-Farlane spoke slowly, and Jill was a little impatient with him for being be-ing so pontifical and making such tiresome speeches, though Captain Mackey seemed not to be bored or amused by him at all. "I am always al-ways glad," the old man went on, "to give credit where credit is due. Good night to you. Captain." They shook hands again, and Jill saw how little her grandfather looked, so shrunken, so old. Then he turned and went toward the stairs, and he seemed to grope for the door, and she heard his feet stumble as he went up ahead of her. She heard his bedroom door close, i as she reached the upper hall, and there was a queer, sharp sudden' sound beyond it, a sound almost like a sob. She knocked on Sandra's door, and it was opened with suspicious alacrity. Sandra still wore the feathered robe, the sculptured curls, the bluish shadow on her eyelids, the rosy curve of lip meant for allure. al-lure. But her eyes were hard as matrix and as cold. "What's Rod Mackey doing here?" she demanded. Jill closed the door, moving into the room. "You listened, did you? He's a captain from Ridley Field. He says he has come to take you to Ric." "How can I go to Ric? I don't even know where he is! How will I live when I get there? Ricky told me to stay here till he sent for me. This is some kind of trick. J know Rod Mackey. I'm not going." "Don't be an idiot, Sandra. Captain Cap-tain Mackey told Grandfather that he had promised Ric to bring you." "All right, I'll talk to him," she said, sullenly, "but I won't go with him. No woman in her right mind would go anywhere with Rod Mackey." Mack-ey." "How silly!" Jill was scornful. "You assume that every man has designs on you, Sandra. I don't believe be-lieve you know Captain Mackey at all. I wouldn't be afraid to go with him." "Oh, no doubt You're the naive type that men like Mackey look for." Sandra was posing, Jill saw, even walking down the stairs. Her head was up, she was pointing her toes, she was being regal and keeping her eye on the long mirror mir-ror in the lower hall. She was the affronted queen when she faced Roger Mackey at the living-room door. "Just what," she asked in an imperious tone, "is the meaning of this, Captain?" He said, "Go pack your bags, Sandra. I'm taking you to your husband." A Close Call For Mackey "Thank you, I'm not going. I doubt if Ricky knows anything about this at all. You're meddling again, aren't you, Rod Mackey? Asserting As-serting your authority to meddle in the affairs of other people, that don't concern you!" "On the contrary, this concerns me," he insisted. "I have a very definite commission. Otherwise I shouldn't have made this long trip." "For goodness sake, Sandra, you said you were breaking your heart because you had to leave Ric," Jill exclaimed. "I should think you'd be delighted to have a chance to go with Captain Mackey." Sandra gave her a slow, pitying look. "Did you ever see this officer of-ficer before, Jill?" she asked, coldly cold-ly - "Why, of course. I met him at Ridley Field." "Does he remind you of some one? Some one you've seen before?" be-fore?" Sandra went on in that same deadly level voice. Jill did not answer because she was startled by the odd, harsh sound that Captain Mackey made. His voice came, level and even. "I remind her of her father," he said, looking straight at Sandra. "And she reminds me of my own daughter. We've been comforting each other because we both know what we have lost. . People with imagination should indulge their whims sometimes, but not too far not too dangerously far! Imaginations Imag-inations have a way of getting away from you. of traveling at high speed to all sorts of remote places. Even to Mexico! Now, if you'll kindly pack your bag. Mrs. McFarlane Mc-Farlane Jr., we'll be on our way. Just one bag. please. The rest of your things can be sent for later. And you needn't be uneasy. I'm taking you straight to the place where you ought to be." (TO BE CONTINUED) "I lost my daughter," he said quietly. frank, I think Ric would do much better in the army, il he were alone." "I'm sure of that," he said. "I have another plan I hope to be able to work out for Sandra. One that will be better for everybody." "It's certainly generous of you to take the trouble," Jill remarked. "I hope thereNis an answer to this problem.' I know Sandra isn't happy hap-py here." She started for the door and then stopped, as a slippered figure fig-ure came shuffling down the stairs. "Oh, Grandfather I didn't hear you. Grandfather, we have company. com-pany. This is Captain Mackey, from Ridley Field. My grandfather, grandfa-ther, Mr. McFarlane, Captain. The captain has come to take Sandra away, Grandfather." John I. McFarlane walked slowly toward the man in uniform. "So you're Captain Mackey?" the old man said. . Richard McFarlane looked at his father steadily. "I am Captain Mackey, Mr. McFarlane," he said, evenly. "How do you do, sir?" John I. seemed to wait. His breath came heavily, his nostrils and his lean throat quivered. Then with an abrupt gesture, he held out his hand. "How do you do, Captain?" he said. They clasped hands gravely, and it seemed to Jill that they were a long time about it. that they were searching each other, studying each other's face with an intentness that was odd for twq people who were utter strangers. you, don't you think? My father is like that to me. If my father couli come back, I suspect he'd be a little embarrassed by the splendor I invested in-vested him with, and very likely your daughter would be just a nice, human girl, too maybe she'd worry wor-ry you by staying out too late and smoking and things like that. But because we don't have them we can keep them wonderful and extraordinary, extraordi-nary, can't we? And maybe it comforts com-forts them a little for being separated sep-arated from us, if they know. Do you think they could know, possibly? possi-bly? People think a lot about life beyond the grave, in wartime, don't they?" "I wish your father could come back to live up to all the thing you've built up for him in your mind, Jill McFarlane. But there's a big chance that he might be a sad disappointment." dis-appointment." "Oh, he couldn't be! He couldn't be, no matter how dull he was. or stern or irritable or anything. Because Be-cause no matter what he was, he'd still be my father! Just as Ric is still my brother, even when I get furious at him for being weak and doing outraseous things, like this ! Father and Son Shake Hands Then John I. said, "So you've come to take that woman away that one young Richard married? He sent for her, did he?" The captain waited a moment before be-fore he answered. Then his words came slowly. "I promised Richard McFarlane that I would take her away from this house, sir. It's quite important that I keep my promise to Richard McFarlane, don't you think?" John I. drew his lips in. "Give me a minute or two to get used to it," he said, dryly. "A captain keeping a promise to a private." "Important that a captain keep any promise, Mr. McFarlane. even a promise to himself," the other man reminded him. "In a case like that, I'd say he'd better go very slow making prom-I prom-I ises to himself,' John I. remarked. I "He might make a few he couldn't i keep.'" j "A nan learns by experience, 1 don't you think, sir?" j "Might be. That would depend 1 |