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Show 9 I SENSE OF DIGNITY 1 .Something Finer Than One's Normal Nor-mal Self, and More Elevat-). Elevat-). ing Than Passion. ; By H. M. EGBERT. "A marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place between Miss Estelle Lambert, only daughter of Rear Admiral Charles Lambert (retired) (re-tired) and Mr. John Hewlett, the well-tnown well-tnown senior partner of Hewlett & Mason, 89 Wall street. The news of the engagement has occasioned considerable con-siderable speculation among the friends of the bride, who " ' John Hewlett, seated at his desk in .liis capacious office, smiled very grimly grim-ly as he read the Insinuating paragraph para-graph in the society paper which had been sent, to him, marked, by some one who preferred to remain anonymous. anony-mous. It was well that he had done so, for John Hewlett was not a very pleasant enemy, and he had been tnown to repay insults with good jneasure on more than one occasion. But he "only thrust the sheet con-'temptuously con-'temptuously . into his waste-paper basket, and then, having sorted the correspondence upon his desk, he closed it with a slam. He had arranged arrang-ed his affairs; he had settled his obligations ob-ligations to the last penny; now he was to settle a moral obligation which weighed on him more than the loss of Ills entire fortune, wiped out in a day by the sensational slump In Hardware Hard-ware Preferred. John Hewlett was forty-three. From 4he age of eighteen to thirty he had worked in a foundry, stripped to the waist, the bully and overlord of a -motley crew of hard fighters and hard workers. Then an education, painfully painful-ly and laboriously acquired by the aid of a few books studied when he should have been sleeping, enabled him to break free from his enslavement. enslave-ment. In five years more he was a man of average education and moderately moder-ately rich; at forty he had entered Wall street, where, during three years, he had become known as the most audacious free-lance in the financial finan-cial district. He had made millions, had been flattered and courted; then, at forty-three he had fallen in love, for the first time in his life. He had met Estelle's father at his country ,club, and the old admiral, captivated a pff i Admiral Lambert Came Forward and Clasped the Other by the Hand. ty the bluff sincerity of the man, had Invited him to visit him at his home on Fifty-fifth street. There he had met Estelle, just back from school in JFrance, to take her dead "toother's ;place in the household; and by sheer ;force of '(personality he had swept her off her feet with his impassioned pleading. And now he was ruined and his duty lay clear before him. John Hewlett had never flinched from duty when he was boss of the foundry gang. Hard-hitting, inflexible, he had gone straight to the point and always carried car-ried it. Now his course was clearly defined. He could not give her anything any-thing to compensate for what he was taking from her. He must release her from the engagement. Three-quarters of an hour later he was b.eing ushered into the drawing room of the Lamberts' house. It was a soft summer evening, agreeably cool; the lights were not yet turned on, and the house was almost dark, Miss Estelle was out, the man said, but would return at any moment. Would he wait for her? John Hewlett paced the room quietly, quiet-ly, thinking out the speech that he had prepared. He passed into the hall. Adjacent to the drawing room was a smaller one, the entrance hidden hid-den by a Japanese screen. Behind this be heard the murmur of voices. One of them was Estelle's. The other was the softly modulated one of .Theodore .The-odore Faning.,. Hewlett was about to break in on them when something said aroused his attention, and, though he would have scorned to play the spy, he stood as though rooted there, awaiting await-ing the opportunity to slip, away without with-out arousing detection. "Yes, Estelle, he's a beggar," he heard Faning say, with a self-satisfied laugh. "Every penny wiped out in the Hardware slump. It's all over the street. Poor beggar!" "Why 'poor' beggar?" asked Estelle. Es-telle. f "Because he's losing you, Estelle," Faning answered, "and that makes him doubly poor. I tell you, when I heard the news my, heart got into my throat and stayed there. , He's so devilishly pertinacious, that Hewlett fellow, I was half of a mind that he would hurry round and pour some lying story into the old man's ears and somehow contrive to keep his stranglehold on you. But I guess he didn't have the nerve. Take if from me, you won't see him again, Estelle. He's probably miles away by now. with all the money that his dupes trusted him with." In the old dayB In the foundry Hewlett Hew-lett had been famous for striking before be-fore speaking. "It's a word and a blow with John Hewlett," was said of him. Now, hearing this, he felt his temples suffused with blood; involuntarily involun-tarily he put out his hands and tbe Japanese screen toppled over. Next moment he was standing in front of Estelle and his traducer. All the decorum de-corum acquired through years of painful pain-ful self-mastery had vanished, and he was elemental in his fury. His fists were clenched, his face was purple, and he rocked Blightly, like an infuriated in-furiated beast. "I heard you," he bellowed. "I heard you! I I won't hurt you tn Miss Lambert's presence. - But I'm going to speak to her alone. Get out!" "Mr. Hewlett!" cried Estelle, springing spring-ing to her feet, pale with anger, "please remember that you are both my guests." Hewlett's hands fell to his sides. He felt himself trembling. At that moment-Admiral Lambert entered the room quietly, stepped up, and took his place between the men. "Come, Hewlett, my dear fellow," he fcegan. "What's the matter between be-tween you and Mr. Faning?", "May I be allowed to speak?" Inquired In-quired Faning ironically. He stood up, cool enough, although his hands were shaking. "It amounts to this: That man is a pauper. His house has failed. And I think," he continued, with a little bow, "that he has come here to tell you so." "Yes, you're right," cried Hewlett, and all his rage came back. Hewlett looked round at the calm, collected witnesses of his helpless rage. He was very like a bear being baited by hounds. But in that moment mo-ment a sense of dignity came to him. "Let's cme to the point," he said. "I have asked Mr. Faning to withdraw. with-draw. Now I can proceed. I have lost every penny I have, but I've paid my debts and I'm going to start life over again and win. I've always won. But I've lost one thing. I came to say that. I wish to release Miss Lambert from our engagement. It wouldn't be fair." He stopped and looked from one to another. There was something almost al-most pitiful in his gaze. Faning shifted uneasily. "With your permission, I will be going, sir," he said to the admiral, and, bowing to Estelle, he went out of the room. Outside he paused and grinned. Success was his now; he had heard enough; Hewlett had hopelessly hope-lessly lost why, the coirseness of the man had shown through the polish like raw wood under a coat of varnish. var-nish. He chuckled all the way home. Inside there was a dead silence. Then the admiral spoke. "Why wouldn't it be fair?" he asked. "Why?" stammered Hewlett, "Why why " Admiral Lambert came forward and clasped the other by the hand. "I can't speak for Estelle, John," he said, "but I think you are doing us both a wrong. I hope you are. I believe, John, that this misfortune has swept away a barrier a barrier which was once almost invisible, but has been growing higher and stronger the barrier that you yourself have opposed op-posed to your own happiness. I mean your pride, John, and your self-depreciation. But I can't answer for Estelle. Es-telle. Perhaps she can answer." He passed out of the room, and Hewlett, not understanding, stood staring after him beside the door. He stood as If in a dream till the rustle of a soft garment at his Bide caused him to start violently. Estelle stood by him. "John," she said and there were tears in her eyes "John, won't you ever understand? Well, then, I'll have to tell you. I loved you for yourself, my dear, not for your money, not in spite of your roughness, but because of the heart of a man beneath It. There! I've' told you and I never dared to hope the time would come." And the tears that fell on his face washed away all bitter memories ol the past. (Copyright, ISIS, by W. G. 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