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Show :i Jim's J I Return 1 I ;: 1 BV- H. M. EGBERT U i a (Copyright. 1915, by W. G. Chapman.) 1. 'Feeling better, ain't you, pard?" Jim Syrett nodded curtly. He was appreciative of the boys' 'kindness in coming up to his shack to see a sick man, but sometimes he felt too ill to show his feelings. At such times he always said he was better. Although the boys tried to make him believe that he would soon be about again. Jim cherished no illusions on that score. "Bill." he said, turning suddenly to his friend. "1 want you to promir.e nie something. Come and sit with me when I'm going to cash in." "You ain't going to cash in in fifty years," said Bill, unconvinced of his own siatement, nevertheless. "When you see the white flag flying from in front of my door, you'll know what it means," said Jim. It was ten days later when Bill, in the valley, saw the summons. He hurried up the mountainside. Jim Syrett was lying beside the flag; ha had not had strength to retutrn to his bed. "I'm 11 in," he said, as Bill carried him within. "Nonsense," said Bill. The other was steadily growing weaker. Toward night he opened his eyes. "Bill," he said, "there's a girl back East" "I'll write her, Jim; just to ease your mind." said his friend. Jim shook his head and smiled faintly. It's better not too," he said. "Nellie and I were engaged once. 1 guess she's got a better man, though. I always- was a waster. But I never had a chance. Harvard, parents died when I was a kid, and a capital of two million dollars, you know." Bill nodded, because he had nothing noth-ing to say. "She said she'd wait for me. But 1 was no good. You know what I was before this sickness started." "Never mind," said Bill. "You'll be better soon." "I'll be better off soon," replied the other. "Put I wish I'd had a chance. I wish I d been poor and decent. 1 wish I'd been brought up with Polly. I don't so much regret never being m Saw That His Friend Lay Dead. able to marry "iter. I want a good woman's sympathy. I'd like to be oh, God, I'd like to be he:- son!" When Bill dressed his friend for burial he saw a curious stain, a birthmark, birth-mark, extending from the base of the neck an inch or two in the direction of the right shoulder. II. Polly Raymond looked up from her letters at the breakfast table with a cry of distress. "What is it, dear?" asked her hus band, coming round the table to her. "Jim's dead, Tom. Poor old Jim. Look at this letter from this man. It's roughly written, and the spelling Isn't up to much, but it shows somebody some-body did care for Jim. doesn't it?" "You cared for him once, Polly," said Tom Raymond, holding her and letting her cry in his arms. "Not really, dear. I thought 1 did. But I know now that it was only pity for him. I wanted to mother him. Tom. The poor boy wasn't bad, he just never had a chance, with all his money. Poor old Jim, dying out there all alone!" Polly and her husband had been back from their honeymoon two weeks, and, as everybody knows, the first honeymoon is only the prelude to the real one, which lasts all life long. The moment that she met Tom she knew that her former love for Jim Syrett had been the vainest of vain things. Yet she had never ceased to reproach re-proach herself for what she called her fickleness. She had known of the boy's wild attachment toward herseir, and that if anyone could have kept him straight it was she. And then "Tom, dear." she said, rubbing her cheek against his own, "I remember something now which 1 had totally forgotten. 1 had the strangest and most dreadful dream the other night. And it must have been just at the time when Jim lay dying. It comes back to me now so vividly. "I seemed to be lying somewhere in space. There was nothing around me, and. although 1 was fully co'n scious of my own existence, 1 seemed to have no body. And then it came to me that this was that place, or condition, con-dition, whore dismembered souls collect, col-lect, awaiting their summons either to heaven or to to some of many other oth-er possible destinations, Tom. "Then, as 1 jtood there, 1 seemed to realize that Jim was with me. He was very much astonished at finding me there. " 'Why, Tolly,' he said, 'don't you know that you are not to pass over for nearly a year more?' "1 was so terrified I did not know what to do or how to answer him. " 'Yes. Polly,' he said, 'your time on earth will be up a year from next week Unless ' "And here his voice became so vague and indistinct that 1 could understand un-derstand nothing. When I beard him again, he was telling me how he died. " '1 wanted you ever since I knew you. Polly, dear,' he said. 'And 1 am going to have you for my very own, through all eternity.' " 'That will never happen, Jim,' 1 answered. " Oh. yes, it will,' he said, 'and, more than that, you will je glad. Remember, Re-member, a year from next week.' ." Tom Raymond frowned impatiently. "Of course, it may have been some sort of inner perception that Jim was dying," he answered. "I have no doubt such things are possible. But in dreams they become blurred and distorted, and one must never rely on such nonsense. Lose you in a years time, indeed! I'd like to see myself!" III. The house was strangely silent. Upstairs there was no sound at all; downstairs only that of the man who tramped slowly backward and forward for-ward in his library. Mercifully he had forgotten his wife's prediction. He was conscious only. of that agony of soul that ccmes when one's dearest is wrestling with death. The doctor came into the room, and Tom Raymond spun round and faced him. "Tell me the truth!" he cried. "Is there any hope?" "Y'es," said the doctor, frankly, "There is hope. But it is a very faint one. You must be prepared for the worst, Mr. Raymond, and 1 cannot delude you with any false anticipations. anticipa-tions. Your wife is dangerously ill. She is at present sleeping. It all depends de-pends on the first rest." "And the child?" "A splendid girl. She is doing finely. fine-ly. I have seldom seen a child so healthy at birth." Tom Raymond groaned. At that moment he felt utterly indifferent to his child. If only Polly lived! She must live, for his sake. The doctor took pity on the haggard hag-gard man. "I don't think there is any reason why you should not sit by her bedside, bed-side, if you go up very softly," he said. Raymond ascended the stairs and entered his wife's room on tiptoe. The nurse rose from the bedside and laid her finger on her lips. Raymond crept to the chair which she had va cated and sat down Polly was sleeping, but it was more correct- to say that rhe was unconscious. uncon-scious. She was barely alive, and her breast hardly stirred under her light breathing. Her face was ashen, her lips as pale as her cheeks. Sometimes her husband was afraid that she had ceased o breathe. The hours went by. He still sat at her side. Midnight sounded. He did not move. With all his power he was willing will-ing that Polly should live. And so the night passed, and gradually the light of dawn began to penetrate the room. Suddenly the nurse started and stepped to the sick woman's side. Her trained ear had detected the little lit-tle sound of awakening. Next moment mo-ment Polly was conscious, and her eyes were fixed on Tom's. "1 am going to get well, Tom, dear," And Tom could read that in the tinge of color that had come back to her cheeks. The nurse, obedient to the sick woman's unvoiced wish, stepped to the cradle and brought out the baby. "Isn't she a dear, Tom!" murmured Polly. "And she has the dearest little birth-mark. Show him her shoulder, nurse." There was a faint stain, extending from the base of the neck an inch or two in the direction of the right shoulder. |