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Show Tfl Ffft f! Robert J. C. Stead j g I ; HAfl AMI 'JilflWA 8 11; ; IRWIN MYERS j '! Copyright by Harper Brother MJfJ)JmijiJjwj Jj CHAPTER XIII. Continued. 20 "I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on an important im-portant job on. I must get it done. There is not time " But her woman's Intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before, j Tell me what it Is. Tell me, Dave. Perhaps I can help." Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. Suddenly it occurred to him that Edith Duncan was beautiful. beauti-ful. If she had not quite the fine features of Irene she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy "Edith," he said, "you're white. Why Is it that the woman a man loves will fail him, and the woman he only likes stays true?" "Oh !" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry "The next thing, then, is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever really loved Irene Hardy. Because Be-cause if you loved Irene a week ago you love her tonight" "Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't understand. under-stand. I know you have given yourself your-self up to a life of service, and I honor you very much, and all that, but there are some things you won't be able to understand. You can't understand under-stand just how much I loved Irene. Have you never known of love being turned to hate?" "No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. dark-ness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate Irene now you never loved her. Listen: Lis-ten: 'Love beareth all things, believ-eth believ-eth all things, hopeth all things, en-dureth en-dureth all things' I" "Not all things, Edith ; not all things." "It says all things." Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a different dif-ferent sound in his voice a tone as though his soul In those few moments had gone through a lifetime of experience. expe-rience. "Edith," he said, "when you repeated repeat-ed those words I knew you had something some-thing that I have not. I knew it, not by words but by the way you said them. You made me know that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?" She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew that for him life would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irre- YwWk Germany but because we love certain principles which Germany is endeavoring endeav-oring to overthrow. The impulse must be love, not hate." She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself strangely strange-ly carried away by the earnestness of her argument. What a wonderful woman she was! And 'as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew that even yet "What am I to do?" he said. "What am I to do?" In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer. It was to be the crowning act of self-renunciation self-renunciation and it strained every fiber of her resolution. "You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him calmly, calm-ly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or not. And if you find you did not, then then you will be free to to to think of some other woman." 'T am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he answered, an-swered, "except you. But some way you're different. I don't think of you as a -voman, you know ; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, Edith, but you're something more something better than all that." He had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough for what you have said to me tonight. You have put some spirit back into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately Fortu-nately my property, or most of It, has dissolved the way it came." She moved toward him with extended extend-ed hand. "Goodby, Dave," she said. He held her hand fast in his. "Goodby, "Good-by, Edith. I can never forget I can never repay all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if if I had not met Irene if " He paused and went hot with embarrassment. embarrass-ment. What would she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed in grief over his frustrated frus-trated love, and already he was practically prac-tically making love to her. Had he brought her to his room for this? What a hypocrite he was! "Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite myself. my-self. ... I hold you in very high respect as one of God's good women. Goodby!" CHAPTER XIV. When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motorcar motor-car was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless, she ran the length of a full block ; then, realizing real-izing the futility of such a chase, returned re-turned with almost equal haste to her home. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he threaten to shoot and why did he leave as he did? You know. Tell me." "I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward with all his accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present, at any rate, and now was the time to win Irene. She stood before him, flushed and vibrating and with flashing eyes. "You're lying, Conward," she said de- "Yes," He Answered, "I Have to Kill a Man." sponsible thing which in the past tie had called life. "In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of forgiving." for-giving." He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of Bitterness and revenge re-venge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said, at length, "must I forgive?" "I do not say you must," she answered. an-swered. "I merely say if you are wise you will. Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The one who Is forgiven may merely escape punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual spir-itual expansion." "Is that Christianity?" he ventured. "It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you are willing will-ing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not expressed in words but In lives. When you know how a man lives you know what he believes always." "Suppose I forgive what then?" "Service. You are needed right now, Dave forgive my frankness your country needs you right now. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at least dismiss your resentment resent-ment over it, and then place yourself at the disposal of your country." "That Is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It Is unbelievable." "I'm not so sure," she answered gravely. "Of course I know nothing about Germany. But I do know something some-thing about our own people. I know how selflsh and Individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have been ; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been; and I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices sac-rifices and tragedies altogether beyond be-yond our present Imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited and clean and generous. I am not worrying wor-rying about the defeat of Germany. If our civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, and if our civilization Is worse than that of Germany we shall be defeated ultimately and we shall deserve to be defeated. "But I rather think that neither of the alternatives will be the result. I rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in German Ger-man civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements will survive and form the basis of a new civilization bettor than cither." "If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working of immutable immu-table law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to tho supreme test and retain only those which are Justifiable by that tost, why should I or anyone else fight? And," he added, as an afterthought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?" "We must fight," she answered, "because "be-cause it Is the law that we must fight; because it Is only by fighting that we can justify the principles for which we fight If we hold our principles as being be-ing not worth fighting for the new civilization civi-lization will throw those principles in the discard. And that, too. covers tho question of forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, docs not enter into the consideration con-sideration at all. "We must Cht, not because we hate was wrung. ... "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm sorry." They stood a moment, neither wishing wish-ing to move away. "You said you had something that must be done at once," she reminded him at length. "Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going . to join up with the army." Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. "You can't fight for your country then. You will only increase its troubles In these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for him, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us for the sake of those who care." He took her hands in his and raised thera to his shoulders and drew her face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by itself, "Do you really care?" he said. "Oh, Dave !" "Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me ! Talk to me ! For God's sake talk to me! I must talk to someone." She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. He told her the story, all he knew. When he had finished she arose and walked to one of the windows and stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the street. For the second time in his life Dave Elden had laid his heart bare to her, and again after all these years he still talked as friend to friend. That was it. She was under no delusion. Dave's eyes were as blind to her love as they had been that night whn he had first told her of Irene Hardy. And she could not tell him. Most of all she could not tell him now. . . . She had waited all these years, and still she must wait Dave's eyes were upon her form, silhouetted against the window. It occurred oc-curred to hlra that In form Edith was very much like Irene. He recalled that in those dead past days when they used to ride together Edith had reminded re-minded him of Irene. When she stood silent so long he spoke again. "Ii afrnid I haven't played a very heroic part," he said, somewhat shamefacedly. "I should have buried my secret In my heart ; buried it even from you ; perhaps most of all from you. But you can advise me, Edith. I will value whatever you say." She trembled until she thought he ma-4 se her, and she feared to trust ! her voice, but she could delay a reply no longer. "Dae," she said at length, "why should you take Conward's word in such a matter as this?" "I didn't take Conward's word. That's why I didn't kill him at once. It wasn't his word, It was the Insult that cut But she tried to save him. Sho threw herself upon me. She would have taken the bullet herself rather that let it find hltn. That was what tl't was what " "T know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness that welled Ithln her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in hor mind, should find utterance In speech. "I know, Dave," she said. witr "You're Lying, Conward." liberate-. "First you lied to him, and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it." "I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence. "I will keep it until you nre a little more reasonable, and perhaps a little more respectful." (TO EE CONTINUED.) |