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Show I Good I I Neighbors 1 bh 1 VICTOR REDCLIFFE lH Jff (Copyright, 1915, by W. G. ChapmarT) "Could you lend me your steplad-der? steplad-der? I want to take out some of the window screens." The man addressed, next-door neighbor, neigh-bor, Robert Mason, nodded simply. He was the owner of the house into which Earle Pelham and his wife had just moved. Pelham had paid a liberal rent for the place. The unsocial manner of his landlord displeased him. The latter lat-ter simply lifted the article aslted for over the low dividing fence, bowed and turned away. "Humph!" commented Pelham, almost al-most irritably, as he entered the house. "What is the matter, dear?" inquired Mrs. Pelham, tracing displeasure in his manner and voice. "That landlord of ours. Asked him just now to loan me a stepladder to get at the screens and he acted as if he grudged even a. decent word." "Oh, you misjudge him, Earle, indeed in-deed you do!" Mrs. Pelham hastened to say. "I feel so sorry for him all the town does, I learn. His life is a sad, sad history. A year ago his wife, a bride of a year, had a fit of sickness which led to a complete nervous breakdown. break-down. She got so bad they had to send her to a sanitarium. Two months ago she escaped. They have not been able to trace her since. It is feared that she wandered out among the swamp lands beyond the sanitarium and perished from hunger or was drowned." "Poor fellow!" spoke Pelham, his sympathetic heart deeply touched by ham in a timorous voice. "First I heard the front door rattle. Then someone tried the side windows. Then there was a window lifted in the garret. gar-ret. Oh, I am sure someone is up there! Now, Earle do you not hear?" "You're right, Rachel," assented Mr. Pelham, after a moment of intense listening. There was no doubting the fact that the floor overhead creaked as hurried footsteps crossed it. Then there was a scraping sound, as of someone pulling pull-ing a trunk or box over the boards. Then a breaking sound. Mr. Pelham got out of bed, dressed, and lighting a lamp got a revolver from a bureau drawer. His wife fol- lowed his example by throwing on a dress. She was close behind him as they crept up the attic stairs. "Oh, do be careful!" she implored whisperir. jly, as they reached the top of the stairs, and a low, vague croon-; croon-; ing sound reached their hearing from beyond the threshold of the attic door. "Hold the lamp," directed her husband. hus-band. "When I pull the, door open suddenly lift it so I can see where to fire." Mr. Pelham gave the door a quick pull. With a trembling hand his wife lifted and extended the lamp. "Don't don't shoot!" almost screamed Mrs. Pelham. "It's a girl a woman!" The flickering lamp fell across a woman, singing softly to herself and taking dress after dress from a trunk she had opened. She turned toward the intruders in a surprised way. "Visitors," she observed in a soft, plaintive tone. "You will have to excuse ex-cuse me till I get ready to go down and meet my guests. I have just arrived ar-rived home. Some wicked people stole me from my husband and I escaped " "Oh, Earle!" gasped Mrs. Pelham, tugging at her husband's sleeve, "don't you understand? ' It's that poor lady next door they mourn as dead. Oh, quick! quick! run for her husband. hus-band. She has found home at last and see, that open window. She must have reached it with the stepladder." M-r. Pelham, terribly excited, hurried away. Mrs. Pelham advanced to the side of the woman, whose garments were nearly in rags. "Pick out your dress, dear," she said soothingly. "Your husband will be here soon." "But strangers in the house!" began be-gan the other suspiciously. "Oh, we are just guests," assured Mrs. Pelham. "You will find everything every-thing in order below." It was a great sheck for Robert Mason Ma-son when his neighbor advised him of the strange arrival of the night. He calmed himself as he realized the situation. situ-ation. As he entered the attic, with a wild cry of delight his wife ran into his arms. "Oh, Robert! those wicked men who stole me away from you " "Gone entirely out of our life, my darling," assured Mason. "Come to your own rooms and get ready to join our kind neighbors at a little lunch," he proceeded, and made a sign to the Pelhams, who retired. - Half an hour later Mr. Mason led his wife, neatly dressed and looking calm and happy, into the rooms below. The quick-witted Mrs. Pelham had spread out a small refection. To the letter the program of "visiters" was carried out, and in the eyes of the poor wanderer wan-derer all could trace a slow but sure returning of reason. "Y.ou will have to keep up the pretense pre-tense of going over to the next house till I can arrange otherwise," whispered whis-pered Mr. Mason to Mr. Pelham. "Oh, you mustn't disturb your wife with anything," answered Mrs. Pelham. Pel-ham. "And besides we like the little heme best!" Famously good people, the Pelhams shared the glad, grateful joy of their landlord, as the days went on and Mrs. Mason came back into the full sunshine sun-shine of reason and health. m 0 a B She Turned Toward the Intruders. this recital. "I will be more charitable in my judgments after this." The Pelhams had not dealt with Mason Ma-son personally in renting the old home of Mrs. Mason's family, but through an agent. After the death of the parents par-ents of his wife, Mr. Mason had moved ii.to the old home. Now he was renting rent-ing it fui nished and had taken up more limited quarters in the adjoining cottage, which he owned. The Peihams had just moved in. Mr3. Pelham was busy all day long getting get-ting the interior in order. Her husband hus-band attended to outside matters. He removed the screens, tidied up the garden gar-den and both retired that night protty well wearied with their unusual labor. "The house is too large for us, i Earle," Mrs. Pelham remarked. "I wish we had taken the one Mr. Mason ' occupies." "I don't know that we could get it," observed her husband. "I heard he was going to sell both places if he could and leave tho town. The assoi.i ations of this old house, where his unfortunate un-fortunate wife was born, must be very painful to him." Robert Mas:m had given up his wife lis dead. , In trying to locate her after ' her escape fiom the sanitarium the searchers hid discovered several clues that led them to beiieve that the fugitive had wandered into the swamp 1 district. This was a dangerous and interminable awanip spot, and throe days after the disappearance of Mrs. Mason a lire had swept the greater portion of it. There was every reason to believe that Mrs. Mason had per- ' Ished. A distressing feature of her fate vas the fact that the physician in charge of the sanitarium had entertained great hopes of her eventual recovery. She ' had been Improving for some weeks prior to her escape. It was about midnight when Mr. Pelham, Pel-ham, soundly asleep, was aroused 1 from his lumbers by a quick nudge 1 from his wife. Her voice was tromu- Ions and agitated as she whispered breathlessly: "Get up at once, Earle!" 1 "Why, what is t lie mi.lfor?" inquired in-quired her better half drowsily. "Burglars!" shuddered Mrs. Pelham. "Oh, do bo careful! I've been over halt an hour lying awake and listening 1 to suspicious sounds. 1 "The w ild, 1 suppose " 1 "No, 1 thought so ot first, but found ' I was mistaken," continued Mrs. Pel- |
