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Show ' I THE DESTROYING ANGEL ! - By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE 1 j SYNOPSIS. 3 YnimK Hugh WhifMker's doctors fl Mill li.' has hut il f;w morn hs to live. :1 ml Ills mvcotlii-Mrt Jills lilni. His IYi'nd. Peler Stark, Ilnds him Hsronsoliite and proposes a stirt voy;iKe. Whlt.-tker runs :iway to a .fti';iiiKo town iin-l Uii'ls yountf M;iry T.ail-l-slns. dfserti'd by tin' nifn with whom Bhe eloped, about to commit suicide. One about to die surely must X i feel more at ease about his S i future if he is conscious of hav- 5 4 Ing really done 6ome good in the i world. And in the scheme of i things beyond our understand- ing perhaps a single big unself- J ? ish act one that saves another 7 from a grievous deed will bal- $ J ance our million mean little 2 5 transgressions and leave us 7 with credit on the Big Book, i I In the installment given here i 1 there's a mighty fine story in- I 2 volving just this point. ? CHAPTER III Continued. "I .didn't have any money to speak of, but I Int. some Jewelry ray mother's moth-er's and lie whs to take that and jiawn it for money to get married with." "X see." The girl In her turn went to one of the windows, standing with her back to the room. Whltaker drew a chair for her and took a seat a little distance dis-tance away, with a keen glance appraising ap-praising the change in her condition. She seemed measurably more composed com-posed and mistress of her emotions, .though he hud to judge mostly by her voice nnd manner, so dark was the room. "Don't !" she cried sharply. "Please don't look nt me so " "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to" , "It's only only that you make me think of what you must be thinking aibout me " "You've had a narrow but a wonderfully won-derfully lucky escape." "Oh! . . . But I'm not glad . . . I was desperate " "I mean," he Interrupted coolly, "from Mr. Morton. The silver lining Is, you're not married to a blackguard." black-guard." "Oh, yes, yes !" she agreed passionately. passion-ately. "And you have youth, health, years of life before you !" Pie sighed inaudibly . . . "You wouldn't say that, if you understood." under-stood." "Have you thought of going home? Have you written to your father explained?" ex-plained?" "I sent him a special delivery three days ago, and and yesterday a telegram. tele-gram. I knew it wouldn't do any good, but I ... I told him everything.. He didn't answer. He won't, ever." She bent forward, elbows on knees, head and shoulders cringing. "It hurts so !" she wailed . . . "'what people will think . . . the shame, the bitter, bitter shame of .this! I've earned my punishment." "Oh, I say " ' "But I have, because because I didn't love him. I didn't love him at :all, and I knew it, even though I meant to marry him. ..." "But, why in Heaven's name?" "Because I was so lonely and . . . misunderstood and unhappy at home. No mother, never during to see my sister (site ran away, too) . . . my friendships at 1 school discouraged nothing in life but my father to bully me and make cruel fun of me because I'm not pretty. . . . That's why I ran away with a man I didn't love because I wanted freedom and a little happiness." "Good Lord !" he murmured beneath his breath, awed by the pitiful, childish simplicity of her confession and the leep dumnatiou that had waited upon her. "So it's over !" she cried "over, and I've learned my lesson, and I'm disgraced dis-graced forever, and friendless and " "Scop right there !" he checked her roughly. "You're not friendless yet, and that nullities all the rest. Be glad you've had your romance and learned your lesson " "Please don't think I'm not grateful for your kindness," she interrupted. "But the disgrace that cau't be blotted blot-ted out!" "Oh, yes, it can," he Insisted bluntly. "There's a way I know " A glimmering of that way had only -that instant let a little light in upon the darkness of his solicitous distress for her. He rose and began to walk and thiuk. hands clasped behind him, trying to make what he had in mind seem right nnd reasonable. "You mean beg my father to take me back. I'll die first!" "There mustn't be any more talk, or even auy thought, of anything like that. I understand too well to ask the Impossible of you. But there is one way out a perfectly right way if you're willing and brave enough to tuke a chance 0 long chance." Somehow she seemed to gain hope 'of his tone. She sat up, followiug him ' with eyes that sought Incredulously to believe. "Have I any choice?" she asked. "I'm desperate enough . . ." "God knows," he said, "you'll have to be!" "Try me." He paused, standing over her. ! "Desperate enough to marry a man 1 who's bound to die within six months and leave you free? I'm that man: i the doctors give me six months more of life. Will you take my name to free yourself? Heaven my witness, you're welcome to it." ; "Oh," she breathed, aghust, "what are you saying?" "I'm proposing marriage," he said, with his quaint, one-sided smile. "Please listen : I came to this place to make a quick end to my troubles but I've changed my mind about that, now. What's happened in this room has made me see that nobody has any right to hasten things. But I mean to leave the country immediately immediate-ly and let death find me where it will. I shall leave behind me a name and a little money, neither of any conceivable con-ceivable use to me. Will you take them, employ them to make your life what it was meant to be? It's a little thing, but it will make me feel a lot more tit to go out of this world to know I've left at least one decent act to mark my memory. There's only tills far-fetched chance I may live. It's a million-to-oue shot, but you've got to bear it in mind. But really you-can't lose " "Oh, stop, stop!" she implored him, half hysterical. "To think of marrying to benefit by the death of a man like you !" "You've no right to look at it that way."' He had a wry, secret smile for his specious sophistry. "You're being asked to confer, not to accept, a favor. It's just an act of kindness to a hopeless hope-less man. I'd go mad if I didn't know you were safe from a recurrence of the follv of this afternoon." "Don't !" she cried "don't tempt me. You've no right. . . . You don't know how frantic I am. . . "I do," he countered frankly. "I'm depending on just that to swing you to my point of view. You've got to come to it I mean you shall marry me." She stared up at him, spellbound, insensibly yielding to the domination of his will. It was inevitable. He was scarcely less desperate than she and "It's a Bargain." no less overwrought and unstrung; and he was the stronger; in the natural na-tural course of things his will could not but prevail. The last trace of evening light had faded out of the world before they were agreed. Darkness wrapped them in its folds; they were but as voices warring in a black and boundless void. Whitaker struck a match and applied ap-plied it to the solitary gas-jet. A thin, blue, sputtering tongue of flame revealed re-vealed them to one another. The girl still crouched in her armchair, weary and spent, her powers of contention all vitiated by the losing struggle. Whitaker was trembling with nervous fatigue. "Well?" he demanded. "Oh, have your own way," she said drearily. "If it must be . . ." "It's for the best," he insisted obstinately. ob-stinately. "You'll never regret it" "One of us will either you or I," she said quietly. "It's too one-sided. You want to give all and ask nothing in return. It's a fool's bargain." He hesitated, stammering with surprise. sur-prise. She had a habit of saying the unexpected. "A fool's bargain" the wisdom of the sage from the lips of a child. . . . "Then It's settled," he said, businesslike, business-like, offering his hand. "Fool's bargain bar-gain or not it's a bargain." She rose unassisted, then trusted her slender fingers to his palm. She said nothing. The steady gaze of her extraordinary ex-traordinary eyes abashed him. They left the hotel together. Whitaker Whit-aker got his change of a hundred dollars dol-lars at the desk "Mrs. Morten's" bill, of course, included with his and bribed the bell-boy to take the sult-' sult-' case to the railway station and leave 1 it there, together with his own hand-' hand-' bag. Since he had unaccountably con-i con-i ceived a determination to coutinue living liv-ing for a time, he meant to seek out i more pleasant accommodations for the i night. The rain had ceased, leaving a ragged sky of clouds and stars in patches. The air was warm and heavy with wetness. Sidewalks glistened like black watered silk; street lights mirrored mir-rored themselves in fugitive puddles in the roadways; limbs of trees overhanging over-hanging the sidewalks shivered now and again in a half-hearted breeze, pelting the wayfarers with miniature showers of lukewarm, scented drops. Whitaker, taking his heart and his fate in his hands, accosted a venerable gentleman whom they encountered as he was on the point of turning off the sidewalk to private grounds. "I beg your pardon," he began. The man paused and turned upon them a saintly countenance framed in hair like snow. "There is something I can do for you?" he inquired with punctilious courtesy. "If you will be kind enough to direct di-rect me to a minister . . ." "I am one." "I thought so," said Whitaker. "We wish to get married." The gentleman looked from his face to the girl's, then moved aside from the gate. "This is my home," he explained. ex-plained. "Will you be good enough to come in?" Conducting them to his privata study, he subjected them to a kindly catechism. The girl said little, Whitaker Whit-aker taking upon himself the brunt of the examination. Absolutely straightforward straight-forward and intensely sincere, he came through the ordeal well, without being obliged to disclose what he preferred to keep secret. The minister, satisfied, satis-fied, at length called in the town clerk by telephone; who issued the license, pocketed his fee, and in company with the minister's wife, acted as witness wit-ness Whitaker found himself on his feet beside Mary Ladislas. They were being be-ing married. He seemed to hear the droning of the loom of the Fates. . . . And they were man and wife. The door had closed, the gate-latch clicked behind them. They were walking quietly side by side through the scented scent-ed night, they whom God had joined together. Neither found anything to say. At the station, Whitaker bought his wife a ticket to New York and secured se-cured for her solitary use a drawing-room drawing-room in the sleeper. Whitaker possessed pos-sessed himself of his wife's hand-bag long enough to furnish It with a sum of money and an old envelope bearing the name and address of his law partner. part-ner. He explained that Drummond would issue her an adequate monthly allowance and advise her when she should have become her own mistress once more; in a word, a widow. She thanked him briefly, quietly, with a constraint he understood too well to resent. Both, perhaps, wrere sensible of some relief when at length the train thundered thun-dered in from the East, breathing smoke and flame. Whitaker helped his wife aboard and interviewed the porter in her behalf. Then they had a moment or two alone in the drawing-room, in what was meant to be their first and last parting. ! She caught him suddenly by the shoulders with both her hands. Her eyes sought his with a wistful courage he could not but admire. "You know I'm grateful . . ." "Don"! think of it that way though I'm glad you are." "You're a good man," she said brokenly. bro-kenly. He knew himself too well to be able to reply. "You mustn't worry about me, now. You've made things easy for me. I can take care of myself, and ... I shan't forget whose name I bear." He muttered something to the effect that he was sure of that. She released his shoulders and stood back, searching his face with tormented torment-ed eyes. Abruptly she offered him her hand. "Good-by," she said, her lips quivering quiver-ing "Good-by, good friend!" He caught the hand, wrung It clumsily and painfully and . . . realized that the train was in motion. He had barely time to get away . . . He found himself on the station platform, plat-form, stupidly watching the rear lights dwindle down the tracks and wondering wonder-ing whether or not hallucinations were a phase of his malady. A sick man often dreams strange dreams. . . . A voice behind him, cool with a trace of irony, observed: "I'd give a good deal to know just what particular brand of foolishness you've been indulging in, this time." He whirled around to face Peter Stark Peter quietly amused and very much the master of the situation. "You needn't think," said he, "that you have any chance on earth of escaping escap-ing my fond attentions, Hugh. I've fixed it up with Nelly to wait until I bring you home, a well man, before we get married ; and If you refuse to be my best man well, there won't be any party. You can make up your mind to that" CHAPTER IV. ;' j) Willful Missing. It was one o'clock In the morning before Whitaker allowed himself to be persuaded; fatigue re-enforced every stubborn argument of Peter Stark's to overcome his resistance. "Oh, have your own way," he said at length, unconsciously un-consciously Iterating the words that had won him a bride. "If it must be ... " Whitaker has consented to go J seafaring. But his mind is on ? the girl he has Just married. J ', What do you think he will do 7 ', now? J (TO BE CO.NXi.NUEUT'' |