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Show The Girl Who Came Back THE STORY Influenced by loneliness, without with-out relatives, or real friends, in Chicago, Lolita Forbes, young and pretty, yields to the Importunities Impor-tunities of Harvey Torrence. with whom she fancies herself In love. She discovers his true character and leaves him, taking refugs with an acquaintance, Gertrude Watson. Lolita Is accosted by th son of the wealthy owner of the apartments, Fred Watterson. Sh repulses his advances, but he Insists In-sists on driving her to the store. On the street Torrence is waiting. wait-ing. He puts the worst construction construc-tion on Lolita's being with Watterson, Wat-terson, and the two men engage In a fistic battle In which Torrence Tor-rence is killed. I' "- CHAPTER III Continued 4 "How the h 1 do 1 know?" responded respond-ed the matron with a shrug, as she set ttie things down upoD one end of the wooden bench which let down with chains upon the other side of the cell, "you been mixed up with so d n many of them you probably wouldn't remember which he was if you seen him." Lolita winced. She looked up at the hard face of the matron; It was the hardest face that she had ever seen in her life. "Do you really believe that I'm as bad as the papers say?" she asked Incredibly the matron smiled. "H I no, kid; I've handled enough hard ones In my time to know bettei than that You can't be such a bar kid yet; but you re catcning up ou the worst I ever saw, pretty fast." With that she slammed the door and was gone. Lolita was so heartened by her words, however, that she ate every ev-ery bite of the breakfast and finished just In time, for a turnkey soon came to the cell. "Y'er wanted upstairs," he remarked laconically, tier heart thumping, Lolita Lo-lita followed the man upstairs and into the office of the station captain. "Sidown !" snapped that Individual, a large niaD with a paunch. "You told this Harvey guy to wait outside the Grantham and beat up young Watterson, didn't you?" , "No!" said Lob'a, horrified at the though, "I" "Don't lie to inel" roared the cap- tain in a voice which seemed to cause the very floor to vibrate. Lolita shrank back into her chair. "If you didn't do that," went on the captain, as though he felt that he was stating a self-evident truth, "you told young Watterson that you was hooked up with this Harvey guy so deep that the only way you could break with Mm was for bim to croak him." "Oh, no, sir; It all happened Just as I told you yesterday, I " "You're lying to me !" roared tbe captain again. Again Lolita shrank back Into tier chair. Never In all of her life had she been talked to like that She had never dreamed that there were men on earth who would talk that way to a woman. With horror she began to understand that the situation In which she had placed herself had put her beyond the pale of polity; people did not feel any necessity for treating her as a lady. The captain suddenly leaned toward her, ingratiatory, smil ing. "Tell you what I'll do, kid ; I'll get you out of this whole thing, turn you loose, and everything if you'll come clean about the whole affair. Give me the low-down Just for my own Information. In-formation. I won't say nothing to nobody, no-body, and you'll be sprung. This is on tbe level." "I'm sorry, sir," she began, and shrank hack again as the kindliness Immediately began to fade from his eyes, "hut it's all Just as I told you yesterday. I told you the whole truth then, and nothing hut the truth, really. Fir." "You're a hard-boiled baby," he told her sternly, "yon know how to keep your trap shut. I'll give you credit for that, hut It ain't ' going to do yon no good when they get you over to court, because nohody'd believe that hot hull you slipped me yesterday, and the Judge'll hand you a couple extra years for lyin' to him." "Oh. hut please" began Lolita. the tears streaming now down her cheeks; she could feel herself trembling nil over as though with the ague. The captain. Ignoring her. turned his hack and pressed a hntton on his desk. Almost Al-most immediately the door opened and the turnkey motioned for her to follow fol-low him. Rack downstairs- In the cell again she lay down upon the bunk' and cried as she had never cried before In all her life. She remembered the night before, how Gertrude had convinced her that even despite her misstep she was free to work hack along the road that she had gone, to be somebody jet. Bin Gertrude's easy philosophy had heen specious. Life wasn't as easy as that. One couldn't Just break moral laws Hi will and then, when you got tired of It, turn around and go right on where you had left off before your moral vacation. There was the piper to pay. and the piper's fee w;is a! ways more than adequate. Darkly her mind kept presenting pictures of the state penitentiary nt .billet, women wom-en rining the lix-ksttqi. co:irse food coarser bedding. Gons. With shud ilerini: horror she fori ed tier mind to busy lisolf with other tilings. That she did not love !l:irey. rouht never iive really loved Mm. she now knew only too well The fai t that he was By Jack Woodford W. N. U. Servlc Copyright dead made no real difference to her, except as it bore upon her present predicament. pre-dicament. She could never go back to work at the Emporium. She could never work anywhere in Chicago again. Every paper In town had contained con-tained her picture. She could never go home again; the Elgin papers would have copied the stories there was absolutely no hope in any direction. direc-tion. Suddenly the matron appeared again outside the door. "Here's an answer to the telegram you sent to your old man." she said crisply and, handing the yellow en- i r 1 J ' "Here's an Answer to the Telegram You Sent to Your Old Man." velope through the bars withdrew. Lolita opened the euvelope with trembling, eager fingers. "1 never want to see your face again," the telegram read simply. It seemed to Lolita hours later that she looked up to see the matron bend ing over her, a glass of water In one hand and a bottle of smelling salts in the other. "Come, come buck up, kid, I think your troubles may be over," she said comfortingly. For some reason Lolita felt an uncontrollable un-controllable desire to laugh aloud. She laughed and laughed, while the matron ma-tron frowned down at her. Presently, Present-ly, when she had forced herself to stop laughing she saw that some one was waiting outside the cell door. It was the turnkey. Terrified at the thought of again being questioned by the captain she grasped hold of the matron's hand with both of her own. "It's all right," said that lady a little lit-tle Impatiently; "1 think you're sprung. Buck up and come along." Not ' knowing that the verb "to spring" means to release a prisoner, Lolita followed along knowing not what to expect; but this time she was not taken to the captain's office. She was taken out and rather unceremoniously unceremoni-ously shoved Into a patrol wagon. As the wagon rushed through the streets Lolita looked miserably from the small barred window, dumbly appreciative ap-preciative of the fact that people were now looking nt the patrol wagon and wondering what she had been arrested for. Just as she, many times, had done. She remembered what she had always decided women whom she had seen In patrol wagons had been arrested for the thought was overwhelming. She burled her face In her hands and wept billerly. One of the two policemen police-men in the wagon leaned over and roughly patted her shoulder. "Cheer up. kid." he said in a kind ly manner, "it's a writ of habeas corpus that's taking you downtown ; the chances are you'll be sprung." Never in all of her life had Lolita been so grateful for a kind word and tone, though she had no Idea what the t words meant A moment later the wagon stopped and Lolita was assisted assist-ed out, passed through a gauntlet of cruel, curious eyes, and into a large, forbidding gray stone building. She was hustled into a courtroom and found herself before a Judge who looked as though there was nothing but machinery back of his eyes. "Whatsa charge?" he snapped at a city prosecutor who stood by, apparently appar-ently bored. "She isn't booked," he replied. "Well," growled the judge, "she's here on a habeas corpus writ?" "Like to keep her awhile for questioning," ques-tioning," returned the prosecutor carelessly. care-lessly. "You had her for twenty-four hours." reminded the judge. "O. K. Let her go." agreed the prosecutor. pros-ecutor. "We can pick her up later for questioning If we want to haven't enough evidence to hold her ought to be sent out to city ho?pital for the usual examination, though." The judge was about to open his mouth, when a lawyer stspped forward for-ward and said a few words which Lolita did not catch. The judge nodded and looked at her. "Dismissed." he said curtly. The prosecutor looked queerly at the lawyer law-yer and then walked out of the room as though bored with the whole proceeding. pro-ceeding. Lolita stared at the Judge. "Dismissed." he repeated Impatiently, Impatient-ly, "sprung. You're free. For heaven's heav-en's sake, what are you staring at?" The lawyer stepped to Lolita's side. "You are free to go, child." he said nuietlv. taking her arm and leading her toward the door. "But why have you done this for me?" she asked him, dazed by the sudden sud-den knowledge of liberty when she had expected years of penal servitude. "Me?" the lawyer laughed. "Why, 1 did It for money, of course, my dear. There was nothing to it; they had no charge against you." "But who is going to give you the money?" "Don't worry. Til be paid," he assured as-sured ber as they walked down the stairs. "Was it young Mr. Watterson, or his father?" "Nope, nobody you ever saw In your life; In fact I don't think you ever even heard of him." They were out on the street now. Leading her to a taxi standing at the curb he opened the door and handed her In, and. after she had seated herself he suddenly handed her a sealed envelope, enve-lope, tipped his hat. said a few words to the driver and disappeared In the crowd. As the taxi wheeled, Lolita tore open the envelope. The first thing that greeted her astonished gaze was two one-hundred-dollar bills. There was also a folded sheet of white note-paper. note-paper. She unfolded this and read the typewritten words. "1 hope you've had a lesson that will last you for awhile. You will be taken to a respectable rooming house. Your room rent there Is paid for some time In advunce. I have talked to the 'Gertrude' person and know exactly ex-actly what happened. The Gertrude girl is not a half bad tittle scout. She told me what your ambitions were and 1 have arranged to let you take a whirl at putting yourself back on your feet, but 1 would prefer that you stay away from Gertrude in the future. fu-ture. With this money net some more clothes. If you haven't any others, so that you will never have to wear the outfit that the newspaper photographs showed you In. Use the name 'Margaret 'Mar-garet Farrar' for awhile until this thing has blown over, and dye your hair and wear neutral glasses so you won't be recognized. When you have thoroughly rested up, go to the downtown down-town college of the Southwestern university; uni-versity; I have paid your tuition In advance there for a year. If you do well I may pay It again next year. Don't be a d n fool ; I'm old enough to be your father, and have no 'intentions' 'inten-tions' of any kind townrd you. If you don't do as I tell you I'll wash my hands of you, and you will probably get into worse trouble than you are already. The least you can do. In return re-turn for what little I have beeen able to do for you. Is to follow out my instructions to the letter." tTO UK CONTINUED.) |