Show ir lady bland Bla sieBie h e A romance of the commonplace by frances parkinson keyes service copyright by frances parkinson keyes SYNOPSIS motoring through vermont philip starr young boston architect meets BI blanche alche manning seventeen with whom he Is immediately enamored it being a long distance to starr starrs s desti nation blanche suggests the village ot of hamstead not boasting a hotel that he become f for or the night a guest of her cousin mary manning mary re ceides philip with true vermont hos vitality pita lity and he make makes the acquaintance of her cousin paul recognized as her flance paul Is inclined to be dessl gale hamlin long a suitor for marys mary 9 hand hamstead but makes no progress in his lovemaking philip from records of the manning family learns the sorrowful atory story of the countess blanche french wife of a revolutionary hero moses man ning and of the peculiar curse she has transmitted to her descendants and the women of hamstead the evening of philip a s marriage to blanche paul under the influence of liquor bitterly affronts mary and tells her their en ga gement Is ended mary at first acutely conscious of her position as a jilted woman Is greatly comforted by her lifelong friend sylvia gray and the love of her two small brothers paul really loving mary though with a self ish tali attachment finds life a good deal of a blank with her out of the picture he ile expresses contrition and a keen de do ire to re establish himself in her esteem but mary disillusioned re elects him CHAPTER IX continued 10 violet having fixed a date for her visit with blanche decided to go to new york for a few days shopping first she had no intention she said with a slight flutter of nerves when paul who had been giving some pain ful attention to the subject pointed out to her that the state of their finances was still low after his sis ter s ng and that such trips and shopping were expensive of looking countrified when she first went to stay at her new son in law s home and to meet her daughters new friends if you had shown any consI considerate derat on of me at all we wouldn t have been so straitened I 1 she sobbed why I 1 never urged you to spend all that money don t argue with me I 1 you know it always prostrates me to have gar quarrels going on As if this wretched affair with mary hadn haan t end ed every hope of our having her money I 1 and then you try to put the blame on me and accuse me of well ive played mary so many dirty mean tricks that I 1 suppose its natural you should think id use her money to pay our silly illy debts I 1 probably would have the way things were going but I 1 haven t accused you of anything I 1 only said oh I 1 know what you said but it makes all the difference how a thing Is said and the meaning back of the saying counts still morel more I 1 suppose you 11 refuse to drive me to the mid night might train next I 1 paul did not of course refuse to do anything of the sort to tell the truth he was almost glad to see his mother go her indolence her extravagance her selfishness seemed so appalling to him just then that he found them increasingly d to live with and none the less so because he thought he saw all these qualities reflected and magnified led in his own character it was also becoming clear to him that he must either earn more or rather earn something or spend less if they were to get out of debt and that he could put considerable time to ad vantage in figuring out how he was to do this he began his reflections in this direction on his way home at af er taking her to the station an un usually heavy snow storm had obliged him to drive the old family horse in stead of using the new motor and it was two 0 clock in the morning when he reached home there was he hap bened to notice a light in marys mary a room when he had put the horse up and was as going from the barn to the house he saw that it was still burn ing and heard her voice at the telephone through an open window seth and jane were both away he knew attending a sunday school convention mary was therefore alone with the two little boys and something was certainly wrong he wen went t up close to the house and called mary I 1 mary I 1 Is anything the mat ter can I 1 help he was more frightened than before at the agonized voice that answered him yes YES oh thank god youve comel come he pushed open the front door and bounded up the stairs mary was bend ng over the bed and on the bed lay algy gasping and writhing and then lying deathly still ile hes s got convulsions mary man aged to say in a stifled voice I 1 can cant t leave him a second he might choke to death if I 1 did what am I 1 to do first tart start the kitchen fire we well 11 get aim into a hot bath paul vanished without another word in an incredibly short time he was back again NN what hat next see it if you can get hold of a doc doe tor I 1 tried jut central was so slow in answering I 1 t dare oh oh tor for the livid child was choking again there was no resident physician at the littie cottage hospital doctor noble the head surgeon lived at home after what seemed like endless wait ing paul got his house david s with sylvia gray he said a minute later turning with a white face from the telephone I 1 she ashes s very ill try doctor wells then there was another long wait and then again paul faced the despair in mary s eyes he ile s gone there too it its s ft its s a desperate case shall I 1 call him up there 1 yes no oh paul you know what the trouble Is there I 1 its two lives maybe against onel he might at least be able to tell us what to do you 11 have to try white water wallacetown Wallace town any place you can think of again paul tried one doctor was sick himself two had gone away to attend a medical congress A fourth twenty miles away appealed to as a last resort d t know how he could get there the roads arent broken through down this way we weve ve got to face it alone said mary at last paul knew that it was in that moment that his selfish and idle boyhood 1 we 0 he hes s got convulsions mary man aged to say in a stifled voice died and that the potential manhood in him came to life we wove ve got to face it together maty he said it was eight 0 clock in the gray november moraln morning when david noble finally came to them mary was sit ting in a large rocker with algy a little gray shadow of the rosy child of the day before clasped in her arms paul a glass of brandy and water in bis his hand rose from his knees beside his cousins chair algy was all right when he went to bed last night he stated briefly he woke up in convulsions at mid night I 1 was passing about two 0 clock and saw marys mary s light she was all alone with him till then weve done the best we could david raised the child childs s eyelids to look at the pupils and felt bis his pulse while paul was speaking he bent over listening intently to the little heart then he raised his head you ve saved his life he said with equal brevity A few minutes later in the blessed sense of security that had come over her mary asked tor for sylvia she t get her twins of course she asked almost lightly she ashes s talked ot of nothing else for months davids david s face contracted and mary noticed for the first time that he looked strangely old and very very tired yes he said huskily she did twin girls just what she wanted and she s taken one of them back to heaven with her CHAPTER X the tragedy of sylvia grays death shook hamstead to its very dounda eions austin was almost crazed with grief alven david who had always had more influence over him than anyone else except sylvia herself could not move him this wont won t bring her back austin you know he said at last as gently as ever but more firmly and and she would have been the last to to want you to take it like this her courage never faltered through any thing austin neither answered nor moved ay we e must think what to do for the other baby you ve got her apu know and the two little boys 1 I don t want to think of the baby I 1 it isn t the baby s fault said david still more gently divining what was passing in austin s mind no but it s mine I 1 1 she wasn gasn t strong enough tor for you said yourself when the second boy came so soon after the first that that she t have another tor for a long time yes david chose bis his words carefully but austin you came first with sylvia just as she did with you she was so brave that it was hard to get her to admit ever that she felt ill that everything gasn wasn t all right but once she said to me david it if anything should go wrong be sure to tell austin afterwards that there t one minute in our life together that I 1 would have had different that there s no price too great to pay for perfect happiness she meant it how many men mens S wives do you think can say that mine can V t he boo ended andea hia his voice breaking next to austin himself there was no one perhaps in the whole village to whom the loss of sylvia came BS as such a horrible shock as to mary algy was still very ill the fear that the child would yet die in spite of her fight for hia his life grew a gl thousand times larger now that sylvias death had brought the valley of the shadow so close to her mary did not close her eyes nor stir from her little brother brothers s side tor for three days and nights and all that time beside the actuality of the stricken child that she saw there she visual iced the picture of sylvia and one little baby of austin and the other and she thought involuntary involuntarily fly but constantly of lady blanches dying curse and its reiterating fulfillment whom would it strike next she thought of blanche seemingly so secure in her radiant happiness and trembled until her teeth chattered the first time that paul saw her again after the night of the double tragedy that long night through which they had fought for the sick child together he felt that he would gladly have given ten years of his life it if he had not thrown an avay ay his right to take her in his arms and kiss away the tears and bring a little color into her white cheeks and a smile to her drawn lips As it was he could only venture to lay one of his hands on the two that lay so tightly clenched in her lap and put the other gently on her shoulder don t was all he could think of to say all that is that he dared to say his own lips quivering don dont t mary and was thankful when she did not repulse him but clung to him sobbing while he stroked her soft hair paul was suffering too suffering with the revelation of truths that he had never sensed with the facing of problems he bad had never solved nor tried to solve the way that austin loved sylvia was that the way men cared for women the way that mary loved algy w was as that the way women cared for children passion that was all love love that was all self sacrifice what had that to do with careless sensuality or equally careless affection when for the sec see on ond d time david noble sought him out he found that the boy had already started to find him what can I 1 do to help paul raul asked abruptly there much tour your cousin jane Is proving a tower of strength to mary by relieving her of the burden of ordinary dally daily grind we men never stop to think that meals have to be cooked and dishes washed and fires built no matter w who 0 lives or dies do we everyone ever is trying to help mary now and no one in god gods s world can help austin then what were you looking for me tor for I 1 wanted to tell you that I 1 thought you did darned well the night that kid almost slipped through mary a fin gers he would have tt if you been there and alio to give you a message from sylvia she seemed to have a good deal of faith in you I 1 had a rather long talk with her about a week before she went and one of the things she said to me was tell paul manning not to stop fighting to get mary back it if he has to die doing it how how am I 1 to go about it 1 I should think it might be rather difficult said david dryly I 1 con fess it s hard tor for me to see the justice of a divine providence that snatches snatch es sylvia from austin who worshiped the ground she walked on and let lets yon you treat mary lik like something in pauls paul s face stopped him abruptly well I 1 suppose brov dence sees a good many things we ignorant mortals dont he ended tes yes said paul slowly I 1 guess it do does es do you remember saying to me a w while bile ago that as long as a man had a woman like sylvia of course bed he d make her his first consideration as long as he could maybe the time had come for austin to make some thing else his first consideration may be he hes s needed a lot more in france than he real zed perhaps it took a a tragedy like that to show him how much he was needed for a moment david stared silently at the boy he was too surprised at s such itch conclusions reached from such a source to give utterance to speech I 1 think you re right he said at last but austin jsn t the only one you know chos needed in france just now I 1 know said paul I 1 I 1 ive ve been thinking that over too what yo you u said about the foreign legion be up tomorrow night to have you look me over goei gowl for you I 1 about eight I 1 shall I 1 be off myself pretty soon now I 1 waited before signing up until after sylvias sylvia s time because austin begged me to do so well see vou to morrow night I 1 meanwhile there are probably lots of little things you can find to do tor for mary it if you really want to I 1 As david drove away he found he could not get paul and his unexpected sentiments out of his mind darned if I 1 don dont t believe sylvia was right about him as usual he reflected the phase that hes been passing through has been pretty unattractive lord knows but tt it may have been just a phase if only he hadn t lost mary but if he hadn t he never would have started to think again he was too lazy well it its s all beyond me I 1 TO BB DID CONTINUED |