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Show RjejijillBlilseiisii SYNOPSIS- Rerolulion rwirs Grodnla The kins' l ktllrd by mrb and his daughter, Pnnceen Sablnn. r.;ape In the fwb of pedant An Rfvi priet, Fthr Pokoff nccompaniii her In fllrhl. The two rncrt an American newspaper correspondent Bob Hallam. who bribes iruards to permit thrm to oro Ihn hnr-der. hnr-der. Naroush Duprhlnnky. a boUhrvWt 1 aaalgneii to seek and kill tho rrln o. Ho Mke paMt for America on the aroe bru with PriDOBM Sablna, who ip pooine a poanant girl, Sophia Oorot Struck by the girl beauty Pupchlnnky makc lovo to her much to her dletre Chaos rcigna In Grodnla and Count Jan la sent b.v leaders ot tba old rg1tne to find the prtneoss that a marriage between be-tween the two mij b arranced and tho queen put upon her throne He meets Hallam. en route home, confides his mission, and olts his .iM The prln.-ees rea.-heo New York ami eo- Into hiding. DUPCbln-Uy DUPCbln-Uy annoys her. Ho boasts to her his nitaMon. and she finally promises to marry blm " when he haa killed the prii'-cse. ' SIXTH INSTALLMENT. A FORSAKEN SWEETHEART. TAROUSH DUPCHINSKY, tho bolshe- I Viet Romeo, Btcppcd back a pace and looked on a dead angle down Into the straightforward eyes of Sablna. ' You mean." he Jockeyed, "that I must mt assnssinato Princess Sabina before you will become my wife? " " Exactly. You will kill the. princess before I will raorry you." rj " Done! " m' "Very well. It la a bargain. Now, please go I hav not yet breakfasted." "But i may come to visit you, of course, meanwhile. I am so sure of my success that H I will, In my own heart, Immediately begin to regard yo i as my bride-to-be " ," " Please don't let any of that faith manifest M: itself beyond your heart.' she said, icily. H M Im, you may come but not too often; twice a week will be enough. In the afternoon." Sablna had resolved to put up with Dup H chlnsky now, since the exposure of his fatal H Intentions prompted her to keep in touch j with his progress. " Thanks," he said, fervently. " I will live only Cor .those visits and that glorious duty Which, when done, gives you to me." " Good morning " And he went- Within him a love song was humming, for he felt that the delicious Sablna was Boon 'o be his. He returned to his quarters quar-ters to read the code cablegrams from Grodnla, Grod-nla, keeping him In touch with affaiis of his I clique and clan at home, and to glance I through a letter. The letter piqued him visi bly. It was one of a series, arriving on every boat, from Nastla, the palace maid, the girl Kii he had promised to marry. Never more to him than a toy and a tool, tho girl now rasred against his neres, now that he was in love. Her lamentations and her babbles cf adoration were blurbs that nettled him. Here he was the pivot of immortal history, fighting for the lo e of a divinity, besides, and there was that tow headed damsel framing fram-ing clumsy passages at him and addressing him as " My Own." Blah it was an anticlimax, anti-climax, j Poverty and panic raged throughout Grodnla. Grod-nla. Homes haul been ru ed and sacked Hundreds Hun-dreds were roofless. Scores of families were crowded into railway stations and public buildings. Those who could were leaving hurriedly, flight looming up as more salutary than fight. Scenes of extreme privation and cruel suffering were so common that sympathy sympa-thy waned and each scrambled for himself. Millions of dollars in property, unused materials, ma-terials, unfinished products, unsheltered merchandise, mer-chandise, rotted and rusted Money was almost al-most valueless. The central government acted in spasmodic spurts of severity and arbitrary swooping here and there Instead of the regular and orderly method which smoothly operates for every one, everywhere, all the time. The soldiers, who vs ore now the Instruments of power and authority, were worked in squads, not spread about to establish estab-lish and maintain orderlj justice. There was no police. Fancy a robber, a murderer, a ravlsher, openly proceeding about his ghastly acta in Cull daylight, with deliberate pace, in eight of whosoever might care to look on, then calmly strolling away, unafraid, unabashed. If there are 10,000 criminals in a commu-nlty commu-nlty of 1,000,000 souls, as. metropolitan statistics statis-tics Indicate, that minimum is the portion which takes long, wild chances against every probable percentage of safety. Were there no proven punishments, no official retribution, retribu-tion, every million would reveal 900,000 criminals crim-inals perhaps more even today, after con-turiea con-turiea of standards, morals, religions, ethics, education, and evolution. The German army proved that. No more stringently law abiding nation ever lived than the Germans In Germany during tho decade and more preceding the war. That was while and where the statutes were in force. The moment that the same men. uniformed, uni-formed, were turned loose on Belgium, France, and Russia, and the written paragraphs para-graphs that had made them sane and Christian Chris-tian citizens were canceled, they became fiends, butchers, gaxroters, torturers, devils, and demons, and beasts. Yet they obeyed their officers, that was Rtlll the law, and that law was still valid. The power was In their own hands, but they did not seek to take it They felt that there was " police " to back up such law as still obtained Five policemen can usually quell a mob of thousands, not because they are stronger, but because they are policemen, "No police" was the atavistic, anachronistic anachronis-tic condition in Grodnla It was the soul of the situation It was tho fulfillment of the promise of " liberty " which had been the keynote key-note of the slogan that had demolished the throne and pulverized government That soldiers swept about, marauding and murdering, murder-ing, was quite another matter. They were "killing for that same fraudulent liberty, killing kill-ing its enemies Its enemies wero those who thought they had rights and those who said the soviet was wrong, But such was " the law " at tho moment, and law is mighty. No extra agance, no absurdity, no matter how unnatural, can be gainsaid if It is the law and the majority accepts It or suffers it to bo the law And In Grodnla bolshovism was the legislature and Its dictum was the law. From tho maniacal consequences of such inhumanity, those who wero not profiteers of a nation's shame and misfortune pleaders of the ruling movement pulling the wires which moved the merciless army, ghouls hungrily skimming the swill of slaughter, or vodka-saturated vodka-saturated hoodlums who plunged to the neck in the saturnalia of unbridled license ran th girl, and, without a word of sympathy or welcome, said: "Why did you come here? What is the meaning of, this? " "Why Naroush, dear T " Arid the soft hearted victim of so much burst Into weeping. Dupchlnaky, with a gesture of impatient annoyance, led her to a remote corner. "Don't whimper," he commanded, sharply. "Do ou want to make a fool of me, here where I am supposed to have some dignity and standing Now stop blubbering and toll me what brought you here, what you want, why you came." "I I crime to you. Mother Is dead. Yasoha is dead murdered by the guards. Life at home isn't worth a kopeck. A girl's person for their lhes, their honor, and their sacred principles. Nastia's family had taken no active participation partici-pation in the bolshevik uprising or administration. adminis-tration. Her brother, n num wilted youth of 19, scarcely knew what it was all about. He had been taught to keep garden and supply sup-ply the vegetable truck for the three pigs and for their owners. The mother was a thrifty widow, content to wear out her life and her floors scrubbing to wash and cook for her children, and knit, without meddling in politics or bothering over sociological ratiocinations. The girl, employed at the palace, had steadfastly withstood the pointed suggestions of Naroush to become a revolutionist revolu-tionist spy, and had lent to the movement only such crumbs of help as she had unwittingly unwit-tingly let fall in her small talk with Dup-chlnsky. Dup-chlnsky. Less than a week after the overthrow of the monarchy, Nastla saw her brother bayoneted bay-oneted to death because he protested against the commandeering of the pigs Her mother died a few days later of grief and shock. Nastla, after several hairline escapes from ruffians who sought to attack her, gathered what meager money phe had been able to secrete, and ran, ran from hei despoiled home, from the bodies of her slain. Just as had her royal mistress before hor, proving at least that the panacea of bolshevlsm plays no favorites. Down the selfsame road that Sabina had taken she scurried, and over tho same frontier. fron-tier. Passports were no longer needed, not even asked. To Nastla the problem of a destination des-tination was narrower than it had been to the princess. There was but one in all the world to whom she could turn now Dupchin-sky, Dupchin-sky, her affianced. And he was somewhere in America. So she took passage and came to New York. Narou6h. champing at his stationary lack of progress toward finding Princess Sablna, still paid her assiduous court and regular semi weekly calls. Ho had followed numerous numer-ous " tips " and clews, but none had led to anything. Far from despairing, he assured and reassured the girl of his fancy that the hunt could not last much longer. That she still greeted and treated him with phlegmatic indifference did not dissplrlt him. for he was confident of his eventual success, and she had promised him he could take her when that came When Nastla landed she came to the city with a group of Grodnlane whom she had Joined en tour. They had kinsfolk here, most of them in try congested district, where newly arrived Slavs abounded No bloodhound blood-hound was required In that locality to And eoent of Naroush Dupchlnsky. tho loud and notorious bolshevlst celebrity The coffee house was soon pointed out to Jior as his nightly rendezvous and there she found him on the evening of her arrival. With pitiful Joy she approached him. With a Jar of sickly surprise he saw her. DupchinsUv rose from tho table, came to I isn't safe In the city square. I came to escape and to find you." " Well, that's too bad. I'm sorry to hear you have had such troubles. But I can't do anything for you. I am entirely immersed in affairs of stupendous dimensions " " I Judged so," sighed the girl, " when you never wrote me. But I see you hae time to lounge about In places like this; I am told you spend every evening here." " What I do and where I spend my time are none of your business. No silly girl can understand what underlying purpose a man like myself might have in what he does. Anyway, I am not to be taken to task, or even questioned. I am too old to be scolded and too big to be spanked If you came hero to find fault with me and my ways you can pack yourself right back to where you came from " " No, dear, I am not attempting to take issue with you. But it only seems to me that if you can devote hours to such a place as this you might have found a minute to write mc a lino a line of tiding, or encouragement, not to say love " " Love! Nonsense! I am too full of the cause to think of foolishness. When a nation's na-tion's future 1b at stake an individual has no right to consider his own weak whims." " But you told me that you loved me promised prom-ised to make me your wife " "Wife? O, yes. Some time, maybe but not now. Quite beyond all reason just now." " Then what am I to do? " "What would you do If I weren't here If you didn't know me? " The girl looked at him quizzically. Her brain was spinning as though she had been roundly slapped again and again. " I don't know what I'd do," she said, half in soliloquy. " Kill myself, I guess." " O, don't talk poppycock. It's too bad you came here. You see, I am in no position to give you any time or attention. I think you had better go to another city. Philadelphia would be fine. There are many of our people there, and you could find work until until later." " I don't want to go to another city. I want to be here, with you, near you, that is. If you cannot give me much time I will bo content with little; you never spent any regular hours with me even at home, as do almost all men with girls whom they are going to marry " " Don't talk so much about marriage," Dup-chlnsky Dup-chlnsky snapped. " You bang me over the head with that word In every second sentence." sen-tence." " D-don't you intend to to marry me, then? " " I that is didn't I Just tell you I couldn't, right now? What would the Inner council say if word came that their trusted emissary, Dupchlnsky, the devoted crusader of bolshovism, bolsho-vism, had dropped his gigantic mission while a people Buffered and struggled, waiting on - his action to go honeymooning! You have lost your mind to even mention such a grotesque gro-tesque Joke." "I don't ask that you wed me forthwith. I will wait until you have completed your business, accomplished this tremendous thing In which you say you aro completely concentrated. concen-trated. When you have finished and won success, then you can marry mc," Dupchlnsky smiled in irony. When his undertaking un-dertaking should become an accomplishment he would marry, yes but not Nastla- then the other girl, the witching one whose feet ho longed to kiss, tho Imperious charmer whom he know as Sophia, would be the one ho would marry. Meanwhile, what was to be done with this death's head at his feast, this shadow of a past ome to life0 "Let the future bring what tho futuro holds," he said. "This work may consume years. In view of the immensity of its Importance Im-portance I feel myself absolved from all personal per-sonal pledgee, like a soldier called to war, whose obligations must thereupon take their chances with the precarious outcome of his duties" " I I am to understand, then, that there Is no bond between us? That I am not to expect with any degree of assurance any redemption re-demption of any promises that you, made to me In the past? " " I'm afraid you put It about right. You see, I that Is " The tears welled in the girl's eyes. Never a passionate, Impetuous personality, she had taken all her life tho visitations of life as they had come, seldom complaining, never demanding, de-manding, scarcely hoping much. This man had courted her, won her. and ruined her, sho had yielded, being neer of that grain which arms one to fight against odd9. Now she was betrayed, she felt it, sho knew it. She had bcarcely seen him for an hour since the great change in the affairs of Grodnia. and sho put down his new attitude toward her against his sudden rise to Importance from his commonplace com-monplace station during tne days when nihilism nihil-ism was a whimpered and intangible dream. But she felt the 6teel of conviction coldly entering en-tering hor heart. Her plans, hor rosy fancies, fan-cies, were over. Dupchlnsky saw the look that came upon her countenance, reflecting all this. By nature na-ture cruel, domineering. Insect souled, he wet his lips and lighted up his eyes at the sight, like a hyena. He tasted blood He had broken tho ice,( he had crushed Nastia's heart, why not' have the whole thing over with, how and forever? Why not leave Dupchlnsky, Dup-chlnsky, the man of great affairs political romantic free to follow the broad and promising prom-ising paths toward triumph in both? Waa this putty faced girl, with her tears and her Madonna pallor of disappointed hope to nettlo and harass and heckle him? No. " And you might Just as well get the rest of tho bad news," he followed up. " It Is true that at this moment I am in no position to marry any one. Until my task is done I cannot marry at all. But when that takes place I shall marry another girl, one whom I have met since we parted, ono with whom I am wildly in love. You see, when we separated. sepa-rated. I " Nastla staggered to her feet. Away from the table, across the room, out into tho malodorous mal-odorous night in tho slums she tottered. Dupchlnsky got up, shrugged his heavy shoulders as though to say, "What hae I done to have things like this come up to bother and distract me? " and rejoined his table heroes of bolahevlsm's transoceanic flock Like all men of colossal egotism, he brushed away any thorns of conscience or remorse with the hard gloves of his own belief be-lief that lions must not suffer gnats to annoy them; that great causes must not digress to spare meaningless humans. Kaiser Wilhelm calculated the same way; so did all other pelf-dlscovered " men of destiny." And millions mil-lions of widows, mourning -heir dead, havo cursed these presumptuous blockheads for tho wreckage and carnage they haye left behind them on their Iron shod mnrch to those "destinies." But Nastla, as she sank upon a dank doorstep across the street, sobbed out a prayer, for she knew no curses. Bitterly she thought it all out. she was not wise In the ways of men. She had given hcr-sof hcr-sof to Dupchlnsky in flesh and spirit. In women of her type there is no germ of inconstancy. incon-stancy. Through cruelty, neglect, abandonment abandon-ment they hunger and yearn, but never consider con-sider taking up with another man. It would have been simple enoujrh for her to havo lifted herself and gone forth, elsewhere, con-BOllhg con-BOllhg herself that for every woman there is, somewhere, one man, and Dupchlnsky was not the man for her. But It never hinted Itself to her. She accepted It as granted that if he remaired unaltered in his attitude she must go on through life, deserted, forlorn. As she pondered, swallowing hard the gagging consciousness of her lot, Dupchlnsky swaggered from the coffee house. Out of humor because of the unwelcome reappearance reappear-ance of Nastla in his affairs, he had found the society within dull and depressing, and had chosen to beard the displeasure of Sablna by paying her a visit out of his turn, to seek In her presence diversion, distraction, consolation. conso-lation. Nastla, across the way, picked herself up mechanically and 6lunk along, keeping abreast of him with the width of the street between them. She was not dogging him, but her whole existence lay with him and in him, and she trailed along, almost purposeless. purpose-less. Just as she would have trailed along at his elbow had he permitted It. The walk was not far from the unsavory cellar to the house where the princess lived. Nastla halted, still across the street, when she saw Naroush turn and mount what in New York Is called a " stoop." Dupchlnsky rang the bell. Sablna herself a .swered it. Nnstia saw her, but the doorway door-way was too dark for her to distinguish at the distance the features of the girl whom 6he perceived in animated conversation with the bolshevlst. Sablna was expressing her displeased surprise at being Interrupted by a caller so late. But she did not forbid her ri'---greable guest entrance, since she feared that his coming, at so unusual an hour, might portend news of his chase after her other splf. Princess Sablna. Nastla saw the door shut after a moment or two of brisk dialogue, and a minute later saw lights go up in the main room of the house, tho window of which faced the street. The shades were drawn. Scblna had conducted con-ducted Dupchlnsky into the living room, called by courtesy the " parlor." which was tho only chamber In the house in which sho could entertain a stranger. Anxiously Sabina awaited any extraordinary extraordi-nary Intelligence that he might have brought. But Dupchinsky was not unusually communicative. communi-cative. He chucked his hat into a corner and sat down, rather glumly. " May I Inquire to what I owe this uncal-endared uncal-endared visit7" she Inquired. " O. I Just felt that I had to see you tonight," to-night," he said. "An Incident occurred an hour ago which somewhat upset me." " And may I ask the nature of it and how it affects me, if It does? " "It affects you only indirectly. However, it has affected you to tho degree that it brought me here when I was not anticipated. You see, I had an unheralded lsitor myself; some one from Grodnla; some one, by tho way. who was close to Princess Sabina." t Sabina started and- held her face forth, burning with eager anxiety. "By tho way." cried Dupchlnsky, as he slapped himself on the thigh, " I never thought of that. What a dunce I was to break with her. She might have been of inestimable help to me. She knows the princess. prin-cess. She knows, at least by sight, all who would be associated with the princess. I was a donkey. You see how love makes a man to forget the biggest other things in life? " "She"'" ventured Sabina. half suspecting by this time who the "she " in question most likely was, as she had known at home of Nastia's betrothal to a bolshevlst named Dupchlnsky. " You say It was a woman? And she was one of the the royalty, perhaps'' per-haps'' " " Far from royal. She was a maid to Sablna. The miserable little simpleton, at home I used her for a foil, she used to drop a great deal of information about goings-on in the palace which were of use to me. But to keep her on my staff I had to pretend at making loveo her. And now the cat brained wench seems to have taken it seriously, and tonight sho turned up, all ready to marry me. Can you Imagine such gall? Can you picture my state of mind I w ho am so burn-ingly burn-ingly in love with you, having this unappe-tlzlng unappe-tlzlng baggage hound me Into the very place where all my friends gather, and upbraiding me because I had not pelted her with candled billets doux? ' 6ablna felt a sensation of needles in her veins. Nastla in New York! And Nastla. wildly enamored of Dupchlnsky. near him. Nastla had been loyal. But that had been in Grodnla. where Sablna had been a crown princess and before bolshevlsm had torn tho glaze of unchallenged sanctity about everything every-thing royal How would sho Jump now'' This was extremely alarming. The thoughts, hurtled through the nimble brain of the prin. cess, a partial solution came to her. Approaching Dupchinsky. she set her fen- I tures in as nearly a friendly grimac9 afl n could muster and said, with a clutch of plead, lng In her tones: " rioaso don't see her again. For my sakt. ' I ask It of you." The anarchist, amazed at her note of inter- i est In his intimate matters, swiftly searched her face. " You mean," he piped, excitedly, "that you S you are j al us'' Vou do not want roe to i trifle with a a possible rival?" j Sablna shook her head gravely, up and I down. "You wonderful girl! At last' At last'' ho shouted exultantly, and made a flying 1 effort to encircle her with his arms. Sho Etepped back, out of his swinging reach. "Not ye " she cnuu'nnod. "But you will go a long distance toward my my favor T If you will do as I ask of ou. Do you promise?" prom-ise?" ( "Well, can you beat a woman?" he ex- j j claimed 1 Here you go on. showing me you 1 care nothing for me, telling mo so in words A that I would not have tolerated from any 11 other female on earth. Then, when I drop i U a hint that another girl Is on the ground, I one who wants me, even though she Isn't fit j to clean your boots, you immediately throrr j a Jealous convulsion But why won't you kiss me just one, to drive homo what yoa ' have just revealed to me the big,news that f you love me. Don't you love me?" :' Sablna's blood was running cold at his !L blather, But she dared not let her feellngi register In expression. " If you do as I ask you," sho fenced, "I jjj now, you mustn't storm me. If I have India- a, erectly turned up something that I was sek- ' M ing to hide, don't be ungentlemanly enough to take advantage of my womanly weakness. , Go now. like a friend. I want tc think." And she turned loose upon him a thousand J H candle power effulgence of smile; wan, irr. I JJ sistible. pleading smile. What Dupchlnsky misinterpreted in her ambiguous speech andfl I misread In that mien was to him worth j thousand kisses, voluptuary that he was, for 1JJ he believed her when she said she was not to 1 be stormed, and he believed he had made lm- I measurable progress toward eventual cap- "E ture of the entrancing girl. I-" "All right," he gurgled. "I think you'rt ft a stingy sweetheart But It shall be aa you fc ask, w hen you ask It so captlv atlngly. 7h 1 girl iru:ir,. less than zero to me, to begla 1 C. with, as I told you even before you said a 1 m word, Noyi sho is forbidden out" , 5; "Good night." ' Sa He picked up his hat and crossed to the center of the room, with hand outstretchet , efle She walked toward him and gave him her ,E hand. The table lamp was behind them. J;. Upon the window blind was silhouetted liia j shadow of the man whose hair and ngur Ml Nastla easily recognized, holding the hand j of a slender woman Nastla culped down i lump at the sight of her false lover dandlin J fth in dalliance with the one who had stolen his , H affections from her, to whom by hla word they were bound, to whom by his unmanly 5, misconduct they belonged, from whom he and this Granger had linked to pilfer them j Half a minute later Dupchinsky strolled J Hi from the house, down the street, toward his j l lodgings. Nastla, light headed and numb, j l accompanied him in the shadows of ths j , houses across the narrow streets of the un(v 1 miliar city She saw him enter the bleai j I and cavernous tenement building where b I slept Then she crawled away until she j found a policeman, who directed her to t- : equally unprepossessing hovel of fHe story H . J hrlck and cockroaches where dwelt tae crowded family In w hose din;;:, rooms she had 1, arranged cot space. ' :r For hours, as Sabina tor3ed upon her bed f Tl turning over the disturbing prospects of tbs j U distressing news, as Dupchlnsky slept sound- 1 ly with a beatific grin of anticipated gratlfl- j cation on his smug face, Nastia writhed and I sighed, cudgeled her uninspired mind for w I Jt antidote to the poison which had been spurt- J j ed Into her hopes, and wept. Should she not go to this other woman on II5, the morrow and lay before her the rights sb j t had acquired by the wrongs she had en- dured? If she did, would this woman give up th I j fascinating Dupchlnsky to help a poor, m'3' J p guided, forlorn nobody? If sho should, would Dupchlnsky consent I to stand by such a reversal of his confessed I purposes? Was he the man to let Nastia be or steal him back? She feared him as thoroughly thor-oughly as she loved him Ho had never yielded an inch to her. even when most or dently playing the lover, he had kiwed bef 1 when he wanted to. visited her when he wanted want-ed to, left her when ho wanted to, done whatever what-ever he had wanted whenever he had wanted want-ed to. f But something, even Nastla conoiuded l her shrinking way, must be done. Sh woU- j not take her disappointment as tho Inexorable decree of fate. Yes, sho would do something j next morning. The least she would do wou be to behold with her own yes this woman whom her Naroush had found so alluring had found in this strange land of H.J ideals and peculiar people. On that J had determined before she closed her eyes i worried slumber she would see the worn J whose hand Dupchlnsky had held that ni s To be continued A i ICopyrirht: 1919: By Jack Lilt-1 J 5i |