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Show Vie ;V BRANDIN 7 Katharine Mm COP) RIGHT BY ItATIlAKlMt MCWU.N BtBT. ed to comfort you, to pot my hands I on you In comfort, like a mother, I felt I And you went out like you were angry and stayed away all night as though you couldn't bear to be teeing me again In your house that you had built for her. So I wrote you my letter-and letter-and went away. And then It was all so awful cold and empty. I didn't know T'erre was out there. I came back , . ." They were both silent for a long time and In the silence the Idyll was relived. Spring cnuie again with Its crest of green along the cenyoa and the lake lay like a turquoise drawing the glittering peak down into Its heart. "My book Its success," Prosper began be-gan at last, "made me restless. You'll understand that now that you are an artist yourself. And one day there came a ltter from that woman I bad loved." "It was a little square gray envelope," envel-ope," said Joan breathlessly. "I can see It now. Tou never rightly looked at me again." "Ah I" said Prosper, lie turned and hid his face. "Tell me the rest," said Joan. lie went on without turning bark to her, his head bent. "The woman wrote that her husband was dying, that I must come back to her at once." The snow tapped and the fire crackled. "And when you went back?" "Her husband did not die," said Prosper blnnkly; "he Is still alive." "And you still love her very much?1 "That's the worst of It, Joan," groaned Prosper. Ills groan changed Into a desperate laugh. "I love you. Now truly I do love you. If I could marry you If I could have you for my wife ' He waited, breathing fast, then came .-find stood close before be-fore her. "I have never wanted a woman to be my wife till now. I want you. I want you to be the mother of my children." Then Joan did look at him with all her eyes. "I am Pierre's wife," she said. The liquid beauty had left her voice. It was hoarse and dry. "I am Plerre'e wife and I have already been the mother of your child." There was a long, rigid silence. "Joan when? where?" Prosper's throat clicked. "I knew It before you left. I couldn't tell you because you were so changed. I worked all winter. It It was born on an awful cold March night. I think the woman let It made It die. She wanted me to work for her during the summer end she thought I would be glad If the child didn't live. She used to say I was 'in trouble' and she'd be glad If she could 'help me out.' . . . It was what I was planning to live for . . . that child." During the heavy stillness following Joan's dreadful, brief account of birth and death, Prosper went through a strange experience. It seemed to him that in his soul something was born and died. Always afterward there was a ghost if him the father that might have been. "I can't talk any more," said Joan faintly. "Won't you please go?" act as giving her back to his hands.' And I was half-mad myself, I'd been alone so long ... I stood so you couldn't see hi in, Joan, and I threw an elk-hide over him and led you out." "I followed you; I didn't look at Pierre; I left him lying there," gasped Joan. Prosper went on monotonously. "When I came back a week later, I thought he would be dead. It was dusk, the wind was blowing, the snow was driving In a scud. I came down to the cabin and dropped below the drift by that northern window, and, the second I looked In, I dropped out of sight. There was a light and a fire. Your husband was lying before the fire on a cot. There was another man there, your Mr. Holllwellj they were talking, Holllwell was dressing Tlerre's wound. I went away like a ghost, and while I was going back, I thought It all out; and I decided to keep you for myself. I suppose," said Prosper dully, "that that was a horrible sin. I didn't see It that way then. I'm not sure I see It that way now. Pierre had tied you up and pressed a white-hot Iron Into your bnre shoulder. If you went back-to him, If he took you back, how was I to know that he might not repeat his drunken deviltry, devil-try, or do worse, If anything could be worse 1 It was the act of a fiend. It put him out of court with me. Whatever What-ever I gave you, education and beauty, beau-ty, and ease, must be better and happier hap-pier for you than life with such a brute as Pierre " "Stop!" said Joan between her teeth; "yon know nothing of Pierre and me; you only know that one dreadful night. You don't know the rest." "I don't want to know the rest," he said sharply; "that Is enough to Justify my actlun. I thought so then and I think so now. You won't be able to make me change that opinion." "I shall not try," said Joan. ne accepted this and went on. "When I found you In your bed walt- CHAPTER VI Continued. 18 Prosper smoked and stood there looking, now at her, now at the fire. At last, with difficulty he smiled. "You are not going to make It easy for me, are you, Joan?" For her part she was not looking at him. She kept her eyes on the fire and this averted look distressed and Irritated Irri-tated bis nerves. , "I am not trying to make It hard," she said; "I want you to say what you came to say and go." "Did you ever love me, Joan?" He had said it to force a look from her, but It had the effect only of mak- lng her more still, If possible. "I don't know," she said slowly, answering an-swering with her old directness. "I thought you needed me. I was alone. I was scared of the emptiness when I went out and looked down the valley. I thought Pierre had gone out of the world and there was no living thing that wanted me. I came back and you met me and you put your arms round me and you said" she closed ber eyes and repeated his speech as though she had Just heard It 'Don't leave me, Joan.' " Her voice was more than ever before be-fore moving and expressive. Prosper felt that half-forgotten thrill. The muscles of his throat contracted. "Joan, I did want you. I spoke the truth," he pleaded. She went on with no Impatience but very coldly. "You came to tell me your side. Will you tell me, please?" For the first time she looked Into his eyes and he drew In his breath at the misery of hers. "I built that cabin, Joan," he said, "for another woman." 'Tour wife?" asked Joan. . "No." "For the one I said must have been like a tall child? She wasn't your wife? She was dead?" Prosper shook his head. "No. Did you think that? She was a woman I loved at that time very dearly and she was already married to another man." "You built that house for her? I don't understand." 1 "She had promised to leave her husband hus-band and to come away with me. I had everything ready, those rooms, those clothes, those materials, and when I went out to get her, I had a message saying that her courage had failed her, that she wouldn't come." "She was a better woman than me," said Joan bitterly. Prosper laughed. "By O d, she was not I She sent me down to h I. I couldn't go back to the East again. I had laid very careful and elaborate plans. I was trapped out there In that horrible winter country . . ." "It was not horrible," said Joan violently ; "It was the most wonderful, beautiful country In all the world." And tears ran suddenly down her face. But she would not let him come near to comfort her. "Go on," she said presently. "Before you came, Joan," Prosper went on, "It was horrible. It was like being starved. Everything In the house reminded me of her, I had planned It 11 very carefully and we were to have been happy. You can fancy what It was to be there alone." Joan nodded. She was Just and she was honestly trying to put herself In his place. "Yes," she satd ; "If I had gone back and Tlerre had been dead, his homestead would have been like that to me." "It was because I was so miserable that I went out to hunt. I'd scout the country all dny and half the night to tire myself out, that I could get sotue sleep. I was pretty far from home that moonlight night when I heurd you scream for help . . ." Joan's face grew whiter. "Don't tell about that,' she pleaded. He paused, choosing another open-titg. open-titg. "After I had bandaged you and told yon tbnt Pierre was dead and I honestly thought he was I didn't know what to do with you. You couldn't be left, and there was no lolghbor neiiror than my own house; besides, I had shot a man, nnd, per-naps per-naps I don't know, maybe I was In-fluenced In-fluenced by your beauty, by my own crazy loneliness. . . , You were rery beautiful and very desolate. I was In a fury over the brute's treatment treat-ment of you . . ." "IIuuli!" said Joan; "you are not to nlk about Pierre." Prosper shrugged. "I decided to take you home with nie. I wanted you desperately, Just, I believe, to take care of, Just to be kind to truly, Joiin, f was lonely to the point of madness. Some one to care for, some one to talk to, was absolutely necessary to , .nve my reason. So when 1 was leading lead-ing you out, I 1 saw Pierre's bund move " Joan stood up. After a moment she controlled herself with an effort and sat down again. "Go on. I can stand It," she said. "And I thought to myself, 'The devil Is alive and he deserves to be dead. I This woman can never live with him again. God wouldn't sanction such an CHAPTER VII Against the Bars. Jasper Morena had stood for an hour In a drafty passage of that dirty labyrinth known vaguely to the public pub-lic as "behind the scenes," listening to the wearisome complaints of a long-nosed long-nosed young actor. It was the sixth of such conversations that he had held that day; to begin with, there had been a difficulty between a director and the loading man. Morena's tact was still complete; he was very gentle to the long-nosed youth ; but the latter, bad he been capable of seeing anything any-thing but himself, must have noticed that his listener's face was pale and faintly lined. "Yes, my boy, of course, that's reasonable rea-sonable enough. I'll do what I can." "I don't make extravagant demands, you see," the young man spread down and out his hands, quivering with exaggerated ex-aggerated feeling; "I ask only for decent de-cent treatment, what my own self-respect ab-so-lute-Iy demands." Morena put a hand on his shoulder and walked beside him. "Did you ever rtop to think," he said with his charming smile, "that the other fellow Is thinking and saying Just the same thing? Now, this chap that hns, as you put It, got your goat, why, he came to me himself this morning, morn-ing, and, word for word, he said of you Just precisely what you have Just said of him to me. Odd, Isn't It?" Again the young actor stopped for one of bis gestures, hands up this time. "But, my J d, sir! Is there such a thing as honesty? He eotildn't accuso me of" Well, be thought he could. However, Howev-er, 1 do get your point of view and I think we can fix It up for you so that you'll get off with your self-respect entirely Intact. I'll talk to George tomorrow. You're worth the bother. Good afternoon." The young man bowed, bis air of tragic Injury softened to one of tragic self-appreciation. Worth the bother. Indeed 1 Morena left lilm ot the top of the tl i n icy stairs down which the manager fled to an alley at one side of the theater, where his enr was waiting for Mm. He stood for a while with bis foot on the step nnd his hand on the door, looking rather blankly at the grny, cold wall and the scurrying whirlwinds of dust and paper. "Drop yourself at the garage, Ned," he said, "and I'll tnke the cur." (TO BR CONTINUED.) Dartmouth college has determined not to accept more than 2,(HM) stn dents. A limit of 550 la set for the freshman class. "You Are Not Going to Make It Easy for Me, Are You, Joan?" lug for news of Pierre, I thought you the most beautiful, pitiful thing I hud ever seen. I loved you then, Joan, then. Tell me, did I ever In those days hurt you or give you a moment's anxiety or fear?" "No," Joan admitted, "you did not. In those days you were wonderful, kind and patient with me. I thought you were mote like God than a human, hu-man, then." Prosper laughed with bitterness. "You thought very wrong, but according accord-ing to my own lights, I whs very careful care-ful of you. I meant to give you all I could and I meant to win you with patience and forbearance. I had respect re-spect for you and for your grief and for the horrible thing you liml suffered. suf-fered. Joan, by now you know better what the world Is. Can you reproach me so very bitterly for our happiness, happi-ness, even If It was short?" "You lied to me," said Joan. "It wasn't Just. We didn't start even. And and you knew what you wanted of me. I never guessed." "You dldu't? You never guessed?" "No. Sometimes, toward the last, I was afraid. I felt that I ought to go away. That day I ran off you rememberI re-memberI was afraid of you. I felt you were bad and that I was bad, too. Then It seemed to me that I'd been dreadfully ungrateful and unkind. That was what began to make me give way to my feelings. I was sorrowful because I had hurt you and you so kind I The day I came In with that suit and spoke of her as a 'tall child' and you cried, why, I felt so sorrow-ful sorrow-ful that I'd made you suffer. I want- |