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Show COPYRIGHT ty BELL SYNDICATE WN.U. SERVICE third year he moved Into new, sunny, sun-ny, roomy and beautifully furnished ofiices, with a waiting rwm as large as all of his previous offices had been. He joined the best club lu town ; he joined a country club, and resolutely Lanny drove him out of the office on Wednesday and Saturday Satur-day afternoons to play golf. She denied him the privilege of naming his own fees because she knew they would be too modest; she kept his free list to a minimum ; knowing all his friends, she supervised his social so-cial duties; she kept his books ami was a very devil of a collector; she wrote all his business letters and signed them for. him; she Invested his money for him, and since she was no mean psychologist, she could read a woman patient as she would a book. She was his Admirable Crlchton, and he rewarded her with his confidence, his affectionate friendship and a perfectly dazzling salary raise each Christmas. He always kissed her at six o'clock on the twenty-fourth day o December In each year for the fiv years preceding the late winter aft- fi ' riH. vfv f SYNOPSIS Theodora Gatiln adopts a baby i a final effort to solve his matrl- fionlal troubles. But his wife has anjever wanted her, and their affairs budnd In the divorce court. Ten-year-id Penelope Is given Into the keep-ig keep-ig of Mrs. Gatlln, except for two Hunday afternoons a month. At a ,- nseball game a ball strikes Pen-i- lope on the nose and Mrs. Gatlln amoves her from the hospital and nlrlts her to Europe. "i. J CHAPTER I Continued thJ 2 tec From his cell In the county Jail, Ma-iir. Gittlin Issued orders to his at-.ostjorncyg at-.ostjorncyg to find Penelope and take legal steps to prevent his ex-wlfe Jrom removing her again beyond the , jurisdiction of the court that had ranted their divorce. A diligent jearch of three months failed of Its J"y ibject, so Mr. Gatlln neglected to R (pposit any alimony to his ex-wife's :s jredit. lie knew she could manage E- fery well without the alimony. But ft also knew Louise. She would jave what was coming to her or Ynow the reason why. , When six months had passed, Mr. latlin decided he had never been "Icquainted with her, for she failed nUro make any demand upon him for ha Pr alimony; hence he realized she referred, by keeping Penelope Hy rom him, to cause him the maxl-'mra maxl-'mra of suffering rather than re-eal re-eal her whereabouts by making a ah.(laiin for the alimony due her. A ""cur und a day from the date of he granting of her Interlocutory decree, de-cree, her attorneys petitioned for Tllhe final decree, which was grant- ltd. Mr. Gatlln thereupon dlscov-rvHiPd dlscov-rvHiPd she was living In Paris. aU.This news brought him no comfort. com-fort. She was beyond reach of inlted States law. However, he lad detectives place her under sur-Id'lanco. sur-Id'lanco. They reported her as llv-;ag llv-;ag alone, so Mr. Gatlln concluded ihe had placed Penelope In a y bhool. ' One day the detective agency lent him a very good snapshot of a LJittle girl and asked him if this """lias the child he was seeking. The Kency was unable to recognize In is-ier the original of the photographs od o had sent them. ' . When Mr. Oatlln gazed upon that holograph, he wept. Mrs. Gatlln's Uth cure, as he had suspected It graph, Christmas eve, together with an exquisite little vvatch to replace the dollar titpieee she used to count pulse tfr.ws. On New Year's day, a year laj, he made a formal call and she wai out on a case; so the day she was relieved she called upon him. "Hello, Lanny," he said and kissed her. "I wanted to see you to get some advice. Do you think, Lanny, that I'd make a half decent doctor?" "God made you for a doctor," Lanny assured him. "You'll not have to be more than a mediocre doctor to be financially successful. You were born with the Ideal personality." per-sonality." "Thanks, Lanny. I want to be a doctor, but I want to be a good one, too, so you tell me what I am to do about It. I've just graduated from high school. Made the honor roll," he confided shyly. "Where shall I go to college, Lanny?" Lan-ny?" "Where do you intend to practice when you're a doctor, Stevie?" "Kight here, in San Francisco." "In that event you should attend a local university. You'll go to Stanford university," Lanny decided. decid-ed. "If you graduate with honor there you're bound to get an Internship Intern-ship In Stanford University hospital. hos-pital. About two years of that and you'll know what you want to specialize spe-cialize in, so off you'll go for a post-graduate course in Berlin, Vienna and London for four years. Then you'll return and I'll be your office nurse and manager. How's that for a program?" "Just dandy, Lanny." "It means ten years of grind, Stevie, but don't let time frighten you," she warned anxiously. "Once you know what you know and know that you know it, others will not be long discovering It also, and you'll be years ahead of the half-baked medical dunces this medical world Is cursed with." He flattered her immensely by taking her to luncheon and the matinee. For the next four years Lanny did not see her boy, but he wrote her and remembered her at Christmas and on her birthdays. He was an honor graduate from the Leland Stanford Junior Medical school and was immediately given an internship intern-ship at the University hospital in San Francisco. Inasmuch as Lanny Lan-ny frequently had patients at that hospital, they met several times a year. Lanny kept her ear to the ground, harkening to reports of his progress from worthwhile sources, and learned that he was regarded as a young doctor of distinct promise. prom-ise. One day, after he had been two years an interne, they met In the corridor. "I've been wanting to see you, Stevie," Lanny began without any preliminary fencing. "It's time for your postgraduate course in Europe." "Impossible, Lanny. My father has had a frightful reversal of fortune. for-tune. He's done a father's full duty by me and I'm not going to graft off him and perhaps sacrifice him In his old age. I'm self-supporting now and even saving a little from my salary. In a few years I shall be able to afford a modest office and go In for general practice." prac-tice." "You've followed my program thus far and you'll continue until It's finished," Lanny announced, "I'll loan you the money. The five thousand thou-sand dollars your father gave me has grown to seventy-five hundred dollars and I've saved two thousand thou-sand more, so I'm going to bank you, and you shall pay me six per cent on the money you borrow, and secure me by life Insurance." She was thoughtful for a few moments. "Well, perhaps three years abroad will benefit you more than four years would an ordinary man. So we'll cut the program to three years. After all, you must have some comforts : you've got to live like a gentleman. You will resign here today and I'll have the money for you tomorrow." "Oh, Lanny, you dear old sport, I can't do that!" Thereupon Lanny struck him in a vital spot. Her stern and lonely soul was touched. Not often did she Indulge herself In the weakness of tears, but they flooded her eyes now and her breast heaved. lie was always touched at the sight of suffering; the vast underlying underly-ing sympathy In his nature would never have It otherwise. Abruptly she left him I She knew he would seek her out later, to protest at greater length, to avow himself her eternal debtor for the offer and again decline It. Well, she had her way, and when he returned from Europe she had an office ready for him. She would be forty years old on her next birthday, birth-day, and after eighteen years of the drudgery of private nursing she looked forward to her position in Stephen Burt's office with pleasurable pleasur-able anticipation. She met him at the ferry depot, and he took hor j his heart and kissed her five times twice on each chock and once on the lips. "Well, old pal," he said almost Immediately, Immediate-ly, "I'm a specialist. Neurologist and psychiatrist, and you're to be my first patient. I must go over you thoroughly and see what makes you act the way you do." Success was Stephen's. Modest at first, of course, but of rapid growth, nnd Lanny kr.ew why. His patients fell In love with him and advertised him to their friends. In two years Stephen Burt had repaid Lanny with Interest; U;e ' remainder In real estate that was rapidly appreciating In value. He could afford to retire. They would go somewhere and lose themselves. En route to the station the first leg of his Journey the automobile In which he was riding was struck by another car and turned over. Mr. Gatlln was thrown out and suffered a basal fracture of the skull, from which he died six hours later. CHAPTER II STEPHEN BURT, M. D., was the sort of man whose waiting room always would have been crowded, even If he had not been one quarter as capable as his colleagues col-leagues knew him to be. He was a man of sweet simplicity, absolute honesty and overwhelming sympathy sympa-thy ; in short, he possessed the ideal personality for a successful physician. physi-cian. Miss Lannlng was his office nurse. In training schools for nurses at least it was so In the hospital where Miss Lannlng was trained nurses and Internes develop the sort of democracy and comradeship which delights In nicknames and In dispensing wdth formality. Quite early in her professional career, therefore, Miss Lannlng became known as Lanny. She was a not very good looking, capable, tremendously tre-mendously intelligent, forceful, driving driv-ing person, exactly the type that would Inevitably become an old maid. When Lanny was thirty years old and Stephen Burt was sixteen, she had him for a patient. He had measles. "What a nice, well-mannered boy 1" she thought, the first day she had him. "What a dear lad 1" she reflected the second day. "What a good, kind, considerate patient pa-tient !" she exclaimed to the doctor on the third day. "He must have a sweet, sensible mother." "Perhaps," the doctor had re-piled. re-piled. "I never knew her and neither did the boy. She died at his birth. He's man-raised. His father Is an old friend and patient of mine." "Has he a stepmother?" Even then, Lanny realized she would be a victim of a pang of jealousy If the doctor answered In the affirmative, affirma-tive, for already the boy had aroused her maternal Instinct. She was relieved to learn that his father fa-ther had foisted no such trial upon the boy. On the fourth day of his Illness she called him "dearie." On the fifth day, when she proffered him castor oil, he rebelled ; but when Lanny said : "Now, darling, I'll feel bad If you refuse to obey me," the boy had been Instantly contrite, lie groaned and took It and Lanny kissed him and wanted to weep over him because he was such a dear and hadn't any mother not even a stepmother 1 "Lanny," he said to her on the seventh day, "do . you know I love you a lot? I wish dad would marry you, so you could be with me all the time." 1auny's heart swelled with the poignant grief of her baffled maternity mater-nity at that honest boyish avowal. On the eighth day he developed double pneumonia, as a sequel to the measles. He almost died and so did Lanny. The doctor swore and so did Stephen's father that nothing but Lnuny's devoted nursing nurs-ing brought him through. She wept the day she realized If she drew another day's salary as his nurse, she would be accepting money under false pretenses; and she wept on two counts. First, because she was leaving Stephen, and second, because Stephen's father Insisted on being too grateful for her services. serv-ices. "There Is a reward d le you, Miss Lanning," he told her, "over and beyond the trifling remuneration given you in exchange for your devoted de-voted services. That's a debt Steve and I can never repay, but the boy thinks we ought to make a pretense pre-tense at payment and so do I." And he opened her hand-bag and slipped an envelope in It. When she got back to the nurses' home, where, she lived between calls, she discovered he had given her five thousand dollars! Young Stephen had already given her his photograph. Indorsed: "To my dear I.anny, with love from Steve." Nursing Is the most personal and Impersonal profession lu the world Lanny never expected to see Stephen Hurt again, hut she sent him nt Christmas a four-ounce Fairy fish-lug fish-lug rod from Hardy's In Imilon. It cost her a month's wages. She knew Ids father was a fishing 'enthusiast 'en-thusiast and would probably inculcate incul-cate the same enthusiasm in his hoy. Steve had sent her roses on her birthday; and his love, by tele- "Oh, Lanny, You Dear Old Sport. I Can't Do ThatI" ernoon when Mr. Daniel McNamara called In behalf of the strangest patient pa-tient Lanny's boy had ever been asked to accept. . It had been a long, hard day. Doctor Burt was tired, and a Mrs. Reginald Merton, who was rich and idle, not very intelligent and hence neurasthenic, had been fatiguing him with a recital of her Imaginary aches, pains and megrims. He pressed a button under the desk, tapping out a code message to Lanny, and waited patiently. He knew she would appear momentarily mo-mentarily and say: "I'm sorry, Doctor Burt, but Professor Finne-gan Finne-gan has Just telephoned that you are fifteen minutes late to your engagement en-gagement to meet the great German savant, Herr Doktor Uffitz." He waited three minutes and sent another code message to Lanny, adding the word "Help !" Still Lanny Lan-ny did not appear, so he said with his disarming smile : "Mrs. Merton, the five o'clock whistle has blown, and I can't listen to another word. I've Just remembered a most pressing press-ing engagement, so now if you do not go at once I shall have to throw you out." He had her by the arm and out the door before she could think of another symptom. Then he locked the door, put both legs up on the desk and loaded and lighted his pipe, Just as the door to his nurse's office opened and Lanny said : "I'm so sorry, but Professor Fln-ncgan Fln-ncgan " "She's gone. Where did you go, leaving me here to suffer?" "I was In the waiting room placating placat-ing an Insistent visitor. I told him you had gone for the day, but he flashed some sort of police badge at me, said he wasn't nutty and that his business was private." "Whenever you admit a person whose business Is private and personal per-sonal I am called upon for mental and physical effort, sans a fee, Lanny. Lan-ny. I'm tired." "What you need, dearie," said Lanny, "Is a nice, long, cool, highball." high-ball." "And while you're on the Job, get me one, too," a deep voice spoke from the door behind her. "It's that police person," Lanny cried. "It Is," the police person agreed without malice, "and even If I am a cop, I'm too smart to be fooled by the fibs of any woman. How are you, Doc?" "Tired," he murmured. "Worn to a razor edge talking sanely to the Insane and the seiul-sfine, the subnormal sub-normal and the abnormal. You appear ap-pear sane, officer. Are you?" "I'd be afraid to take a bet I am, Doc. I handle my share o' nuts, too, and there's times they make me think I'm bugs Instead o' them. My name's Dan MeXarcara and I'm the chief of police." "Sit down. Chief. Drag over that armchair." lie smiied at Lanny and held up two finders. I (TO 1 CONTINUED.) j 4 rflhi 1 I 9 i Whon Mr. Gatlin Gazed Upon the Photograph, He Wept. J would, had proved wholly InofTee-, InofTee-, tive. In his ngony, the words of tbe poem dime hack to Mm: , And yoit, my sweet Penelope, out there Bomowhero you wait for r me, :Wlth buils ot roses In your hair nnd I kisses on your mouth. i Ito sold his retail shoe business Hid placed nil his assets In n trust fund, the Income to he paid to him Jurliiff his lifetime nnd to Pene-9 Pene-9 lope after his death, lie saved out of this trust fund, however, ten ttiousnnd dollars, with which he Ilirchased n letter of credit and a -al .ticket to Chorhourtr. v'3 In the Interim Mr. Catlin's detec-Ives detec-Ives had ascertained that Feno-. Feno-. 'He was In school in Switzerland; :e planned to go to that school. " Ibduct Penelope, and his plans '1 ere a trltle hazy, hut he Intended " to mature them as he crossed the -Mantle. Once In possession of enelopo, he would see to It that ' ihe should never know unhapplness ) igaln If any effort of his could pre-J pre-J (ont It. lie was worth halt a mil- Hou dollars half In cash and the |