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Show jGrace Livirforvllili Lufz author o"riAReiA Schuyler," "morer dcanl" "DAW1 Of THC MORNING " ETC. ILLUSTRATIONS 7tA CVAjTttf SYNOPSIS. Tyron Dunham, lust alighted from a train. Is ' apuruaehod by a beautiful tfrl who rinks tils protection. .She Is in ft-ar of pursuit, but declines to j;lve the cause of her distress. Dunham tnkeH her to his home and In the absence of his mother moth-er and sister borrows a hat and cloak for her. He takes her to a dinner party At the home of a friend and fflves her name as Mary KemiriKtnn. Her actions lamp her as a Klrl of refinement and breeding. After the dinner she requests Ihinham to assist her to leave the city. He putH her on a train fur Chicago and supplies her with money. Dunham has become Intensely interested In the plri and anxious to solve the mystery which surrounds her. Stories In the newspapers of nilHsinMT Ktrls only add to his bewilderment bewilder-ment ' CHAPTER V. B&glnnlng with the awful moment when ehe first realized her danger and the neceHslty for Immediate flight, she lived over every perilous Instant, her nerves straining, her breath bated as If she were experiencing It all once more.. .The horror of It! Her own hopeless, helpless condition! But finally, final-ly, because her trouble was new and her body and mind, though worn with excitement, were healthy and young, she sank Into a deep sleep, without having decided at all what she should do. At laet she woke from a terrible dream, in which the hand of her pursuer pur-suer was upon her, and her preserver was in the dark distance. With that Btrange insistence which torments the victim of such dreams, she was obliged to lie still and imagine it out, again and again, until the face and voice of the young man grew very real In the darkness, and she longed Inexpressibly for the comfort of his presence once more. , , At length she shook off the pursuing . thoughts and deliberately roused herself her-self to plan her future. The first necessity, Bhe decided, was to change her appearanse so far as possible, so that if news of her escape, with full description, had been telegraphed, tele-graphed, ehe might evade notice. To that end, she arose in the early dawning dawn-ing of a gray and misty morning, and arranged her hair as she had never worn it before, In two' braids and wound closely about her head. She pinned up her gown until It did not show below the long black coat, and folded a white linen handkerchief ubout her throat over the delicate lace and garniture of the modish waist Then she looked dubiously at the hat. With a girl's instinct, her first thought was for her borrowed lumage. A fine mist was slanting down and had fretted the window pane until there was nothing visible but dull gray shadows of the. world that flew monotonously mo-notonously by. With sudden remembrance; remem-brance; she opened the suitcase and took out the folded black hat, shook It Into shape, and put it on. It was mannish,' of course, but girls often wore such hats. As she surveyed herself in the long mirror of her door, the 6low color stole into her cheeks. Yet the costume was not unbecoming, nor unusual. She looked like a simple school girl, or a young business woman going to her day's work. , . - - But she looked at the fashionable proportions of the other hat with something some-thing like alarm. How could she protect pro-tect it,?' She did not for a moment think of abandoning it, for it was her earnest desire to return it at once, unharmed, to its kind purlolner. Sim .summoned the newsboy and purchased pur-chased three thick newspapers. From these.i with, the aid of a few pins, she made -a large package of the hat. She 8BSXI a Here Wa a Ray of Hope. decided to go bareheaded, and put the white kid gloves in the suitcase, but ehe took off her beautiful rings, and hid them safely inside her dress. She. sacrificed one of her precious quarters to get rid of the attentive porter por-ter and started off with a brisk step down the long platform to the Btatlon. She followed a group of people into a car which presently brought her into the' neighborhood of the large stores, M sho had hoped it would. It was with relief that she recognized the name on one of the stores as being of world-wide reputation. L Well for her that she was an experi enced shopper. She went straight to the millinery department and arranged to have the hat boxed and sent to the address Dunham had given her. It had cost less to express the hat than she had feared, yet her stock of money was woefully small. Some kind of a dress she must have, and a wrap, that she might be disguised, but what could she buy and yet have something left for food? Lifting her eyes, she saw a sign over a table "Linene Skirts, 75 cents and $1.00." Here was a ray of hope. She turned eagerly to examine them. Piles of somber skirts, blue and black and tan. They were stout and coarse and scant, and not of the latest cut, but what mattered mat-tered It? She decided on a seventy-five seventy-five cent black one. Growing wise with experience, she discovered that she could get a black sateen shirtwaist for fifty cents. Rubbers Rub-bers and a cotton umbrella took another an-other dollar and a half. She must save at least a dollar to send back the suitcase suit-case by express. A bargain-table of odds and ends of woollen jackets, golf vests, and old fashioned blouse sweaters, selling off at a dollar apiece, solved the problem prob-lem of a wrap. She selected a dark blouse, of an ugly, purply blue, but thick and warm. Then with her precious pre-cious packages she asked a pleasant-faced pleasant-faced saleswoman if there were any place near where she could slip on a walking skirt she had Just bought to save her other skirt from the muddy streets. She was ushered into a little fitting-room near by. Rapidly she slipped off her fine, silk-lined silk-lined cloth garments, and put on the stiff sateen waist and the coarse black skirt. Then she surveyed herself, her-self, and was not ill pleased. There was a striking lack of collar and belt She sought out a black necktie and pinned it about her waist, and then, with a protesting frown, she deliberately delib-erately tore a strip from the edge of one of the fine hem-stitched handkerchiefs, handker-chiefs, and folded it in about her neck In a turn-over collar. The result was quite startling and unfamiliar. The gown, the hair, the hat, and the neat collar gave her the look of a young nurse-girl or upper servant. On the whole, the disguise could not have been better. She added the blue woollen wool-len blouse, and felt certain that even her most intimate friends would not recognize her. She .folded the raincoat, rain-coat, and placed It smoothly in the suitcase, then with dismay remembered remem-bered that she had nothing in which to put her own cloth dress, save the few inadequate paper wrappings that had come about her sirr.i.le purchases. She folded the dress smoothly and laid it in the suitcase, under the raincoat. She sat down at a writing-desk, In the waiting room, and wrote: "I am safe, and I thank you." Then she paused an instant, and with nervous haste wrote "Mary" underneath. She opened the suitcase and pinned the paper pa-per to the lapel of the evening coat Just three dollars and sixty-seven cents she had left in her pocketbook after paying the expressage on the suitcase. At her first waking, in the early gray hours of the jnorning, she had looked her predicament calmly in the face. She had gone carefully over her own accomplishments. Her musical attainments, attain-ments, which would naturally have been the first thought, were out of the question. Her skill as a musician was 60 great, and so well known by her enemy, that she would probably be traced by it at once. The same arguments argu-ments were true if she were to attempt at-tempt to take a position as teacher or governess, although she was thoroughly thorough-ly competent to do so. A servant's place In some one's home was the only thing possible that presented itself to her mind. She could not cook, nor do general housework, but she thought she could fill the place of waitress. With a brave face, but a shrinking heart, she stepped Into a drug store and looked up in the directory the addresses ad-dresses of several employment agencies. CHAPTER VI. It was half past eleven when she stepped into the first agency on her list, and business was in full tide. While she stood shrinking by the door the eyes of a dozen women fastened fas-tened upon her, each with keen scrutiny. The sensitive color stole into in-to her delicate cheeks. As the proprietress pro-prietress of the office began to question ques-tion her, she felt her courage failing. "You wish a position?" The woman had a no6e like a hawk, and eyes that held no sympathy. "What do you want? General housework?" "I should like a position as waitress." wait-ress." Her voice was low and sounded frightened to herself. The hawk nose went up contemptuously. contemptu-ously. "Better take general housework. There are too many waitresses already." al-ready." "I understand the work of a waitress, wait-ress, but I never have done general housework," she answered with the voice of a gentlewoman, which somehow some-how angered the hawk, who had trained herself to get the advantage over people and keep it or else know the reason why. "Very well, do as Ayou please, of. course, but you bite your own nose off. Let me see your references." The girl was ready for this. "I am sorry, but I cannot give you any. I have lived only in one house, where I had entire charge of the table and dining room, and that home was broken up when the people went abroad three years ago. I could show you letters written by the mistress of that home if I had my trunk here, but it is in another city, and I do not know when I shall be able to send for it." "No references!" screamed the hawk, then raising her voice, although It was utterly unnecessary: "Ladies, here is a girl who has no references. Do any of you Want to venture?" The contemptuous laugh that followed had the effect of a warning to every woman wom-an in the room. And this girl scorns general housework, and presumes to dictate for a place as waitress," went on the hawk. "I want a waitress badly," said a troubled woman in a subdued whisper, "but I really wouldn't dare take a girl without references. She might be a thief, you know, and then--really, she doesn't look as if she was used to houses like mine. I must have a neat, stylish-looking girl. No self-respecting waitress nowadays would go out in the street dressed like that." All the eyes in the room seemed boring bor-ing through the poor girl as she stood trembling, humiliated, her cheeksburn-ing, cheeksburn-ing, while horrified tears demanded to be let up into her eyes. She held "You See I Have This Particular Company Com-pany Coming." her dainty head proudly, and turned away with dignity. "However, if you care to try," called out the hawk, "you can register at the desk and leave two dollars, and if in the meantime you can think of anybody any-body who'll give us a reference, we'll look it up. But we never guarantee girls without references." The tears were too near the surface sur-face now for her even to acknowledge this information flung at her in an unpleasant un-pleasant voice. She went out of the office, and immediately surreptitiously surreptitious-ly two women hurried after her. One was flabby, large and overdressed, over-dressed, with a pasty complexion and eyes like a fish, in which was a lack of all moral sense. She hurried after the girl and took her by the shoulder just as she reached the top of the stairs that led down into the street. The other was a small, timid woman, wom-an, with anxiety and indecision written all over her, and a last year's street suit with the sleeves remodeled. When she saw who had stopped the girl, she lingered behind in the hall and pretended pre-tended there was something wrong with the braid on her skirt. While she lingered she listened. "Wait a minute, miss," said the flashy woman. "You needn't feel bad about having references. Everybody isn't so particular. You come with me, and I'll put you In the way of earning earn-ing more than you can ever get as a waitress. You weren't cut out for work, anyway, with that face and voice. I've been watching you. You were meant for a lady. You ne.d to be dressed up, and you'll be a ri.al pretty girl " As she talked, she had come nearer, and now she leaneM over and whispered whis-pered so that the tnid woman, who was beginning dimly to perceive what manner of creature jiis other woman was, could not hear. But th& girl stepped back with sudden sud-den energy and flasttsd eyes, shaking off the berlnged hand that had graiyed her shoulder. "Don't you dare to speak to me!" she said In a loud, clear voice. "Don't you dare to touch me! You are a wicked woman! If you touch me again, I will go in there and tell all those women how you have insulted me!" "Oh, well, if you're a saint, starve!" hissed the woman. "I should rather starve ten thousand times than take help from you," said the girl, and her clear, horrified eyes seemed to burn into the woman's evil face. She turned and slid away, like the wily old serpent that she Wat. Down the stairs like lightning sped the girl, her head up In pride and horror, her eyes still flashing. And down the stairs after her sped the lit-' tie, anxious woman, panting and breathless, determined to keep her in sight till she could decide whether it was safe to take a girl without a character char-acter yet who had Just shown a bit of her character unaware. Two blocks from the employment office of-fice the girl paused, to realize that she was walking blindly, without any destination. des-tination. She was trembling so with terror that she was not sure whether 6he had the courage to enter another office, and a long vista of undreamedof undreamed-of fears arose in her Imagination. The little woman paused, too, eyeing eye-ing the girl cautiously, then began in an eager voice: "I've been following you." The girl started nervously, a cold chill of fear coming over her. Was this a woman detective? "I heard what that awful woman said to you, and I saw how you acted. You must be a good girl, or you wouldn't have talked to her that way. I suppose I'm doing a dangerous thing, but I can't help it. I believe you're all right, and I'm going to try you, if you'll take general housework. I need somebody right away, for I'm going to have a dinner party tomorrow night, and my girl left me this morning." morn-ing." The kind tone In the midst of her troubles brought tears to the girl's eyes. "Oh, thank you!" she said as she brushed the tears away. "I'm a stranger here, and I have never before be-fore been among strangers this way. I'd like to come and work for you, but I couldn't do general housework, I'm sure. I never did it, and I wouldn't know how. "I could help you with your dinner party," she went on. "That is, I know all about setting the tables and arranging arrang-ing the flowers and favors. I could paint the place-cards, too I've done it many a time. And I could wait on the table. But I couldn't cook even an oyster." "Oh, place-cards!" said the little woman, her eyes brightening. She caught at the word as though she had described a new star in the firmament. "I wish I could have them. They cost so much to buy. I might have my washerwoman come and help with the cooking. She cooks pretty well, and I could help her beforehand, but she couldn't wait on table, to save her life. I wonder if you know much about menus. Could you help me fix out the courses and say what you think 1 ought to have, or don't you know about that? You see, I have this very particular company coming, and I want to have things nice. I don't know them very well. My husband has business relations with them and wants them invited, and of all times for Betty to leave this was the worst!" She had unconsciously fallen into a tone of equality with the strange girl. "I should like to help you," said the girl, "but I must find somewhere to stay before night, and if I find a place I must take It. I just came to the city this morning, and have nowhere to stay overnight." The troubled look flitted across the woman's face for a moment, but nor desire got the better of her. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |