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Show mm Randolph cncm '.and LILLIAN CHESTER tTt ' ILLUSTRATED 4 CD.RHODES H mcO?POtAT0N " mmdi . i, ,.inii,ai, i ! mm CHAPTER XXII Continued. ; -16- "Good evening," he said formally. "Good evening," she replied, and he ( went out of the door. When he hud gone, she flew up to i her looms, her first coherent thought , being that she had accomplished it! She had seen ' Allison, and had given him her definite answer, and had gotten got-ten him out of the house while the others were back in the billiard room. Slio had held up splendidly, but she was weak now, and quivering In every limb, and she sank on her divan, sup ported on one outstretched arm; and In this uncomfortable position she took, up the eternal question of Gail. The angry tears of mortification sprang into her eyes! Th library was quite steadily devotee! de-votee! to Vedder court tonight. A highly high-ly in;j)ortant change had come into the fortunts of Market Square church. It was aa If a stone had been thrown Into In-to a group of cardboard houses. All the years of planning had gone the way of th"J wind, and the card houses had all to be built over again. The cathedral had receded by a good five years, unless the force and fire of Rev. Su.th Boyd should be sufficient to coax eapttal out of the pockets f his milliosiirc Wijrregation ; and, In fact, that quite normal plan was already under advisement. The five of this Impromptu counsel were deep in the matter of ways and mans. when a slender apparition, in clinging gray, came down the stairs It was Gail, who, for some reason unknown, un-known, even to Lur, had decided that he was selfish; and Rev. Smith Boyd's heart ached an he saw the pallor on her delicately tinted cheeks and the dark traeing about her brown eyes. She slipped quietly tn among them, her brown hair loosely waved, so that unexpected threads of gold shone In it When she passed under the chandelier, end she greeted the callers pleasantly. nd sat down in the corner, very silent. She was glad that she had come. It was restful in this little circle of friends. A noise filled the hall, and even the lights of the library seemed to brighten, bright-en, as Lucile and Ted, Arly and Ger aid, and Dick Rodley, came tumbling In, laughing and chattering, and carrying carry-ing hilarity in front of them like a wave. Gail shoved her tangle of thoughts still farther back in her head, and the sparkle returned into her eyes "We're bringing you a personal invl iatlon to Arly and Gerald's yacht party," jabbered Lucile, kissing everybody every-body in reach except Rev. Smith Boyd. "You might let Arly extend the invitation invi-tation herself," objected Ted. "I've given the pleasure to Gerald," laughed Arly, with a vivacious glance t that smiling gentleman. "He does-; It so much better. Now listen." "It's a little informal week-end party, on the Whitecap," Gerald informed them, with a new something in- him which quite satisfactorily took the (place of cordiality. "Sort of a farewell affair. Arly and I are about to take a eelfish two months' cruise, all by ourselves," our-selves," and he glanced fondly at the handsome black-haired young woman tinder discussion "We should be pleased to bars you join us." and he Included Mrs. txju and the young rector rec-tor with a nod "Of course we'll come," agreed Gall "Doctor Boyd, can't you arrange for a week-end party once in your life?" "Unfortunately custom has decreea that week-end parties shall cover Sun days." he regretted, but there was a Calculating look in his eye which sent Lucile over to him. "Play booky just once," she begged. "This is only a family crowd, the Babbitts Bab-bitts and Marion Kenneth, and we who are here." Rev Smith Boyd looked at his mother, and that lady brightened visibly. "When is It to be?" be asked "Saturday," Arly Informed him. Joining Join-ing Lucile, who had sat on the arm ol Mrs. Boyd's chair. Arly sat on the ther one. and Gerald Fosland. with an entirely new appreciation of beauty, thought he had never seen a prettier picture than the sweet-faced old lady with the fresh and charming young women on either side of her. Rev. Smith Boyd glanced, for just en iustant. at Gail, who was now Bitting on the leather couch leaning confidingly against her Aunt Grace He had been at some pains to avoid this young lady recently, for it is natural to spare one's self distress; but there was a look of loneliness- about ber which sent his heart out to her lu quick sympathy. 1 think I'll Play hooky." he announced, an-nounced, with a twinkle in the eyes which he now cast upon his mother. "That's being a good sport," approved ap-proved Ted. "Stay away a Sunday or two, and Market Square church will appreciate you better." "Let's have some music' demanded Lucile. , . , -Gall and Doctor Boyd must sing for you." announced Aunt Grace, in whom there was a trace of wilfulness. -They do slug "o beautifully together "I'm afraid 1 can't tonight," refused Gall hastily, and indeed she had good reason why her voice should not have its firm and true quality just now. "I will accompany Doctor Boyd, though, with pleasure," and she started toward the music room. I Rev. Smith Boyd was cut off from : the ordinary lies about not being In good voice, and suffering from a slight cold, and such thiugs. He hesitated hesi-tated a moment, and then he followed. The Bedouin Love Song, the Garden of Sleep, and others of the solo repertoire reper-toire which Gail had selected for him. came pulsing out of the music room, first hesitantly, and then with more strength, as the friendly nearness between be-tween himself and the accompanist became better established. Presently, the listeners in the library noticed an unusual pause between the songs, a low-voiced discussion, and then, the two perfectly blended voices rose In a harmony so perfect that there was moisture in the eyes of two of the ladies present. CHAPTER XXIII. Gail First! . Allison, springing forward with a jerk as he left Jim Sargent's house, headed his long, low runabout up the avenue. He raced Into the park, and glanced up at the lookout house as he sped on past; but it was only a fleeting look. He needed no reminder of Gail. As he passed Roseleaf inn, he slowed down. The roadhouse may have given him, and probably did, an other reminder of Gail, in such a manner man-ner as to concrete him into logical thought; for he slowed down the ter rific speed which had been the accompaniment accom-paniment of his unreasoning "emotion. The driving required too much concentration con-centration for specific thought. With this turning of his mental attitude, atti-tude, even the slow running of the car seemed to disturb him, and, about half a mile past Roseleaf inn, he came slowly to a stop, sitting at the wheel, with his head bent slightly forward, and staring at the spot where the roadway road-way had ceased to roll beneath his machine. Presently he became aware of the cold, and running his car to the side of the road, be stepped out, and, buttoning his coat around him, crossed a fence and walked through the narrow nar-row strip of trees to the river bank, where he stood for a moment looking out upon the misty Hudson, sparkling under the moonlight. He began to walk up and down the bank presently, the turf sinking spongily under bis feet, and it was noticeable that his pace grew more and more rapid, until he was striding at a furious rate of speed. The man was in a torment of passion. pas-sion. He had spent a lifetime in the deliberate acquisition of everything upon which he had set his will; and it was one of the things upon which he had built his success, that, once he had fixed his desire deliberately upon anything, he had held unwaveringly to that object, employing all the forces ot which strong men are capable; patient waiting, dogged persistence, or vicious grappling, whichever was best adapted to gain his ends. Gail! If there bad been tender thoughts of her, they were gone now It was so that be had centered his mind upon her. and himself and hi.-will, hi.-will, until, in all creation, there wap nothing else but that was trivial; am bition, power, wealth, fame, the com I mand of empires and of men, were nothing, except as they might lead to her! So it was that he had come this far, I and the roadway to his present height was marked by the cripples he bad i left behind him, without compunction. without mercy, without compassion. I Bankrupts strewed his way, broken 1 men of purpose higher than nis own. j useful factors In the progress of hu I man life, builders and creators who i had advanced the Interest of the com ' monwealth. but who had been more brilliant in construction than they .had been In reaping the rewards of their building. It was for Allison to do this It had been his specialty; the reaping of rewards. It had been his faculty to permit others to build, to encourage them in it, and then, when the build-Irg build-Irg was done, to wrest it away from the builders. That marked him as the greatest commercial genius of his time; and he had much applause for It. Women. Yes. there had been women, wom-en, creatures of a common mold with whom he had amused himself, had taken them In their freshness, and broken them, and thrown them away; this in his earlier years. But In bis maturity, he bad bent all his strength to a greater passion; the acquirement of all those other things which men had wanted and held most dear, among them acquisition, and power, and success. suc-cess. Perhaps it had been bad for him, this concentration, for now it left him at the height of his maturity, with mistaken mis-taken fancies, with long pent fires, with disproportionate desires. Bringing Bring-ing to these, he had the tremendously abnormal moral effect of never having hav-ing been thwarted in a thing upon which he had set his mind, and of believing, be-lieving, by past accoaailielinient, that anything upon which he had set nis wish must be his, or else every victory he had ever gained would be swept aside and made of no value. He must accomplish, or die! He was without God, this man; he had nothing within him which conceded, con-ceded, for a moment, a greater power than his own. In all his mental imagery, im-agery, which was rich enough in material ma-terial things, there was no conception of a deity, or of a need for one To what should he pray, and for what, when he had himself to rely upon? Worship was an idealistic diversion, a poetic Illusion, the refuge of the weak, who excused their lack of strength by ascribing it to a mysterious something beyond the control of any man. He tolerated the popular notion that there must be a God, as he tolerated codes of social ethics; the conventions which laid down, for Instance, what a gentleman gentle-man might or might not do, externally and still remain a gentleman. In the meantime, if a man-made law came between be-tween him and the accomplishment of his ends, he broke it, without a trace of thought that he might be wrong. Laws were the mutual safeguard of the weak, to protect themselves against the encroachment of the strong; and U "as In the equally natural nat-ural province of the strong to break down those safeguards. In the same way he disregarded moral laws. They, too, were for the upholding of the weak, and the mere fact that they existed ex-isted was proof enough that they were an acknowledgment of the right of the strong to break them. There is a mistake here. It lies In the statement that Allison recognized no God. He did. Allison. Not Allison, the man, but the unconquerable will of Allison, a will which was a divinity In itself. He believed in it, centered on It all his faith, poured out to it all the fervidness of his heart, of his mind, of his spirit, of his body. He worshiped it! So it was that he came to the consideration con-sideration of the one thing which had attempted to deny itself to him Gail! A flame raged through his veins which fairly shook him with its violence. vio-lence. It was not only the reflex of his determination to have her, but It was the terrific need of her which had grown up in him. Have her? Of course he would have her! If she would not come to him willingly, he would take her! She was not to be considered In it any more than he had considered any other adverse factor in the attainment of anything he had desired. de-sired. He was possessed of a rage now, which centered Itself upon one object, and one alone. Gail! She was his new summit, his new peak, tho final one where he had planned to rest; but now his angry thought was to attain it, and spurn It, broken and crumbled, as had been all the other barriers to his will, and press ruthlessly ruthless-ly onward into higher skies, he knew not where. It was no time now, to think on that. Gail first! CHAPTER XXIV. The Flutter of a Sheet of Music. Gail, in a pretty little rose-colored morning robe, with soft frills of lace around her white throat and at her white elbows, sat on the floor of the music room amid a chaos of sheet music. mu-sic. She was humming a gay little song suggested by . one of the titles A Flame Raged Through His Veins Which Fairly Shook Him. through which she had leafed, and was gradually sorting her music for the 'yacht party: Instrumental pieces here. ! popular things there, another little pile of old-fashioned glees which the assembled as-sembled crowd might sing, just here a little stack of her own solos, nearby the rector's favorites, between the two their duets. It was her part In one of the latter she was humming now, I missing, as she sang, the strong ac-1 ac-1 companiment of Rev. Smith Boyd's mellow voice. She was more peace-' peace-' ful this morning than she had been for many days. The butler came through the hall, and Gall looked up with a suppressed giggle as she saw him pass the door She always had an absurd Idea that his binges should be oiled. "Miss Gail is not at home, sir," she heard the butler say, and Gail paused with a sheet of music suspended in her hand, the whole expression of her face changing. She had only giveu instructions that one person Bhould re-. re-. ceive that Invariable message. "I beg your pardon, sir!" was the next observation Gall heard, in a tone of as near startled retnonstrance as wa possible to the butler's wooden voice , There was a sound almosi as ol f scuffle, and then Allison, with his toi j coat on his arm aud his hat in hf hand, strode to the doorway of the music room, followed immediately by the butler, who looked as if his hair had been peeled a little bit at the edges. Allison had apparently brushed roughly past him. and had disturbea hi3 equanimity for the balance of his life. Gail was on her feet almost instantaneously instan-taneously with the apparition in the doorway, and she still held the sheet of music which she had been about to deposit on one of the piles. Allison's eyes had a queer effect of being sunken, and there was a strange nervous nerv-ous tension In him. Gail dismissed the butler with a nod. "You were informed that I am not at home," she said. "I meant to see you," he replied with a certain determined insolence in his tone which she could not escape. There was a triumph In it. too. as if his having swept the butler aside were only a part of his Imperious Intention. In-tention. "I have some things to say to you to Which you must listen." "You had better say them all, then, because this is your last opportunity," she told him, pale with anger, and with a quaver in her voice which she would have given much to suppress. He cast a look on her which blazed He had not slept since he had seen her last. He smiled, and the smile was a snarl, displaying his teeth Something more than anger crept Into Gail's pallor. "I have come to ask you again to marry me, Gail. The matter is too vital to be let pass without the most serious effort of which 1 am capable I cannot do without you. I have a need for you which Is greater than anything of which you could conceive. I come to you humbly. Gall, to ask you to marry me." For just a moment his eyes had softened, and Gail felt a slight trace of pity for him; but in the pity itself there was revulsion. "I cannot," she told him. "You must!" he immediately rejoined. re-joined. "As I would build up an empire em-pire to win you, I would destroy one to win you. You spoke last night of what you called the cruelty and trickery trick-ery of the building up of my big transportation trans-portation monopoly. If it is that which stands between us, It shall not do so for a moment longer. Marry me, and I will stop it just where it Is. Why, I only built this for you, and if you don't like it, I shall have nothing to do with It." In that he lied, and consciously. con-sciously. He knew that the moment he had made sure of her his ambition to conquer would come uppermost again, and that he would pursue his dream of conquest with even more ardor ar-dor than before, because he had been refreshed. "That would make no difference, Mr Allison," she replied. "I told you last night that I would not marry you because be-cause I do not, and could not, love you. There does not need to be any other reason." There was in her an inexplicable inexpli-cable tension, a reflex of his own, but, though her face was still pale, she stood very calmly before him. The savageness which was in him, held too long in leash, sprang into his face, his eyes, his lips, the set of his jaws. He advanced a step towards her. His hands contracted. "I shall not again ask you to love me," he harshly stated; "but you must marry me. I have made up my mind j to that." ; "Impossible!" Angry now and con-i con-i temptuous. "I'll make you! There Is no resource re-source I will not use. I'll bankrupt your family. I'll wipe it off the earth." Gail's nails were pressing in her palms. She felt that her lips were I cold. Her eyes were widening, as the ! horror of him began to grow on her. i He was glaring at her now, and there was no attempt to conceal the savage cruelty on his face. "I'll compromise you," he went on. "I'll connect your name with mine in such a way that marriage with me wil' be your only resource. I'll be an influence in-fluence you can't escape. There will not be a step you can take in which you will not feel that I am the master mas-ter of it. Marry you? I'll have you if it takes ten years! I'll have no other end in life. I'll put into that one purpose all the strength and all the will that I have put into the accomplishment accom-plishment of everything which 1 have done; and the longer you delay me I the sooner I'll break you when I do get you." Out of her very weakness had come strength; out of her overwhelming humiliation hu-miliation had come pride, and though the blood had left her face waxen and cold, something within her discovered a will which was as strong in resistance resist-ance as bis was in attack. She knew it, and trembled In the knowledge of it. "You can't make me marry you," she said, with Infinite scorn and contempt He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Into his eyes there sprang a blaze which she had never before seen, but dimly,' in the eyes of any man; but she needed no experience to tell her its despicable meaning. His lipB. which had been snarling, suddenly took a downward twitch, and were half parted. His nostrils were distended, and his blood, flooding into his face, empurpled it. "Then I'll have you anyhow!" be hoarsely told her. and, his arms tensed and his head slightly lowered forward, he made as If to advance toward her. He saw in her frightened eyes that she would scream, but he did not know that at that moment she could not Her heart seemed to have lost Its action, ac-tion, and she stood, trembling, faint. In the midst of her strewn music, with tlle sensation that the room wa, turn ,nTl?.n tou.. -s very quiet Mrs Sar pn. alld Mrs. Davies were upstairs I' servants were all in the rear o tne house, or below, or In "ipper rooms at their morning work. turned swiftly and closed the door of the music room, then he whirled again owards her. with ferocity in his eye. He came slowly, every movement of him alive with ponderous strength. He was a maniac. He was insane He was frenzied by one mad thought which had swept out ot his unrcerse every other consideration, and thfl glut to kill was no more fearful than the purpose which possessed him now. Gail, standing slight, fragile, her brown eyes staring, ber brown bait disheveled about her white brow, fell every atom of strength leaving her, devoured de-voured in the overwhelming might ot this monstrous creature. The sheel of music, which she had been holding all this time, dropped from her nerveless nerve-less fingers and fluttered to the floor: That noise, slight as it was. served to arrest the progress of the man fot just an instant. He was in tio frame He Crouched Slightly as a Wild Beast Might. to reason, but some instinct urged him to speed. He crouched slightly, as a wild beast might. But the flutter of that sheet of music had done more for Gail than it had for him. It had loosed the paralysis which had held her, had broken the fascination of hor ror with which she had been spellbound. spell-bound. Just behind her was a low French window which led to a small side balcomy. With one bound she burst this open, she did not know how. and leaped over the light balcony rail, and ran across the lawn to the rectory gate, up the steps and into the side door, and into the study, where Rev. Smith Boyd sat toiling over a sermon. (TO BE CONTINUED.) It you cannot look on tho bright side of things, bmter keep vour cvos closod as much ns possible |