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Show j The Man Nobody Knew 1 (CTpvHght y cm, M.na & Co., mo By HOLWORTHY HALL I "ONCE I LOVED HIM." Synopsis Dick Morfran of Syracuse, Syra-cuse, S. Y., a failure In life, enlisted enlist-ed In the Koreian Lesion of the l-'ren.-h army under the name of Henry liilliard. Is disfigured by shrapnel. The French surgeons ask for a photograph to guide them In restoring his face. In his rage against life ho offers In derision a picture postcard bearing tho radiant radi-ant face of Christ. The surgeons do a good job. On his way back to America ho meets Martin Harmon, Har-mon, a New York broker. The result Is that Morgan, under the name of Milliard and unrecognized a.s Morgan, goes back to Syracuse to sell a mining stock. He Is determined de-termined to make good. He tells people of the death of Morgan. He rinds In Angela Cullen a loyal defender de-fender of Dick Morgan. He meets Carol Durant, who had refused to marry him. - ; CHAPTER IV. Continued. 5 "And , . . nnd I want to thank you now," she said in a tone which would have fallen as a blessing upon the ears of any other man alive, "for speaking as though you loved him. And for all you did for him. Perhaps you know already . . . perhaps you can't know . . . but I'm trying lo tell you, because lie was ... he was one of my very dearest friends." His brain .snapped; he bent down to her. "You loved him too?" ne said, uii-con uii-con lrnlhil.lv. "Yes," she said. "Once I loved him, loo !" Alone in the appointed guest room of the Cullen home for Mr. Cullen had been as good as his word, and Kent a oar to fetch his visitor's belongings be-longings Milliard lighted a cigarette (an acquired taste, but advisable as n minor deception, since he had been notorious for his laste in cigars) nnd grinned expansively. Leisurely he began be-gan to undress, but before his shoes were quite unlaced, he sat back comfortably com-fortably in his chair and meditated. "All serene so far," he said. "But when Carol came In . . ." He shook his head vigorously. "Well, it's over . . . anyway. .The doctor . . ." Milliard's Mil-liard's face darkened. "There's the man I want to get at ! Tious old hypocrite! hypo-crite! And he didn't think I deserved to ho in the family! Sort of hate to lot him make money out of this deal, .'in. u. an in Uie game, uoais of tire! But ton thousand's a lot from the doctor doc-tor .. . we'll say ten thousand." lie closed bis eyes dreamily; and Ms thoughts reverted from Doctor Durant to t he doctor's daughter. "Carol Carol !" he murmured. "One minute there, I thought I'd crack. And I was 'one of her dearest friends.' I was, was I? And she loved me once. Once! Pity it wasn't twice ! Pity she and the doctor didn't say so the night they kicked me out bo neatly. Well, '. . . business is business . . . After they've made their money out of it, nnd found out this man Milliard's some little gold-plated whirlwind all by himself . . . Gad! can't I see their faces when (hey get the truth of it!" With the cigarette drooping from his h'ps, he stood up and swept a clear space in the table. From his suitcase he exhumed a tablet of thin transparent transpar-ent writing paper of n kind not sold in America; it was the paper on which the letter to Cullen from Richard Morgan Mor-gan had been written, and it was sheer luck that Milliard had brought the remainder re-mainder of the tablet from New York with him. Me tossed a blob of ink from his fountain pen and inspected It critically. "Too black," he decided, and went to the bathroom, where he half-emptied the rtivvnip tl,.-. , .. l"l,,i VL me pcu auu renneu U with water. "That ought to be just about right . . . sort of pale and mysterious and war-strength." Me seated himself at the table, took the pen in his left hand and inscribed circles on the paper; scribbled a meaningless sentence and laughed gently. "Funny Isow some people can be ambidextrous and take so long to realize it. If I hadn't caught a bullet in my arm. and tried to write left-handed left-handed in the hospital, I'd give myself away up here in no time. Writing's too blamed distinctive. Cut, as it is, Left Hand, very large and plain, is Henry Milliard" Mere he shifted the pen to the other hand "And Right and. small and curlicue, is poor, dead Picky Morgan 'one of her dearest friends.' I'm giad I killed that chap off he never amounted to a hill of beans anyway. Put this Milliard person a live wire, boy, a live wire!" And with a grin of sardonic humor, he wrote on the flimsy paper, slowlv and a little irregularly, as though in physical discomfort: "Xeuilly, 7-10-l.. "No matter what you ever think, no oiatter what you have ever thought, I isave loved you." Me grimaced, pondered diligently, wd made a correction. "I have always loved you more than ,iy own life. You said my ideals had 'Allien - do you think so now? I don't, ' .:- !: 1 itiiuk lliey'ru almost what ,. you would have them. And it may be that simply because of that, I've loved you more every day, and " Milliard sat back, and his eyes were softly luminous. ".Suppose, by the luck of the very devil, I should fall In love with her again?" he said aloud. "Suppose I should!" Ma tossed away his cigarette and rested his head in his hands. "Oh, Carol! I did care . . .!" Mis shoulders shoul-ders shook spasmodically ; then all at once he flung himself out of the chair and took to tramping the floor in a hurricane of emotion. His face was sot in granite; he caught sight of It in a mirror, halted and himself was stunned by the transcendant mask which covered his soul in revolt. The work of the surgeons was not far short of miraculous; he couldn't upset It, not by any effort of his will. The eyes might flash, or lower, or chill the other fentn VPS Worn CtilT onlm r strong in their splendid glory. Even now, the face which he saw reflected In the mirror was one to convert the most hurried of all passing strangers to a new, If unformed, assurance in the brotherhood of man. "You dirty blackguard!" said FIU-liard, FIU-liard, showing his teeth. He went pensively back to the letter, studied it, gazed at the floor. "Put after nil," he said, "no matter what she or .anybody else did to me . . . nnd if I can kill two birds with one stone, and be what I've wanted to be all except this damnable way of going nbout it. . . . She acted as though this infernal lying letter would please her that's not the point ; it's a quicker way to get at the doctor. . . . Well, it gets her a letter I never intended in-tended to write . . . nnd Dutout's .war cross, too . . . that'll make it all the easier... . . I'll give her that. Angela was going to have it, still. ... So I was 'one of her dearest friends,' was I? What's that worth to Henry Hilliard, bringing back the news from the front?" He sniffed scornfully. "Ten thousand dollars I hope. And the doctor'll make twenty out of it. . . . Gad ! that's turning the other cheek with a vengeance ! Hanged if I drn't almost wish he'd lose his rotten money ! But that can't be helped I'll get some satisfaction somehow." He reread the unfinished note, folded fold-ed it, creased it heavily for versimili-tude, versimili-tude, and gave it the final examination. examina-tion. "Business ... Is business." hp snid musing. "That was a pretty sporty thing for me to do ... to tell her there was a letter. Bit of a chance, too. And after smashing our engagement, engage-ment, she could stand there and tell me ... oh, rubbish ! So suppose we say . . . fifteen thousand from the doctor! But confound it the better salesman I am, the more I get out of him, the more he makes! Whew! Where's the satisfaction in that? . . ." His pupils had narrowed again, giving giv-ing the lie to the sweetness of his mm mM ' V ! '! til Mm " mibti H 'pi S ; Hilliard Was Staring Fixedly. smiling mouth. Then the smile faded and Hilliard was staring fixedly at the document in his hands. "I wonder who in thunder that man Armstrong is?" said the masquerader who had prided himself that he no longer eared. CHAPTER V. He wakened early; and in that state of half-conscious revery which has less of world! iuess in it than perhaps any other state of human existence, he lay vegetating, subtly aware that he was very peaceful and content; but presently, pres-ently, when his brain bad yawned and stretched itself, and begun to set about its usual functions (or. in other words, when Hilliard was sullii.-iently aroused to resume his usual introspec-tivenoss) introspec-tivenoss) he was extremely unhappv, and not in the least vainglorious. He scowled, and struggled to remember remem-ber what it was that had risen out of thin air and angered him last night, at the very instant of his dropping .,j to sleep. Not the Cullens, nor Carol himself, nor Armstrong . . . but wait a moment! Who was Armstrong? Whence and whither, Armstrong? A newcomer to Syracuse (that is, within two years) and already proprietary Hilliard frowned, and rubbed his eyes, and wondered anew. Me was a trifle amused and a trine ashamed of himself; him-self; was it credible that he could be jealous of a man who had merely appropriated ap-propriated what Hilliard had no further fur-ther Interest in? How inconsistent and yet how superbly characteristic of human nature 1 Milliard chuckled to himself In recognition of it and dismissed dis-missed the proposition as unworthy of further attention. Dismissed it, yes ... as a child dismisses a rubber ball with an elastic cord attached to it. From below stairs a Japnnese gong chimed softly and Hilliard, without delaying de-laying another instant, leaped to the "" an nour later, bathed shaved and dressed, he descended complacently; the second clay of his remarkable performance was begun. The Cullens, father and daughter, were waiting for him. They greeted him cheerfully; and he was glad that grief hadn't clung to their eyelids; he would have felt depressed, even although al-though he would have sensed the hidden hid-den compliment. Quick to grasp the nearest handle of diplomacy, he saw that cheerfulness on his own part would help the situation, for now that his duty as a courier was over, there was no need for long protracted melancholy. mel-ancholy. It was a cheerful trio, then, that sat down to breakfast; there was no exhilaration ex-hilaration about it, but at least there was no somber cloud of mourning. Angela, behind the coffee urn, had occasional oc-casional moments of pensiveness, but that was to be expected, and condoned; con-doned; indeed, Hilliard held himself to be greatly favored iy even this. She was imaginative, and Hilliard's pose was calculated to appeal to a lively live-ly imagination. He treated her not as a young girl, but with the respectful deference which belongs to' a mature woman, a mistress of a household, and a hostess in her own right. She was charmed nnd captivated, and so- w;ns her father most assuredly he was! So charmed, in fact, that instead of leaving for his office at half-past eight, he lingered until half-past nine; so captivated, that as his limousine slid quietly down the long, steep hill of .Tames street, he found himself ascribing ascrib-ing Q nan, f1rt e , . - , -"t, " uciee oi cieuu to UICKy Morgan for the simple reason that Dicky Morgan had gained the full esteem es-teem of such a friend as Hilliard. A mighty nice young man, thought Cullen. A man of soundest judgment, through and through. A man of brilliant bril-liant intellect and razor-edged analysis. analy-sis. Had he not snid, and furnished illustrations il-lustrations from his broad experience, exactly what Cullen himself had said, in regard to labor, nnd materials, and transportation, and "production, these half a dozen years? Cullen sat back and smiled triumphantly. It does a man good to hear his pet convictions approved, expanded and laid down as axioms by another wise man. Back on the wide veranda Angela had curled up comfortably in the hammock ham-mock and, beside her, Hilliard was enjoying en-joying a cigarette. He was enjoying, too, this rare interlude of respite ; he looked across at Angela, and thanked his stars for the invitation which had made this quiet hour possible. She lifted her eyes, caught Hilliard smiling at her nnd blushed furiously, not for any shame accruing to her, but because she had arrived at (he age of easy blushes. "I . . . suppose you're going over to Carol's pretty soon," she said, constrained con-strained to say something and grasp-inrr grasp-inrr at the first- nv.nilnhlo iiiun I "So anxious to get rid of me?" he asked, amused. "Oh, no!" Horror was in her tone and mortification. "Only ... I wanted to talk to you before you saw Carol. Because Carol doesn't ... I don't think she'll exactly feel as I do about this ... I know she won't. Maybe it's because Dick and I were chums, and she and Dick were . . . oh, you know. It's different. You ought lo take that into consideration when you talk to her, I mean. I don't mean I don't care, because I do terribly hut I ... I can see what it meant to Pick . . . and I know how he'd have loved it, and picked this out of every possible way, to . . . end things, but Carol . . .. she's different." "How?" Hilliard's voice was even, but very low. "Older," she said, looking away. "And . . . and they were going to marry each other some time." "But wasn't that broken off?"' "Yes, but she was waiting." "Waiting?" "Why, of course." Milliard's breath quickened. "I should have guessed that this Mr. Armstrong " "Oil, but that wasn't until she thought Dick wasn't ever coming back. And besides, she isn't really crazy about him just lonesome." "Indo.-d." Milliard compelled himself him-self lo relax. "So you th.uk she'll be . . . hurt?" "Hun?" Angela's voice was th'n v.ilh ei.iphasis. "i'.a . ;..-r I" "If there's anything you think I'd better say, or not say " He rose, out of sheer inability to endure this ingenuous in-genuous estimate of Carol's heartache. "Perhaps you'll tell me because it's time for me to be going over." Angela bad risen, too, nnd stood beside be-side him. Her features were composed, com-posed, but still suggestive of inward emotions a little too tender to convey. "If there's anybody in the world," she said, "who could give Carol any consolation just now, It's you. I don't suppose you ever were a minister, but you look a.s though everybody could come to you and tell 'most everything, and you'd help . . . anyway, you'd try to. So I wish you'd . . . you'd sit and listen . . . Carol's got to talk to somebody, and when you're hurt the way she is, you can't talk to your family . . . and you were a friend of Dick's. And . . ." She swallowed, and went on more slowly. "You can use your own judgment, of course, but tif I were In your place I'd lie." "Lie!" he repeated, aghast. "Yes, I would! He . . . he must have sent her some word, Mr. Hilliard! He must have!" She was desperately serious now, and thoroughly thor-oughly aroused. "It means the whole world to her! It's everything! Why, even I've got more than site has, and she was waiting for him to come back to her! I'd lie myself black in the face, but I'd tell her something tell her anything I could think of to make her believe lie hadn't stopped caring! It can't do any harm now." It can't hurt you. And I won't even ask you whether you do or not. Only you're here, and she'll trust you " "Will she?" "How could she help It?. And . . and that's all. Please don't let her think he didn't care !" Hilliard stood irresolute; chaos in his brain. "I'll . . . see," he sale with difficulty. "I'll see." "Won't you promise me? I won't ask you afterward, if j'ou " "Does it mean so much to you?" "Ever and ever so much. . . . Won't you please promise?" He gazed at her a moment, yielded with a show of reluctance. "Very well I promise. Because you've asked it. And because it's the dearest, most generous, most thoughtful thought-ful thing I ever heard of in all my life. . . . And after that, can't we be truly friends?" Flushed, perplexed, honored, she gave him her band .with a hesitancy which betrayed the deep sense of compliment com-pliment she felt. "I don't think I could he prouder of anything that could possibly happen to me," she said. Was it worth the blatant mummery he had conceived and executed? Was it not worth that, and Infinitely more? She was proud of his friendship . . . and she shared that distinction distinc-tion with no one else in the entire universe. Proud of it! Milliard was fulsome-ly fulsome-ly abashed. Abashed yes, and simultaneously simul-taneously glorified. He had come to make the city proud, ignorantly proud, of the man whose deeds had merited no renown. -Here, at the very inception incep-tion of his plans, a seventeen-year-old girl was proud of him as he was. Courage. Inspiration. Resolve. He had won her respect by the promise prom-ise of a lie; and in this instant he vowed to deserve, by other and increasing in-creasing lies if need be, the prestige he was unalterably committed to gain, whereby the past should be as nothing, noth-ing, and the future should be a magnificent mag-nificent citadel of reconquered dreams. She was proud of him, and she had approved the lie in behalf of Dicky Morgan's memory. Unwittingly, she had sanctioned the very purpose of his coming, and the method of his approach. ap-proach. She bad confirmed his own intentions, nnd given him (lie will to advance. He was to net as the stanch defender of her playmate perished, nnd to make of himself a new and a better man, worthy of the eulogies which, as trustee, he now accepted for the unworthy Morgan. He consecrated himself to this end. Told himself fiercely that he would succeed. And she was proud of him! It was another an-other omen. . - It was eleven o'clock to the minute when Hilliard, not quite so blithe as a wedding guest, and yet not altogether alto-gether as doleful as a mourner, waved his hand to a slender girl who stood on the veranda of a house diagonally across the street, and went slowly up the Puranfs' brick walk. He had anticipated an-ticipated the effect of this pilgrimage upon his nerves, he had discounted it; and Angela's advice had given him an artificial stimulus for the moment; nevertheless, as the front door opened to him, anil he saw, over the head of a smirking maid-servant, a hallway and a vestibule unchanged, bis brealii rlinu' it 'bile faster than usual, and his cheeks went a little darker. It was, so to speak-, a return to a shrine, and a normal man might easily be par-don-il for a little sentiment on the side, no matter how often he had el auged his religion during the inean-lime. inean-lime. The maid, knvlng dci.eKited him In the living room, disappeared in a quick llurv of skirts; Hilliard, standing at the end of the long, high-roofed apartment, apart-ment, found himself surrounded by a thousand goads to remembrance. Not an Item was out of place; not an item was otherwise than aS he had often recalled it; his memory had been photographic. At the opposite end of the room, flanking the black-marbled fireplace, was a graceful, swan-nscked sofa, beautifully carved and splendidly upholstered. up-holstered. Doctor Durant had once remarked that Carol represented the fifth successive generation of her family fam-ily to be courted on it. And evening after evening, in the nges that had gone before, Hilliard had sat there and dreamed and loved ; and sometimes when Carol had slipped away from him he had sat there and dreamed and I W -, i, "Carol!" loved and smoked, while she played Chopin and Rubinstein and Moscowski to him. And the piano somewhat battle-scarred but withal a master instrument in-strument was still over in its accustomed accus-tomed place, with the "Military Polonaise" Polon-aise" perched open on the rack. Then his pupils narrowed to gray necks of ice ; for memory, bv one nf those tricks against which there is no defense, told him that be stood in this same position, in exactly this same spot, when two years ago the doctor had pronounced his sentence, and Carol, in terrible silence, had then and there confirmed' it. His imagination imagina-tion conjured up that scene again ; his blood chilled; he could fancy that Carol and the doctor were actually before be-fore him, and that he was staring at them in the flesh, and feeling the lash of the doctor's quiet peroration. . . . At the threshold there was a faint rustle of fabric, and Hilliard turned. Carol ! His hands went out mechanically, mechan-ically, and hers to him; and Hilliard, tasting the acid of his . somber mood, smiled benignly. "I mustn't keep you waiting," he snid, dropping her hands. "I've brought you the letter I spoke nbout." He gave it to her, and coughed his em-" barrassment. "I'm positive it's for you. And I'm sure you don't want anything to prevent you from reading read-ing it at once, so if you'd rather prefer pre-fer to have me come back later for the talk you wanted " He was already moving toward the doorway; she restrained him gently, although her eyes couldn't be dragged from the folded paper he had given her. "No," she said, "please don't go. I particularly want you to meet my father, fa-ther, Mr. Milliard. He's anxious to see you, too. Won't you wait while I call him?" He inclined his head; followed her with his eyes to the hallway, strained his bearing, and knew that she had opened the letter as soon as she was out of his sight. His lips twitched cynically and then, as he remembered remem-bered Angela's injunction, straightened. straight-ened. After all, this much was pure charity. Pown the hallway, there was the reverberation of a closing door, and silence. Justice to Dick Morgan's memory. CIO UE L'0-T1.UJ;.) |
