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Show -ov::o:::o:::o:::::x::"::::''. r 1 ! Alabaster i j Lamps j ro) i : e? : v ; V :: : :: : Margaret Turnbull . i H . J i. . ! -i '- Copyrlfe'bt, 1&25, by Margaret Turnbull. WNTJ Service STORY FROM THE START Claude Melnotte Dabbs. returning- from New York to his grocery store in Peace Valley, ('a., brings with him a stranger, Nrd Carter, whom he introduces to Vila housekeeper. Aunt Lidrty, i. -a a chance acquaintance. Ned to'ls that he has brolten with his fo! ks oecau.se of their paci fistic b-anfiiLjs. Visiting in Clover Hfl-i.iw, Hfl-i.iw, the two men almost run over a Ovs belong inj? to a rl whom Ned recotfnie.s. - Later Sc:i delivers a grocery order, and in his absence the ti'irl, Dorothy Sehln, tells Dabbs that Ned's name is Ransreley and that he in the son of the famous banker. Next morning Ned, starting to work as a delivery boy, takes an order marked "Johnston" to the "White llouo," where he meets Mary Johnston. She tells . him the servants have left, leaving leav-ing her alone with her mother. So.il ijromisn.-i to get new servants. serv-ants. Meeting: Dorothy, who la his former fiuncee, Ned evades explaining his presence in Peace Valley. He arranges with Ettie Pui.silVr to begin work with tha Johnstons, but she is unable to start at once. Ned returns to tell Mary about hiring Ettie, and In explaining this matter to the mother is astonished at her emotion emo-tion when Dabbs' name is mentioned. men-tioned. The coo It arrives, and Mary and Ned start to town for groceries. They are seen by Dorothy Dor-othy Scldon. Worried over financial finan-cial ditticiiltiijs. Mrs. Johnston Is bothered by Dorothy, who warns her there is something suspicious about Ned. After seeing Mrs. Johnston at the inn, Dabbs tells Ned that he has something that he wants to get off his mind. He confesses that, twenty years ago he married "Mrs. Johnston" so that she could Inherit her fa-i fa-i he.r's estate. CHAPTER VI Continued 10 "Yes," Cliuide Dabbs tobl him stonily, as though In answer to the unspoken question, "that's what I did. Married fur money. Sob myself for live hundred dollars " "Croat Scott, C. M. ! Get on! What happened ?" "After I married Polly, and got half the money down, I came home here, saying nothing to anyone. The understanding under-standing was that I was to go buck ai the end of tile week, sigu the necessary neces-sary papers, and pet the rest of the i loney. That was to end the whole business. When I got home. Top was tying, lie died the night I got home, and was buried three days after. ".-W'ler the funeral I made an excuse ex-cuse lo Mom that I had to go back to Millie tilings, and so I got away. I went to the lawyer's office and signed I be papers. M0 told me that Tolly's uncle was dead, hud died two days aller I married roily, and 1 was to lake Hie papers and deliver them to her. She was staying at a little sec-end-iale hotel. She'd given up lier job hut she didn't want to spread lier-M'lf lier-M'lf until she got away from the town where, she'd been a servant girl, l'olly Ivr.-ell' was to give me the rest of ilie money. I'd only been paid half before be-fore I went luune. The lawyer laughed, nil. u he told me that, and added: 'Women are women. She would have it mi.' Then he looked sly, and said : 'iM:,yhc this isn't such a mercenary aii'air as I was led to believe, ir I were you, I'd make her see reason and May in America before she spends ail of her fortune in traveling, or gets taken in by foreigners. It's a lot of money. If 1 were in your shoes, I'd never let her go.' "I walked away from him. ihinklng if lie was In my shoes he'd be In a bad way. I didn't know whether it was be-caii-e 1 was all worn out with grief over Pop. and sleepless nights and worry about Mom and the future, or whether it was because I was miles :.v:.y frniii home and lonely. Somehow Some-how I il dn't seem like myself. I MTiiied i;ke some other person. I tried to'shake the feeling elf. I said to myself: 'All the time I'm with l'olly. I'm going to be just myself the Claude Dabbs I feel like. She don't know me as Claude Dabbs of Peace Valley. "I saw ny future. A hard struggle with a country store anil no lime to tie anyll'ng bill work. Cod! how 1 repelled re-pelled in that short walk down. 1 didn't see why I should be shut up in a grocery for a lifetime, and that was all I could see before me. Why should my father have had to die, when there were men walking round hale and hearty, lots older than be. "And I wanted Pop back! Nothing lo do with the financial part of It. that ache. 1 cared a let. Why, I could have stood the grocery part of - It forever for Pop. I bated every man of bis age that came near nie alive and happy, while Pop lay si ill. There was a sore place in my heart that 1 couldn't hoar, marked wilh ids name. livery (lire I went near It. I Jump m! nwav, like yep jump when you have had a had spot and the dentist's fooling round. "All the things 1 hadn't done that Pop wanted me to do ; all the times I'd disappointed him and acted mean were there. It needed only a touch to send me running down that city street, crying like a baby. "So I shut it oil', ip a corner of my mind, and said to myself: 'That's got nothing to do with this Polly I'm going go-ing lo see. I'll get all through with this young woman, and then I'll go home to what I've got to go home to. But she's nothing to drt with it.' " Ned stopped him. "C. M.," he said. "1 don't think you exactly bated this Polly." "Maybe not. hut I wasn't looking forward with much pleasure to seeing see-ing her. I'd hardly looked nt her in the boarding house, unless I had to yell at her for not tidying up my room, or for tidying It so I couldn't find anything ; or not bringing my laundry up fast enough. No, that isn't quite honest. I'd noticed her, all right. She was too pretty not to notice, but my mind hud been on other things then, and she was Just Polly. Understand?" Un-derstand?" "I think I get the state of mind you were in," Ned admitted thoughtfully, "but I still think you liked the girl a lot more than you admit." Claude sighed. "It's possible. It'e so hard to make people see. though, that sometimes you're one part of yourself and sometimes you're another." an-other." lie began again, as though anxious to get on. "It was getting pretty late and 1 thought if I got there just in time for supper I would have' to ask her to eat .Ma M "I Looked Up and There Was Polly." with me. I didn't think I could stand talking to her, so 1 stopped at a restaurant. "Son, I don't know that I can make you understand it, but I might just as well have had something strong to drink. The food made me feel so queer ; like plowing ahead at someone or something. I took a little walk, and then I said to myself that now I'd only got to get It over and then I could take the nine o'clock train home and that would be all of that. "The hotel wasn't far from the station, sta-tion, and It wasn't very handsome, I guess, but it was liner than any I'd ever been in. I asked for Polly by her own name, only saying Mrs. Instead In-stead of Miss. It was her own idea. She didn't wisli to have anything like talk about us. I said I was her husband. hus-band. The woman called up and told me Polly would be down in a minute. "The parlor was full of people, but nobody I knew. I sat down and wailed, and while I waited that hurry and rush of excitement inside me kept up. it was hard to sit still. 1 wanted lo walk about and talk, but I held myself my-self in. I looked at the people who came in, and they all seemed the same kind of red-faced, common people. Nobody No-body I knew. "Then I heard a voice near me say : 'Well, so it's you.' 1 looked up and i here was Polly." Claude glanced at Ned, who, his eyes shaded with his hand, seemed to be listening intonlly. "Wish I could make you see just svhat she looked lihe to me. I'd never seen her in right clothes; just house dresses and apron tilings. There, lie-side lie-side mo, was one of the prettiest girls I'd ever seen In my life. Sin-was Sin-was dressed all In black mourning for her uncle and it set off her fair skin. It made her red hair look like autumn leaves, kinda llaining and vol soft. I'd mostly seen tli.it hair bun died up in a dusting cap. Well, i guess I gawked at her before I rose In my feet, and l'olly was confused, toe. and kept looking away fioiu me. "'We can't say anything private here.' she said. '.Iabe you'd better con:e to my room." "I told her I -uessed thai would be all right, for I'd said I was her husband hus-band when I came In. "'Oil.' she says, 'did you? Then it's all right. Come along.' "We went up and she opened the door and I went into her room." Claude's pipe went out. There was silence in the room as he filled it, but Claude did not feel it. He had forgotten for-gotten that he was telling tile story to Ned. He had forgotten everything that belonged to himself in the present. pres-ent. He was back in the past, seeing the shy, awkward Claude Dabbs on the threshold of that girl's room, fie remembered ttiat already it looked different from the rest of the house. She had flowers in a vase on l lie rough, cheap, pine dressing table. She had spread clean towels on that, on tile bureau and on her trunk, discarding dis-carding -the dirty-looking scarfs thai had adorned them. They bad been too shy to look at each other. He had stared out of the window. Every time Dabbs brought his eyes around to her, he caught her looking at him, and finally she laughed. It was wonderful, that laugh. It made him feel young again. He had been feeling like an old man, with a weight of sorrow and care on his shoulders, but that girl's laugh had made him feel his own age. Her laugh was young and spiced with deviltry. Hack of it all was the new strange feeling the girl gave hint. He saw hiinseir solemnly giving her tlie papers. He watched her while she put them carefully away in a bag, and counted out the rest of the money. There hud been a moment's awkwardness over that, be remembered. remem-bered. He had made an involuntary movement of his hand, to give il back to her, but she as involuntarily, thrust It back at him. Then he laughed, folded it up and put it away. But he did not go. He had known that he should, but lie could not. He sat down beside her, and they began talking, awkwardly enough at tirst. Then suddenly they were no longer tlie Claude and Polly of the boar.ding house days, but two young things who had lots to say to each other, and enjoyed en-joyed saying it. She told Claude of her plans. She meant to travel and study and see everything. She was fond of reading. Indeed, she had read and planned in n way that seemed remarkable to him for a girl, a servant girl, too, but he noted that site did not ask about his plans. Every time their conversation touched his life, present or future, she changed the subject Then he knew that she meant him to understand under-stand she would have nothing to do with him after tonight. After tonight, Claude would not see her; after tonight to-night she would be away enjoying things, out in the freedom of the world, with money, and she would have no use for 1dm, no use at all. It had eaten into the young Claude's consciousness that she was going to use him as a shield until she met some one she really cared for. Then she would drop him, and his name. "After tonight" echoed and re-echoed In his mind, and lie forgot that lie had no right to expect anything else, for lie had taken her money. Jealousy gradually grad-ually took possession of him. He watched her talk and smile. It struck nine. His train had gone. He did not go; merely sat watching her. He had known, even then, that she saw what she had done to him, and it had gone to her head. He had been one of the "boarders" in the old days, one for whom she must fetch and carry. Now he was at her mercy. He began to think of lots of tilings that proved she had not been as. indifferent in-different to him in those old boarding house days as she had pretended. Even before the money came, Polly Johnston, tlie man-hater, had a soft spot for one man Claude Dabbs. All unconsciously she had let him see that. Claude had wondered afterward if it was not a conscious use of her new-found power. He began to believe be-lieve that it was not entirely by accident acci-dent that she bad made him come to her for the money, instead of having tlie lawyer pay him. He had never, until then, guessed that the girl liked him that way. Put now she to!d him more than she meant, or knew, and when she realized lids, she pulled herself up and began telling him that the lawyer had arranged for her to go to Kranee. She would go as a young widow, fo people who would help her : let her see everything and do everything she wanted to do. lie remembered bow tlie other, younger Claude, after listening to her silcnlly for awhile, had blurted out: "When are yon coming buck?" 'Never !" Follow the astounding adventure adven-ture of Polly and Claude in the i next installment. 1 - Cl'ii 1 1 10 CO.NTIXUED.) .T.:.-.;.T.:.'x.:.ir.:.T.: .'.t --t.: y-.t.!-t--. |