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Show C. und ha r Ms jgp . muJLovo, (WL m3kfe Peggy Uerm w.n.u. release 'ymvtk force me to consent to selling the place here " "But, my dear girl, I thought we'd settled all that," he pointed out gently. gent-ly. "That's the reason Alicia decided de-cided that she might as well let Matthews see what he could do with ( the sale of her place. When you come to think of It, It would be rather silly to keep both " "And you wouldn't consider sharing shar-ing her place?" Megan could not stop the words in time, and knew that a frantic hope threaded them. "My dear!" her father protested, hurt. "What do you take me for? A man without pride, or the natural desire to take care of his wife? Most certainly I wouldn't consider moving mov-ing into Alicia's place. This one is much larger and more comfortable and there's plenty of room. No, I think the whole arrangement is ideal You are always so overworked over-worked with the outdoor labor in spring and summer, that I think it will be very nice to have the worry and responsibility of the housekeeping housekeep-ing taken off your shoulders." "It won't work, Father," she told him flatly. THE STORY THUS FAR: "I'm ond of you, Larry," Meg atd quietly. "That'l not enough," be replied. "Is there someone some-one else?" No one else, Megan assured him, but be knew she did not lore blm enough. They decided to call off their engagement and wait another year. Jim MacTavlsh did not like that arrangement. arrange-ment. Mrs. Stuart was first to tell Megan that her father was "running after" Alicia, and that it was "the talk ol the town." Megan could not believe it ffldn't want to believe it. "Folks U talk-Is' talk-Is' about Mist' Jim and Miz Stevenson," OOld Annie confirmed. Annie left a shirt of her father's and Meg picked it np. There was lipstick on 1L She menUoned It to Jim that night. CHAPTER IX The next morning when she was assembling the laundry, Annie came to Megan carrying a shirt of' Jim's and held it out, saying in that colorless color-less voice, "Do I wash dis one, Miss Meggie?" Megan looked at the shirt, puzzled. And then she saw the unmistakable igns of lipstick on the collar! That of course, had been the reason Annie An-nie had brought the shirt to her so that she might see the lipstick markl Megan drew a breath and said quietly, "Of course, Annie what a silly question!" fJ Megan sat quietly, her hands clenched In her lap. But after all there was surely no reason why her father should not see Alicia Stevenson, Steven-son, if he liked even to the extent of getting her lipstick on his shirt collar! Alicia was a widow, Jim a widower. But that night when Annie and Amos had departed for their own two-room cabin at the back of the barn, and Megan and her father were alone In the house, Megan said quietly, "I understand, Dad, that you've been seeing a lot of Mrs. Stevenson?" woman and your father is lone- I ly-" "And she is selling her place and coming to live with us," she went on. "Oh, good Lord, you can't live with her " "Either that, or I have to agree to sell the farm, and she and father will live in her hou.e." "And you don't want to sell the farm, or go away from it." Tom understood that without any words from her. "I've gathered since I've known you how much the place means to you " She found it very soothing to sit here with him. It was surprising to discover that they knew each other oth-er well enough for silence to be pleasant and companionable so that speech was unnecessary. Gradually the silence and peace of the moon-silvered pines seemed to drift into her heart; her spirits lifted a little. Someday, somehow, some-how, she would find a solution to the problems that now loomed so terribly terri-bly strong and black and evil. Perhaps Per-haps it was only that she was emotionally emo-tionally exhausted and had reached a place where she was conscious only of a lack of emotion that had replaced her grief. They talked quietly, after that interval in-terval of peace and stillness. She asked about Martha and he told her that Martha had completely recovered. recov-ered. She asked hesitantly about Mrs. Fallon, and Tom told her, his j mouth taut and tired, that there was no change there. "She's completely helpless, of course, and there is no change mentally," men-tally," he added wearily. "You mean she can't leave her bed? Can't get around by herself?" asked Megan, remembering, with a feeling of chill, the morning when she had sat here and had watched that grotesquely posturing figure on the back lawn. "She hasn't been out of bed in months and months," he told her Jim looked up at her from his newspaper, and his eyes darkened with anger. "Have you any objections?" objec-tions?" he demanded curtly. "None at all," she answered him evenly. "It's just that I was a little 1 surprised, that's all to hear a thing like that from the neighbors, instead of from you " "A thing like what?" Jim's anger had deepened. "You sound as though I'd been conducting an er affair with a very charming and pleasant woman." "I know nothing about it, except that it seems people are talking " "Pleasant Grove people? Do you think I give a darn what the scum In this place talk about?" "They are my friends," she pointed point-ed out. "That's your own fault," he reminded re-minded her. "You don't have to live in this this hick hole! You had a chance to get out of it " "We're getting away from the subject, don't you think?" "If you're prying, trying to find out about my intentions towards Mrs. Stevenson," Jim said distinctly, distinct-ly, a little malicious light In his eyes, "I have no objection to telling you the truth. I hope to marry Mrs. Stevenson as soon as I can persuade per-suade her! She's selling her place, and I think we can make her happy hap-py here, don't you?" "You would bring her here?" Megan gasped, appalled. Jim's eyebrows went up In pretended pre-tended surprise, though his eyes laughed at her. "And where else would a man take his wife, If not to his own home?" he asked. "You aren't forgetting for-getting that it is my own home quite as much as It is yours?" Megan sat very still, stunned .vith the unexpectedness of the blow. "Of course," Jim went on after a moment, "when Matthews was so sure he could get seven thousand for this place, Alicia and I planned to keep her place and live there, O because her place won't bring over two or three thousand. But when you decided not to sell well, Alicia gave the listing of hers to Matthews, and we feel sure that we can all be quite cozy here together." Megan drew a hard breath. "You know that wouldn't work out, Dad," she said. "I can't see why not! There Is surely ample room four big bedrooms bed-rooms upstairs, five rooms downstairs down-stairs why, there's room enough here for half a dozen people " "If there were forty rooms, there wouldn't be enough room under one roof for Alicia Stevenson and me bothl" Megan told him rashly. "I think you're taking a very unreasonable un-reasonable attitude, my dear," said her father gently, malice twinkling Oln his eyes. "After all, having Alicia here will make things much easier for you. She will take over the mangement of the house, while you can give all your time to your beloved be-loved farming! I think it will be a very good arrangement, all around." "It's an Impossible arrangement and you know It," Megan told him hotly. He shrugged ever so slightly and said gently, "Oh, well, if you are going to take that attitude " He pretended to lose interest, but Megan knew that he was alert, that he was waiting tensely for her answer. "I know why you are doing this. Father," she said at last, one of the few times In her life calling him "Father" Instead of the more endearing en-dearing "Dad." "You think you will heavily. "The doctors say that there is a thin chance of her recovery. That's why we can't bear to send her away. If I had the money to pay for a private sanitarium " He shrugged and his hands clenched into hard, tight fists. "But I can't turn her over to a state Institution. Not while there is the smallest, faintest, faint-est, tiniest hope that she can be made well again." Megan asked uneasily, "But shouldn't she be having treatments?" treat-ments?" "She's had treatments for the past four years," Tom answered wearily. "Everything possible has been done, and a few months ago the doctors told me that the only hope was to get her away somewhere quiet, among new scenes, and just try to build up her physical condition. That might help to restore the lost mental men-tal health, but they couldn't guarantee guaran-tee it. She went to pieces when our son was born dead." Megan said, her voice shaken and ragged with pity, "I'm so terribly sorry " Unconsciously, she had put out her hand to touch him, and as his hand closed over it and held it hard for a moment, she heard him mutter something she couldn't be sure what. They were still for a little, and Megan wondered uneasily about his saying that his wife had not been out of bed in months. She knew that she had seen her, a slim white form, the sunlight gleaming gold on her head, dancing a weird, grotesque gro-tesque dance a dance interrupted by Martha, who had taken the white figure into the house. Did Tom know, she wondered? Did he try to conceal the fact that his wife was not a helplessly bedridden bed-ridden invalid, in the hope of convincing con-vincing people that, while she was a "mental case," she was completely complete-ly harmless? Of course he and Martha were doing everything humanly hu-manly possible to keep anybody in Pleasant Grove from knowing that his wife was a "mental case" She stood up suddenly and said, "I have to go I shouldn't have come, at all, but habit is strong." "I'm glad you did," Tom told her quietly. "And I hope you didn't mind finding me here." "Of course not. There's room on the Ridge for both of us and who knows? Maybe we'll both find solutions solu-tions to our problems here," she answered an-swered as she turned to go. "No, you mustn't come with me " "Only to the fence," Tom told her. "From there on, you have the moonlight moon-light clear to your back door and I can watch until you go into the house and know that you're safe." There was a look in his face that made the protest stop on her lips. She nodded and they walked together to-gether to the fence. When she had crossed the meadow and stood at the little foot-log that bridged the small, busy creek, she turned to look back and saw him still standing there. She threw up her arms In a little gesture that said good night and caught the flicker of his return gesture. And then with her heart considerably lighter than it had been when she left the house, she went back in and up the stairs to ber own room. The house was dark and silent. There was no thread of light beneath be-neath her father's door, and she was surprised, when she reached her own room, to discover that she'd been gone two hours. (TO BE CONTINUED) There was something In the stealth, the furtiveness of bis tread on the stairs "No?" His tone and smile were tantalizing. "Nol I'm not selling! And that's that!" she told him again, her jaw hard and set, her voice unshaken. She got up suddenly and caught her sweater. The night was mild for winter, yet there was a dampness damp-ness and a chill in it that made the sweater, and the scarf about her head very welcome, as she stepped from the back door into the yard. The meadow was washed with thin cbld moonlight, but under the trees the darkness was so intense that she had to feel her way from moonlit patch to moonlit patch until un-til she reached the flat stone beneath be-neath the tallest pine; and as she reached it, her heart turned over In her breast, and terror clutched at her, for a shadow moved in the darkness, and she knew that she was not alone. The next moment the shadow had moved swiftly into a patch of moonlight, and she saw it white on Tom Fallon's face. "I frightened you I'm sorry " Megan managed an unsteady laugh. "And I imagine I frightened you, too," she answered him. "Well, as a matter of fact, you did," he admitted. Then as the moonlight touched her white face he added hurriedly, concerned: "Why, what's happened? You're ill " "Oh, no just well, upset and ever since I was a child I have brought my troubles, big and little, to this spot and tried to find a way out of theml It's a habit that's hard to break," she added with an at. tempted gaiety that had an almost macabre quality. "Could a friend help?" She shook her head. . "I I'm afraid nobody can, really that is, the only two people who can have no intention of doing it. I sound as confused and mixed up as I feel so If you could just overlook it" And to Megan's own horror, and Tom's shocked surprise, she burst into tears! After a stunned moment, Tom put his arm about her and held her close as though she were a frightened, bewildered be-wildered child, and his soothing words were the words one would have used to a grieving child. "My father Is going to marry Alicia Stevenson," she told him, and so strong was the bond of friendship between them that it did not occur to her to be surprised that she should confide in him. She heard him swear under his breath, but after a moment, he tried to offer comfort "Well, of course I suppose she's a very attractive |
