The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-06-15
PART III.


When the men began to push their
chairs about on the bare parlor floor,
however, she rose and fled shortly into
her room, closing her door and locking
1t behind her. Then she flung herself
on her bed and wept wildly, wTinging
her hands and asking herself what she
should do.
She heard the clock strike twelve.
There was "a sound of doors and Win
dows opening and shutting. Then she
heard the men tramping off. Hoarse
voices uttered a few words under her
window. She knew that the last details
of the elaborate plot were now ar
ranged Then there was a dead sill
ence The very pines seemed to wait
and listen.
Once she sprang UP determined to
fly to the village and rouse up her
friend. She would tell Mrs. Wood of
the danger that threatened her hus-
band and the bank. Then they could
go together and drive the men away
The next day, the hole which had been
made through the ceiling could be
filled up, and the Keasbeys and Mikey
and the rest could vanish quietly from
the place.
Thus reasoned the child within her
but the woman there laughed aloud at
such Stiffness. "It would mean the
whole town awake and excited" said
The wiser mentor. 'It would mean
twenty years in prison, perhaps, for
your father and for Mikey."
AS she lay upon her bed, clutching
the counterpane, and shuddering and
groaning aloud, her fathers kindness
to her through all her life passed like
a panorama before her. His old ten
derness and goodness blotted out for
a moment all his sternness and all the
vices which had made her love him less
this summer
1T is for my sake that he Is risking
his life and his freedom tonight" she
wept. "He wants to make O. lady of
me.h
1t seemed as though real and sinewy
hands caught her heart between them
and compressed it until it ached. She
could hardly breathe. She rushed to
the window for air.
"And Mikey!" she painted. ct couldn't
give up Mickey! 1 don't so much
mind the others. They are bad through
and through. But my father isn't.
Anyway, he has always been good to
me. And Mickey is good. That is what
my father meant when he said that
Mikey hadn't any nerve. Mikey said
he was going to get into some sort of
regular business. l know now what
he meant. He knows that could never
bear to have him doing things like
this. He understands me. If he only
gets along right tonight, he will turn
over new leaf and become an honest
man-and father, too."
CHI - 4
the convent, and their peaceful, vir-
tuous lives If they had quarrels or
troubles they had never let her know
it. She imagined their dismay If they
should learn that her father was a
burglar.
She thought, too of Mrs Coils Wood.
Her beautiful, innocent face seemed to
rise out of the shadows and confront
the girl only an arms length away,
and her eyes were brimming with re-
proachful tears.
"I loved you. I trusted you," the
sweet mouth seemed to say, "and how
have you rewarded me? / did every
thing in my power for you. l would
have done more II you would have let
me--and yet you have given over the
one l loved best to robbers-perhaps
to murderers. You have let thieves
steal my property, and that Of many
other blameless people. Is this right ?'
On the moment, the girl heard a flut-
tering in the darkness. Black as it was,
she could dimly discern in it the shape
of the great white moth, which had
come to her when she had sat with her
mother on the kitchen steps She had
kept 1t in her room and had fed it ever
since. Now 1t had flown away. She had
never known one to fly away from her