Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-01-08


ness with deadly effect on you. Macy"
said Dhrtley one evening after the girl
had passed through the outer office on
her way home.
Macy met his friends chatting with
unaocustomed nonchalance. People be
49, / wish they would let us look AZ
tet our own affairs
ooh, they don't seem TO blame you.
1t seems it was n foreEone conclusion
that she would make q dead set at you.
They look on 1t as a sort OF wolf and
lamb affair" Macy muttered some
thing under his breath.
~ look like n fleeced lamb. don't ~"
he asked savagely. And. OF course.
she's the wolf 1t never occurred to
them, / suppose, that n fellow might
consider himself in luck If by any in
terpositlon of Providence Il girl like
that might he made TO care for him.
If only she VIII give me the right To
protect her, l will make these malicious
Mattys-"
why. Macy. you don't mean to say
1t as serious as that?' interrupted
Dartley in startled tone.
ITS this serious that as soon as this
Dluebrd row Is settled Pm going to
ask her to be my Wife,
why, great heaven, Milt! You can't
mean It'll 1t would mean absolutely
social ruin to YOU! l thought | had
told you. Macy, that her father is
jail bird, serving n sentence even now
in the penitentiary."
terrupted Macy's hot reply; and he
Went hastily to the door to look inside.
There was no one there, but Macy
noticed that the girl had forgotten to
close the rear door, and by the time he
had turned the key and returned to
Dertley, Larkin. the superintendent OF
the Blucbird had come In and the con-
Ve~eotion could not he removed.
The next morning Myrela brought
word that the girl was not well enough
to MJrh, and Myrelle. who had been
profiting by the latters private lessons.
was installed in her place for the day.
The news Lnrkin had brought the
night before was serious enough to
keep Macy busy all that day, SO that
he could not call at the girls boarding
house, as he would have desired; and
the letter of farewell which
found him so troubled and
so bound by the Bluebird troubles that
he was helpless to take steps to detain
her from flight, and during the re-
maindor of the week the strike. which
by this time was in full bloom-kept
him even from the comfort of ascertain
ing her whereabouts--that he might
reply to her note. The latter was a
ceaseless undercurrent in his thoughts
throughout the period of the trouble,
and his heart ached in sympathy for
the anguish dimly shown in the girls
short explanation of her departure.
She had returned for some letters
Macy had asker her to post-entering
by the rear door in order not to intrude
upon the conversation of the two in the
front office-and had heard the full
drift of the remarks made by Dartley
relative to herself.
She had told no one where she was
going--but Macy found out at the rail-
way office that she had bought a ticket
to San Francisco: and after the Blue
birds troubles were effectually dis
posed Of he set out to follow up this
one clue.
The personals he inserted in the
newspapers brought no reply; and the
one other means which he resolved to
employ to find her, seemed so visionary
that had it not been his last hope he
would never have considered it.
AS 1t was. the end of two weeks found
him installed in a suite of offices rent
ed in q business block on Kearney
street-waiting the outcome of his adj
vertisement for a stenographer-wh
occupied a three-lne space in each of
the San Francisco dailies. He en-
gagged the first applicant, fresh man
nered youth of nineteen years. and set
him at work copying mining records
in the rear one of the three rooms,
safely beyond hearing of the outer
office.
He was not prepared for the number
of applicants who appeared, and 1t was
not till he saw the abject disappoint-
ment pictured in the faces of some of
them. at his information that the place
was taken, that he began to realize the
doubtful fairness and philanthropy of
his undertaking. After thinking 1t
over with troubled COINCIDENCE. he hit
upon the scheme of asking the more
seedy and homeless looking applicants
for their addresses, on the plea of
sending for them in case the present
incumbent should not suit, and the per-
sons We're dumfounded, later, at receiv-
ing remittance which Macy sent
anonymously as a return for the trou-
BILE they had taken at his behest.
He spent the first day of his amateur
detectiveship in nervous watchfulness.
Every step that sounded in the hall
made his heartbeats quicken, and he
could hardly control an impulse to rush
to the door, before the usual rap
sounded on the outside.
The afternoon of the second day
brought a slight cessation of the
stream of applicants-and Macy. who
had been fidgeting over his magazines
piled on the table for the OCCASION
rose impatiently at last, and went to
the Misunderstanding the people pass
ing outside. He had been there but a
moment when his heart gave "A great
throb. On the opposite side of the
street, familiar,-for all her forlorn
shabbiness,-stood the girl--her eyes
alternately scanning a newspaper, and
the numbers of the buildings on his
side of the street. Macy could not
doubt that she had seen the advertise
ment, and was seeking the address
contained in it, His first impulse was
to rush out to her-but a second
thought made him wiser-and he de-
cided to wait. He watched her covert
IL till she started across the street, and
then went and closed the inner door
upon the stripling's loud key-thump-
ing-fearful lest the sound of 1t might
keep her from entering. Before she
had time to come up, n knock sounded
at the door, and he opened 1t upon q
tall. thin young woman, dressed almost
as forlornly as the girl--who had come
to apply for the position. In his anx-
ety to dispose of her before the ad-
vent of the girl, he did not even take
her address, though her gaunt appear
ance filled him with commiseration.
Giving a sigh of relief as she disap-
peared-he waited at the door, con-
fident that in moment he was to be-
hold the being for whom had been all
his trouble. Five, ten minutes he wait
ed--then sudden fear leaped In his
heart. He went TO the window and
looked out. The shabby applicant who
had just left him was crossing to the
opposite sidewalk, and at her side
walked the girl-having probably been
deferred from coming up by the story