The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1900-11-30
! THE STURGIS WAGER I
A DETECTIVE STORY. <
} BY EDGAR MORETTE.
Copyright, 1899, by Frederick A. Stokes Co. s
)xexe&e&0~e
CHAPTER VII.-CoNT1NUED.

SAfA4 LII SON
Not wore! of affection had passed
between father and daughter; not
caress had been interchanged. The re-
lations between this impassive man and
his charming daughter were those of
well-bred, if somewhat distant, rela-
tives. On the one hand there was the
uniform courtesy of the man of the
world toward woman; on the other,
the Difference of a young girl of good
breeding toward a person much older
than herself. But the note of cordial
and intimate affection between father
and child was absolutely missing.
And yet Agnes Murdoch was natural
~ of an affectionate and expansive ma
ture. During her mothers lifetime the
two women had been inseparable COM
panions, united by strong bond of
sympathy.
Mrs. Murdoch had been an invalid
for many years before her death, and
with Agnes had lived either abroad or
in the south during much of the time
in order to escape the rigors of the
northern climate. Thus the father, en-
crossed as he was with his occupations
and his scientific researches, had seen
but little of his daughter during her
childhood, and had been looked upon by
the child almost as a stranger.
When at last, after her mothers
death, Agnes, heartbroken at the loss
of her only friend, returned to the par
entail roof, she was girl of 16. In
the first loneliness of her bereavement,
when, hungering for human sympathy
and consolation, she turned to her IA
ther, she received patient and cour-
teous attention, with an offer of all
the lateral comforts and luxuries
which wealth could procure; but she
failed to find the only thing she needed
"a responsive human heart.
And yet, behind the cold and selfish
exterior of the chemist, the young girl
had touched chord which Lad never
vibrated before in this strange mans
being. 1t is probable that the feeling
awakened in him by his lovely daughter
was the nearest approach to an absorb
ing human affection of which his nature
was capable. Perhaps if the child had
been sufficiently experienced to read
her fathers heart she might have per-
sisted in her advances, and thus ulti-
mately have conquered the cold reserve
she had at first encountered. But she
was proud and impulsive, and, bitterly
disappointed in her first attempt to
win from her father a demonstration
of affection. she withdrew into her iso-
lation, and ever after met his calm cour-
tesy with an equally reserved defer
ence. The abnormal situation, which
at first was maintained only by an eff
fort on the part of the young girl, lost
with time much of it's strangeness, and
ultimately crystallized under the po-
tent force of habit, so that it was ac-
cepted by the two as the natural out
come of their relationship.
In the first pang of her bereavement
and disappointment Agnes had turned
for consolation to her books; and, be-
ing left free to dispose of her life as
abe saw fit, she had planned course
of study, which had in due time re-
ceiyed its conservation at one of the
leading colleges for women.
Upon her return from college she
had, as far as she was permitted, taken
charge of her fathers household, and
had presided with charming dignity
and grace over the social functions for
which DR.. Murdock's house now be-
came famous. Up to the time of his
daughters advent the chemists rela-
lions with the world had been chiefly
through the clubs and scientific bodies