Waterbury Democrat., 1901-04-26

formation concerning him. Stuyye- sant could and did, and inSthe midst of it in came Miss Perkins, flushed, eager and demanding to know if that villain was yet caught-''and if not, why not?"
 Then she caught sight of Stuyve- sant and precipitated herself upon 1 him.. That man Murray had hate fully deceived her and imposed upon | her goodness, she declared. She had done everything to help him at the Presidio. and he had promised her paper signed by all the boys asking l that the P. D. As be recognized as 1 the organization the soldiers favored, and showed her a petition he had drawn up and was getting signatures l to by the hundreds. That paper would have insured their being rec ognized by the government instead of those purse-proud Red Cross peo- pie, and then he had wickedly de- serted, after-after-and Stuyvesant could scarcely keep straight face l getting $50 from her and a ring that he was going to wear always until he came back from Manila-an officer. ] Oh, he was smart one, a smooth oneI All that inside of three days after he got to the Presidio, and then was arrested. and then, next thing she knew, he had fed-petition, money, ring and all.
 | Another soldier told her the sig natures were bogus. And that very night she had recognized him, spite | l.s.- esn Of har hea had cut and run C'Well he might!" thought stuJvesant), And then Miss Perkins yielded to the strain of over- taxed nerves and had to be conducted home.
 She lived but a block or two away, I and it was Stuyvesant who had to l play escort. The air, unluckily, re- vived her, and at the gateway she 1 turned and had this to add to her | previous statements:
 You think the Ray people your 1 friends, lieutenant, and I'm not the kind of woman to see worthy young man trified with. You've been go- ing there every day and everybody knows it, and knows that you were sent away to Iloilo i'll hopes of break ing you of it. That girls promised ill marriage to that young man who's got himself into such scrape all on her account. He's here-followed her here to marry her. and if he's | found he's liable to be shot. Oh, you can believe or not, just as you please, but never say 1 didn't try to give you fair warning. Know? Why, I know much more about what's. going on here than your generals do. l have friends everywhere among the boys; they haven't. Oh, very wei, if you won't listen." Cor Stuyvesant had turned away in wrath and exaspera- tion.) "But you'd be wiser if you heard me out. I've seen MT. Foster and had the whole story from his lips. He's been there every day, too, till he was taken sick"
 But Stuyvesant was out of the gate and at last out of hearing, and with yicioas bang to the door the lady of the P. D. As, so recently victim ized by the astute Sackett, retired to the sanctity of her own apartment, marveling at the infatuation of men.
 And yet, though Stuyvesant had angrily striven to silence the woman and had left her in disgust, her words had not failed of certain weight. Again he recalled with jealous pain the obvious indifference with which his approaches had been received. True, no well-bred girl would be more than conyentionally civil to stran- ger. even under the exceptional cir cumstanees of their meetin~ on the train. True, she was cordial, bright, winsome and all that when at last he was formally presented, but so she was to everybody True, they had had many-at least he had had many-delightful long interviews on the shaded deck of the Sacramento; but, though he would have eagerly welcomed chance to indulge in sem timent, never once did Marion en- courage such move. On the con- trary, he recalled with something akin to bitterness that when his voice or words betrayed tendency towards such lapse she became in- stantly and Palpably most cenven- tiorfaR
 Now. in the light of all he had heard from various sources, what could he believe but that she was in- terested, to say the least, in that oth- CT man? We'll and miserably he re- called the words of Farquhar, who had served some years at the same station with the RaSS: '.Sh>'s the