Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-04-02

win 1t. If do not win 1t, I shall know I am not succeeding"
 Silence for another little space, which Miss Brentwood broke by saying:
 Don't you want to smoke? You may"
 Kent felt in his pocket.
 q have no cigar" .-...-.
 She looked past him to the ham, mock. "Penelope!" she called softly; and when there was no response she went to spread the hammock rug over her sister. "You may smoke your pipe" she said; and when she had passed behind him to her chair she made another concession: Let me fill 1t for you you used to-"
 He gave her the pipe and tobacco, and by a curious contradiction of terms began to wonder if he. ought not to go. Notwithstanding his frank defiance of Brookes Ormsby, and his declara- tion of intention in the sentimental affair, he had his own notions about the sanctity of betrothal. Mrs. Brentwood had vanished, and Penelope was asleep in the hammock. Could he trust himself to be decently loyal to Ormsby if he should stay? Nice questions of conscience had not troubled him much of late; but this was new ground-or if not new, so old that it had the effect of being new.
 He let the question go unanswered and stayed. But he was minded to fling the biggest barrier he could lay hands on in the way of possible dis loyalty by saying good things of orms- by.
 q owe you much for my acquaint- ance with him." he said, when the subject was fairly introduced. He has been making all kinds of a good friend to me, and he promises to be more."
 Isn't your debt to Penelope, rather than to me?" she returned.
 No, I think not. You are responsi- ble, in the broader sense, at all events. He did not come west for Penelope's sake" Then he took the plunge: May I know when it is to be-or am to wait for my bidding with the other and more formally invited guests?"
 She laughed, low little laugh that somehow grated upon his nerves. ho1 I
 Forgive me-" he said quickly. But from something Ormsby said"
 He should not have spoken of it; have given hin no right" she said coldly.
 You make me twice sorry: once fl am a trespassor, and again if have unwittingly broken a confidence"
 He rose and said goodnight, and was halfway to the next corner before he realized how inexcusably abrupt his leave-taliing had been.
 When he did realize it, he was oi two minds whether to go back or lei the apology excuse another call the following evening. Then the insistent prompting seized him again; and wher next he came to competent sense oI things present he was standing oppo site the capitol building, staring fixed ly up at a pair of lighted windows 1T the second story.
 1 They were the windows of the gov ernor's room: and David Rents brail ] cleared suddenly. In the earliest be ginnings of the determinate plan t, wrest the Trans-Western out of tn grasp of the junto he had known tha it must come finally to some desper ate duel with the master-spirit of thu ! ringsters. Was Jasper Bucks benin, those lighted windows-alone?
 Kent had not meant to make tn, open attack until he should have ; weapon in his hands which would arn him to win. But now as he stoo' looking up at the beckoning window mad desire to have it out once fo all with the robber-in-chief sent th blood tingling to his finger-tips. True he had nothing as yet in the oil-fiel conspiracy that the newspapers or tn public would accept as evidence q fraud and corruption. But on tn other hand, Bucks was only a mar after all: a man with a bucaneer' record, and by consequence vulnerabl beneath the brazen armor of assur ance. If the attack were bold enough Kent did not stop to argue it ou When a mans blood is up the odd against him shrink and become a naught. Two minutes later he was i the upper corridor of the capitol, strid ing swiftly to the door of the lighte room.
 Recalling it afterward he wondere if the occult prompting which ha dragged him out of his chair on th
 Brentwood porch saw to it that | walked upon the strip of mating 1