The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-26
WTh A GN4 SMlLE HE .NNED Ills WINE AND POly1OA

convinced herself that she had "calP' to live a single life. She threw her self, with more fervor and less tudg- ment even than before, into her mis- sionary work.
 The morning after Captain Dodd had been taken unconscious to his home Noah Skinner demanded of his employer "whackup" out of the fourteen thous- and pounds. And how about that receipt?" he asked Hardie at once was greatly worried. He called the maid who had cleaned up the office the night before. Yes. she had seen such a paper as they described lying on the floor and had thrown 1t into the waste, basket. The dustman had taken away.
 They, could not trace the receipt ana at last concluded that 1t had gone into some bonfire or dust heap. Hardie under threats from Skinner, gave his clerk five thousand pounds. Then, when he saw that Alfred Hardie sus- pected him. skinner went to London to try to make his fortune with the sum on the Stock Exchange.
 Then came the end of the Oxford term. Alfred came of age and went horne to marry Julia. The day before the one fixed for the wedding, two doctors called on young Hardie at the lodging which he had taken temporari- 1v He considered their visit puzzle and an intrusion and their questions impertinent and ordered them out Earlv the next morning Alfred re- ceived A note signed by Peggy" Black . girl who had been for some time In h,s fathers house, ostensibly as ser want. The note said that Peggy was now employed at Silverton GroVe House. not far from Silverton station and if he would go there at once she could tell him "all about that TOUT taen thousand pounds: for it Is sin .sat voung lady should he beguiled o''t oT her own" Though despising .pe writer Alfred considered that he t,ad nlentv of time to run over to ell- yerton before the time fixed TOT the 1,,aaSing. and any possible chance 10 any thing definite about the s.ole" hard cash could not be neglected
 At the appointed time the cnurcn was crowded; the organ playeu tns ,,aSaine march, and Julia, leaning on weuu,m1 rpo nf her brother and followed bv her mother. appeared Vision V, 1ovaIiness. Then the organ played same more. Then there came an awk- ward pause There was no orlae ma,u mnoon, nresent! The organ played aeain and MT. Hurd the rector, quickiy realizing the situation md acting wiln rare tact. got Julia. half fainting' out of the church ny thC NSSN'J
 into A carriage and 80 home.
 Naturally Harrington had sensa- .,an All that MT Hardie would say was that his son was travelling abroad Edward Dodd longed to lay hands on tba deserter and spoke Of him always ae "The Scoundrel" Julia retused to believed him false and insisted that something terrible had happened to him: while Mrs Dodd sorrowed and was perplexeo'
 1,Iia was right: something terrible had happened to her lover, The note from "Peggy" was decoy' and Alrred tIo.ata was A prisoner in a private in- .ane asvlum on the certificate of two onacks. the doctors who had visited kim the day before that set for his wedding.
 Tine nrivate insane asylum of England ot that time were a disgrace to civiliza- tion A sane man confined in one or those horrible places was so treated well balanced mind. indeed, if. after a while, his condition did not square with his commitment The Govern roant supervision of these asylums was inadequate, slack, per forma- The machinery for getting man into one of them was so ridlculously simple that any one with enemies might find himself any day in mad house. And inc machinery for getting a man out was SO cumbersome that influence money. friends and admitted sanity scarcely served to rescue a man once committed and then only after long and tedious litigation and the un- raveling of vast red tape
 So all the time that Alfred Hardie was struggling plotting. work ing for his release he was as dead to his friends. with whom he sought vain ly to communicate, and the outside world in general as if the cab which took him to Silverton station had driven him 10 another planet
 The blow was a terrible one to Julia, but her unfaltering trust in Alfred's love enabled her to bear sorrow which