The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-17
his hand in jovial adieu then you
 should stay away. as l do"
CHAPTER TX.

1 ASof JdSoD IAoIlela ldu uHNeT loved a
 woman. In his youth, now so long ago.
 Ii. had seemed q convenient thing at the
 time that he would marry Caroline ! French. He had felt himself slipping
 too many evenings out, a tendency to | force the pace, to play cards for sums that he could not afford. or rather, which he would not afford lest 1t should
 come to the ears of his uncle. 1 He never had much sentiment, this 1 young Jacob Romer, nor yet a very
 strong bent either toward good or evil. l But first second, and all the time, he meant to succeed to stand heir to his 1 uncle, to become rich man, holding | the lives of tn ousands in his hands. He
 watched the great dignitaries of the country visiting Thorsby, and Y hfle he l chuckled with the notion that his uncle 1 could buy them all up--lock, stock and | barrel-he admired them, too. \
 They had what the rich MT. Gorm
 never had, certain quiet, assured cer-
 tainty of themselves. Their carriages
 were sometimes shabby but they sat
 tn em like thrones. They had been their l ia thers before them. NeVerth eless,
 with the quick wit of the born success 1 ful man. he saw that the time was com l ing, if 1t had not already arrived, when
 money would admit even to that soci-
 ety--that is, if the monied person were
 at all decently presentable His uncle | Corn, with his broad Tn orsby accent,
 was out of the running, but it was diff | ferent with Jacob. True, he had never
 been to college. His uncle believed in
 the yard and the counting house more
 than Oxford and Cambridge, and the
 earlier the better. Still he felt that he | could hold his own.
 It chanced that one day, returning ! from his afternoon walk into the coun- 1 try lanes about Green-lane Common, he ! passed a little red-freestone porch-a 1 schoolhouse during the week, a church and Sunday school the Sabbath ] This was Sunday. hough Thorsby was near enough the Scottish border to use ! the Judaeic name quite frequently. The l classes were coming out, and the eyes | of Jacob Romer caught tall, palish l girl, with a swarm of children about | her, emerging into the street. She was like a queen bee with her hiving clus- | ter.
 Miss French!-oh, wait, Miss F'renchr they called after her And with smile the tall young teacher turned and waited. A little girl, l two little girls, and then three or four 1 toddlers all came out shouting on Miss French to wait for them. In baby ac- cents they lisped it-they squealSed it like young animals. They fell flat and picked themselves up without crying, so eager were they to reach the object of their adoration.
 Jacob Romer saw it all He did not know the young teacher but it would be the ca siest thing in the world to find out who she was. However, he would, as he said, "do bit of thinking first"
 And that thinking he did during the week. He held himself aloof from his comrades, with their talk of cards and racing, their strong waters and cheap wickedness-that Is, till Friday, when he went to Thorsby Steeplechase and lost forty pounds, not all of which was his to lose.>-
 He was a thief. If caught, his uncle would send him impitably to prison. It was not so much the money he had to make up which troubled him, but the sudden revelation of his own weak ness. When upon the spreading green of the race course he saw the fleet horses, heard the beat of galloping h oofs and sniffed the powdery dust, keen with ammonia, about the weigh ing paddock, somehow he lost control of himself. He loved horse, and with the strange perseverity of those who attach themselves to that most simple minded of four-footed creatures, this narrow, self-contained, money making youth grew wild at the sight of half a dozen horses stretching over the sward toward the goal. He was straight" gambler, always backing his favorite, calling out odds when the jockeys, in scarlet and rose and orange took their horses to the starting post nay, even during the race itself. He was mad, for the time being, and that night he had q vision of how It was going to finish. He saw himself in a prison yard padding the hoof in long procession of convicts. all in suits marked with the broad arrow
 of 1ax a race, Jacob Romer, pale with sleepless- ness. took some papers down to little shyster lawyer in East Dere, to whom he was known, and came out again with money in his pocket-but money for which he had paid price that beaded his brow only to think upon. However his cash balanced when at half-past twelve on Saturday, that very afternoon in fact, his uncle Gorm came to cast his eye that was never vet cheated over his nephews ac- counts.
 When MT. Gorm went Jacob Romer drew a long breath, and sat down at hls desk, with the simulacrum of task before him. But instead he bit the bone handle of his pen, and thought thought-only thought.
 Yes, it must stop. This was the end. But down within his very deep, solemn IS a knell, the words rang from heart brain ana rom DrdlH to htoIli say from will to desire and from desire to will-"you will do it again-you will do it again"
 And Jacob Romer, iron -willed and ice-cold in every other direction, knew that he would. That is, unless
 The next day, which was Sunday. found him pacing up and down before that little Thorsby Sunday school. He had communicated with himself.
 Married men have not these tempta- tions; married men go home quietly at night. They read, they study They have regular meals, which is already something. They have reason for keeping straight--wife and children, home and position. Jacob Romer, 1t IS the goal or the altar my friend! Bet ter marry than get life sentence Tor foreery-for that is how it will end
 Never, perhaps was the course Of a mans life--and accidentally also, a wo- man's-so coldly determined Jacob Romer took to marriage as he would have resolved to follow a disagreeabie but necessary course of medical treat ment After all, the cure was the thing He would regeuerate himself he. Jacob Romer. God was not in all his thoughts-not the God within him, the Speaking Spirit wh ich is in every man. He ruled Him out. Jacob Romer took all the credit. "I will do it. he said, q will break with the danger.