Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-25

through the body that pinned her SO close
to 1t, as she waited and it seemed to her
that the gripping knees relaxed a little,
He was speaking now, but brokenly and
mumblingly
Listen, you welcher. while /"
She felt the little steel barrel warer and
pressed on her skull. At the touch of it she
Strengthened her limp body, galvanically,
desperately. He staggered back under the
sudden weight. Then she caught his hand
in hers. and with all her strength twisted
the menacing barrel upward. The finger
trembling on the trigger suddenly COM
pressed she did so. The bullet plowed
into the ceiling and brought down a shower
Of lOosened plaster.
Then he fell, prone on his face. and she
stood swayng drunkenly back and forth.
watching him through the drifting smoke.
Twice he tried to raise himself on his hands,
and twice he fell back moaning, fiat on his
face.
Its a lie, Jim. it's lie!'' she explted in
sanely, turning and springing to the trans
mtter, and catching up the still swaying
receiver. do you hear me- jim? It's a
| lie-I'm here, waiting for you! Jim, can't
you hear?"
But Durkn had tainted away at the other
end of the wire, and no response came to
her cries.
She flung herself down upon the collapsed
MacNutt. and tore open his coat and vest
AS she did so the polished pigskin wallet
fell out on the floor.
| His heart was still beating. but it would
| be murder. she felt to leave him there
without attention His life was his own.
She wanted and would take only what the
| written law would allow. She wanted only
| her own.
She came to a sudden pause, as she looked
| from the paper wealth between her fingers
| to the huge and huddled figure beside her
Some inner and sentinel voice, from the
calmer depths of her nature, was demand
| ing of her how much of what had thus
| come into her hand was her own? After all
| Got, tAI
| wealth could truly be called their own?-
was the untimely question this better part
of her was crying out.
She knew that in the end most usurious
| toll would be eXacted for what she took
Her life had taught her that no lasting
| foundation of good, enduring walls of
aspiration, could be. built on the engulfing
| sloughs of evil. And as she looked at her
PROSTATE enemy once more, and breathed
| out fervent and grateful: oh, God
! thank Thee for this deliverance"' sudden
| chastening,and abnegative passion prompted
| her to thrust back every dollar she had
| drawn from that capacious wallet.
| Then she thought of the future, of the
| eXigent needs of life. of the necessities of
| her immediate flight: and her heart sank
| within her To begin life again with clean
| slate-that had been her constant wish. Yet
much as she hungered to do so, she dare
not leave it all. AS with many another as
| piring soul in quieter walks of life, she
| found herself grimly but Sorrowfully COM
| PEELED to leave the pure idea sacrificed on
| the altar of compromise. All life, she told
| herself made up of concessions. She
| could only choose the lesser evil, and
| through it still strive to grope a little on
| ward and upward.
| So she slowly detached one treasury note
! it was for one thousand dollars-from the
| bulky roll, and the rest she restored to its
| wallet. 1t was contribution to conscience.
| AS she replaced that wallet in the inner
| pocket of the PROSTATE man, her feelings
| were akin to those of some primordial wor-
| shipper before his primordial Baal or his
| eXacting Juggernaut. She felt that with
| that sacrifice she was appeasing her gods.
| She consoled herself with the thought that
| the Master of Destiny would know and I'M
| derstand-that she had given up the great
| thing that she might not sorrow in the lit
| tie. AS yet, He would not expect too much
| of her! That minute fraction of what she
| might have taken, she argued with herself,
| appeasingly-surely that little moiety of
| what they had fought and worked for might
| be theirs.
| 1t was fifteen minutes later that fright
| ened and pae-faced woman in black vel
| vet gown left word at the corner drugstore
! that an old gentleman was i'll of morphine
poisoning. and asked If the ambulance might
| be sent for All that the clerk could re-
| member when he was later questioned by
the somewhat bewildered police, was that
| she had seemed weak and sick, and had
| asked for some plain soda-water with
| brandy in it, and that the side of her face
| was swollen and bruised where she lifted
| her veil to take her drink. He was of the
| opinion, too, that she had been under the
| drug herself, had been drinking heavily,
| for she walked unsteadily, and he had had
| to call a hanson for her and help her into
| thoughts, was the fact that she had flung
| herself back in her seat and said, THANK
| God oh, thank God!' half a dozen times to
| herself.