Evening star., 1911-08-16
CHAPTER XXXV.
Pirates!

For an instant Val thought of nothing
but the heavenly surprise Of seeing the
girl he loved.
Recognition brought a shock of joy and
a wave of love which had been held In
check for time by the weight OF mis-
fortune, as the waters of a stormy river
in flood are held back by the shut gates
of a lock He had known that he loved
her, too well Tor peace OF mind, more
passionately and purely than he had
thought it was in him to love. But until
he saw her face looking up, as II at him,
yet unconscious of his gaze-the dear
charming face he had longed for through
all his miseries. scarcely dreaming ever
to see her again--he had not realized how
utterly precious II was, now entlreiy III
dispensable in his life.
A wild impulse rushed over him to call
her me-"Lesley-Lesley. and spring
from behind the curtain, as II they two
were alone together in a world OF their
own. But after the first luminous instant
the joy of her presence was plotteo out
in darkness
He remembered everything; remembered
that he was Perceval Gordon, an actor OF
the submerged tenth. wretched, penni-
less transformer, who for the moment
came near to being an object OF charity.
When he had hidden Lesley goodbye
he was a splendid being who looked down
from his heights, and, though loving her,
saw her impossible as wife. Their
friendship had begun by being somewhat
of a condescension on his part.from ms
own point of view. at least; and she, half
amused, half angry. had seen that point
Of view quite clearly, nor had she ever
attempted to change it to the last.
At the thought that the curtain would
ring up and show him as he was now to
ahnA 10 oil M PT1n nT
he could have run away, out OF the the
ater, anywhere-it mattered not where
II only she need not see him, need not
know that the magnificent Lord Loveland
and the miserable p. Gordon were one.
His blood surged up to his head, throb-
bing In his temples and tingling I'm his
ears, but through the confusion of his
senses penetrated the knowledge that he
could not go.
This trial Of endurance-it seemed to
him the hardest Of all the ordeals he had
been forced to face during that fort
night which was decade-he would have
to go through. as he had gone through
the others; because, to evade 1t, he must
be worse than a coward. He would be
coward and traitor as well; and under
all his faults there was something which
would not let him be traitor or coward.
Selfish he had been, but the shell Of his
seltishness had been broken by many
hard knocks, and the real self, once sc
itself, though all a-shiver still with the
cold.
Let him suffer as he might and must
| he couldn't desert these people whom he
| had undertaken to help out of the trouble
| in which by his inexperience he hac
landed them.
He was responsible for putting on
Lord Bob" and his was the principa
part. Crudely as he knew that he played
| II, the performance could not go on with
out him. II he refused to act the curtain
could not ring up, and the money In the
| theater would have to be refunded to the
| disappointed audience. There were no.
many dollars there--at all events no
many would remain for the company
after the local manager had taken out hi!
| share, but there would be enough will
| what had come In on the two previous
nights. to pay the ever-grOwing bill at thu
hotel.
Ioveland felt that 1t would have beer
| almost easier to shoot himself than t.
| give the signal for the curtain to rini
/ up; yet the moment came when he coul(
delay no longer. He was not actor enough
1 to forget in his acting the world beyont
| the stage. He did not lose his lines: but
i conscious of Lesley's eyes upon him. h,
felt as stiff. as jerky in every movement
a. q mechanical doll
1t was worse between acts than wheI