The Washington times., 1911-03-21

| pleasure OF DeinB OF service lar out
weighs the discomfort" He discovered
that he was pompous, and promptly
came down from his high horse. But
but you are not going?
+ Il must, senior. l might be missed
| so sOt NJ"
Indeed, yes. If she looked a re-
quest.
Il am at your service. senorita."
Then, If you do wish to obIige me
you will turn your back for one little
moment
You are about toto vanish. senor.
ita ?? Daniel was wObegone.
| With your permission.
But" he protested, lit is so unneces.
"Yes?"
You, do not need to add a mystery to
your charms. You"
There, senior. You are forgiven.
trust You will have no further discom-
fort from Your finger" If smile
counts for anything, ne was indeed for
given, far beyond his deserts. And now,
| my request, SenOT?'
u must turn my back?"
IF YOU please There was a trace
to disregard. Promise that you will
not make any attempt to discover my
secret"
Il PROMISE" he said family.
She laughed lightly. There was a
rustling, and
Now you may look. senor."
But l know it isn't any use
He looked, and found his fears veri-
fed. BEYOND the wall he heard the
murmuT of her voice, the note of amGse-
finger Suefully.
Il am positive" he unused aloud
louder than. was entirely necessary
that you will require attention tomor-
row. And l do not believe that I can
bring myself to permit another surgeon
10 take the case.
She did not answer. Daniel strained
his ears, but only the screeCh OF the
parrakeet in the distance came TO them:
''Oh, very WE'LL he said pettishly, and
climbed into the go-Cart.
He had stated the truth when he told
Jimmy Curtice that he was a woman
for curiosity; and II the peal OF merri-
ment in the dusk had excited his in
quisitiveness before. he was now con-
sumed with the desire 10 find an eX-
planatiOn of the mystery which sur
rounded this most beautiful woman. He
had seen her but twice. he had heard
the sound of her voice but once, yet
every thought of the other girl-the one
who had wrecked his life" to borrow
his own phraseOlogy-Wa now utterly
banished from his mind.
Haigh's runabout may have guided it.
self back TO the stable, for all that he
knew of his actions so absorbed was he
in the puzzle: and. indeed. this mood
held him throughout the entire day. He
had dined with uncommon zest-al-
though scarcely conscious Of the fact
that food passed his Iips-ard was con-
sidering the. smoke of his cigar as he
ioitered upon the veranda, when he sud |
denly made the astonishinKlY discovery
that he was in effect, buttinE his head
against a stone wall, for all the progress |
that his brain-raCking made toward a |
solution OF the enigma. So he betook |
him to his books, wisely concluding that /
there was but one thing to be done-to
be patient in waiting and watching az
the corner Of the BrOokside wall, II /
need be for every morning of year. .
This, with no great reluctance. he prom /
sed himself that he would do.
Accordingly, the gO-cart continued to .
make its accustomed trips to the Valley
n Solitude, punCtually at 9. Every day
ii would halt at the place Of Haigh's
meeting with the girl whose beauty and
Wit had charmed him, whose secret-it II .
she had one other than the invention OF
girlish ELECTROMAGNETIC obsessed
him. Daniel came to know this spot as
he did his own bedroom; with little or
no effort Of memory he could have pic
.ured it in perfection of detail-the dis
.orted tree wherein he had met disaster:
he Clump of sumaC which lined the wall
! few feet from its corner; the profusion
3 weeds that choked what might have
been intended for a gutter; the very
stones in the roadway. and the patches
II the wall where the plaster had rotted
rick But as for the girl herself. she
Kept not what he had fondly hoped
would be q tryst on the morning Follow
ng her adventure; nor did she again ap-
Dear outside the wall
The little man was persistent. railing
o find her there, he sought the girl
among the summer colony in the village,
having evolved O theory that she might
possibly have wandered to Brookside,
md In a spirit of fun, might have led
+; ,;,,, 70 he living there !
The more lie weighed this theory, the
more he inclined TO it.
In the first place, after all she had
.iven him no real reason to think that ,
umed it, partly because of her abrupt ,
dvent from nowhere at all and partly
rom the fact that he had seen, or i'm
gined that he had seen, curl of smoke
bove the long-cold chimneys of the de-
erted mansion. But it was beyond
Credence that any one should
ent the place for a summer home: in
he popular fancy Of the neighborhood
had long been ghost-ridden, and,
keptical as we are in these days, such
easing of house. Moreover, IT showed
o further signs of being inhabited;
iewed from afar it had an outward
howing of complete desolation.
But. true TO his promise. Haigh made
o effort to lay bare what the girl had
allied her secret. either by approach
lg the house or by entering the
Against his theory there was the
alpable fact that before seeing her,
e had heard her voice and the cry of
ne parrakeet in the stiffness of evening,
a time when no one-least Of all a
ervous woman-would be apt to wan
er in the dank, dismal grounds. Before
nat he had seen her in the tunnel
the unwilling companion of
ian whom Curtice had characterized in
ositive terms as a blackguard. Where
ow was he?
Again, Haigh had been at pains to
nG out by what road the pair were
-avcling The passing cars had borne
ne initials of the New York Central.
'hi!e their gorgeous fittings indicated
nat the train was one of the Western
Expresses: while Fairfield county could
e reached by one line only, and that
re New Haven. He could almost be-
eve that there were two women, iden-
cally alike. Or, again, was the Lag
rd fellow a kidnaper, whose. plan to
onfuse the victims idea Of her where
bouts had been to put her on one train
nd transfer her rapidly to another,
tnding up with the long, lonely ride
'om the station to Brookside? Was
le, then, actually within those walls a
maltreated? Daniels
rain reeled with conflicting conjecture
His search, too, among the villages
'aEsient residents was unsatisfying
aving the entree of its most exclu-
Dused and secretly despised-as we'll
its more open circles, he was able to
,nvice himself that the girl was neither
IL nor known to it. To cap the cli-
AK, when he had come very near to Il
,lieving that the whole affair, from his 1