Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1912-08-13

spoke in Anthony Barringtons rafting
| voice.
Tony! Oh, no, no."
She hardly knew what she said She
took a step toward him. and saw that
ne stood afraid to move; saw that those
eyes, twitching no longer but fixed in a
| dreadful stare. saw nothing of her, moth
ing of what they looked on
| ITS true, | tell you! Something
! snapped in my head, and the light went
| out It's black-quite black"
Tony
She crept closer to him. put out her
hand, and felt his close on it desper-
ately. The darkness will lift If you
keep very quiet the darkness will lift
| Come back with me to the house.
She felt that, come what might. she
must get him away out of this place,
where everywhere around her Edith's tor
tpred eyes looked down. and Edith's lips
laughed dreadful laughter.
The Darkness.
NO, no; | can't see, l tell you. It's
darkness" he whispered like a little
child Betty, you can leave me You
wouldn't do that-you wouldn't leave me
alone in the darkness"
mo, no. Only for a moment-to send
for help-to send for the doctor Tony"
He had caught at her desperately in
a grip of whose strength he was utterly
unconscious.
Il won't leave YOU she murmured
only come away here-let us sit down
and wait. Some one will come perhaps
| have you no means of communication
with the house? No. let us wait You'll
! he better soon. It's the excitement
the-you've not been careful enough
But I'll take care of you now: oh. my
poor bOy.' There were tears in Betty's
eyes; she strove to keep them back, to
| control her voice.
! 81 shall never be better He gave me
six months at most. It's the black end.
oh, Betty Betty"
She made no effort to speak. There
We're no words she could say She could
only wait. But she did get him. al last
trembling and starting like a frightened
| horse, away from the easel to the long
oak settee with its tumbled cushions IL
! stood against the wall where he sat hui
died against her. There. with her ar,
about him. she made soft sounds of SYM
pathy over him. as she might have mai
| them over a child.
Betty, I'm a coward. ! can't face il,
! l can't
NO; you're not coward. You're hard
| hit, that's all, but not afraid" Betty's
(
hand on his was as firm as that OF
man. There's no one to see you now
there's only me, and I understand This
will pass-you'u be your splendid self"
There's nothing to struggle for The
! pluck's dead gone out of me If | were
! only dead groaned the man. miserably.
Betty said nothing, She had raised her
eyes from the marTed face on her shout
der to see standing at the far end of the
studio, looking at her with an expression
hard to read on her white face, Edith her
sister and this mans wife
The House on the Moor.
Mr.. Paul SAKE sat in the spartanly
furnished inner sanctum of the palatial
suite of offices a Chichester House. There
were no flowers in the big vase on the side
table. Miss Tremlett had left her post
suddenly few weeks before, and her
successor, a male stenographer with large.
! fiat face and lint eyelashes, had received
! no orders regarding the filling of flower
vases and could not quite possibly, have
| executed them if he had.
There was a subtle change in the face
of the fnancier, 1t was less haggard, less
worried looking than it had been a few
months ago when, on one memorable oc-
; casion, a message had come tinkling over
the wires. conveying the news that for
! the moment had startled even him
This night thy soul shall be required
of thee He had long since given up even
wondering what the meaning of those
words could be Just for a few hours-a
few days-he had dreaded-he hardly
knew what he dreaded-some lurking
shape that would step out of the shadows,
some figure started up out of the past,
~
fruit of his success and turn it rotten al
the touch,
If less haggard, the mans face had
hardened the air of radiant youth that
had given it that curious, almost efimin-
ate beauty was gone. His character had
| hardened also, or else he had dropped the
pose of softness that was why there We're
no roses in the tall glass vase that re-
manned as a memorial of the time that
was past.
There was pile of papers on the table
| before him. letters waiting for his sigma
! ture, that the sandy-haired clerk had
brought in some time ago. Paul SAKE had
not looked a them; he was thinking-a
student of character might have seen
him there, like a crafty brown spider in
his web, weaving, always weaving. nets
for the taking of a girls white soul But
invisiby, so that she slipped herself into
their enmeshing center. He would have
no woman won by force to greve and
pine beside him. His wife must become
his wife of her own free choice-wthin the
limit of that year of grace ~and he knew
enough of human nature enough of WON
en-. to realize that, once having made her
bargain, Betty Lumsden would be as true
as steel to it,
Another Message
1t seemed to him that they were spread
ing well, those fine, impalpable nets
The entrance of a clerk with a tele-
gram broke in abruptly on this day dream.
SAKE, rousing himself, looked at the or
ange- colored envelope with a certain APP
prehenson, though he. to whom such
mode of communication was more com
mon than postcards. belonged to the fast
dying race who associate kilograms with
disaster
To Be Continued in Next Issue.
NATIONAL SURGICAL
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