Middletown transcript., 1912-06-08

He had for the time being forgotten
| Armstrong and he had not before
known what jealousy was until he had
entered that room. To have seen her
with any man would have given him
acute pain, perhaps just because he
had been so long withdrawn from hu-
man society, but to see her with this
man who flashed instantly into his
recollection upon the utterance Of his
name was an added evaporation.
Newbold turned to the woman to
whom indeed he had addressed his
question in the first place, and there
was something in his movement which
bespoke a CALLING almost contemptuous
obliviousness TO the presence of the
other man which was indeed hard for
him to bear.
Hate begets hate. He was quite
| conscious of Armstrong; antagonism,
which was entirely undisguised and
open and which was growing greater
with every passing moment. The
score against Newbold was running up
! IL lI4O A44lO VI uAo fAS4AOAs
"Ah," coolly said the owner of the
cabin to the first of his two guests,
81 do remember you did mention that
name the first day you spent here.
Is he "a friend of yours?"
''Not now," answered Enid Maitland.
She too was in a strange state Of
( perturbation on account of the dilem-
ma in which she found herself in
volyed. She was determined not to
betray the unconscious confidence Of
the dead. She hoped fervently that
Newbold would not recognize Arm
strong as the man of the locket, but
if he did she was resolute that he
should not also be recognized as the
man of the letters, at least not by her
act. Newbold was ignorant of the ex-
istence of those letters and she did
not intend that he should be enlight-
ened so far as she could prevent it.
But she was keen enough to see that
the first recognition would be in
evitable; she even admitted the fact
that Armstrong would probably pre-
cipitate it himself. Well, no human
soul, not even their writer, knew that
she had destroyed them, she had de-
termined to do so at the first convent
ent opportunity. Before that, however,
she intended to show them not to New
bold but to Armstrong, to disclose his
perfdy, to convict him of the false
hood he had told her and to justify
herself even in his eyes for the action
she had taken.
Mingled with all these quick refec-
tions was a deadly fear. She was
quick to perceive the hatred Arm
strong bore on the one hand because
of the old love affair, the long cher
ished grudge breaking into sudden
life; on the other she realized that
her own failure to come to Arm
strong's hands and her love for New
bold, which she neither could nor had
any desire to conceal, and the cumula-
tion of these passionate antagonisms
would only make him the more des-
perate.
Whether Newbold found out Arm
strongs connection with his past love,
there was sufficient provocation in the
present to evoke all the oppugnation
and resentment of his nature. Enid
felt as she might if the puncheons OF
the floor had been sticks of dynamite
with active detonations in every heel
that pressed them; as if the slightest
movement on the part of any one
would bring about an explosion.
The tensity of the situation was be-
wildering to her. 1t had come upon
her with such startling force; the un
expected arrival of Armstrong, of all
the men on earth the one who ought
not to be there, and then the equally
startling arrival of Newb0ld, of whom
perhaps the same might have been
said If Newbold had only gone on,
If he had not come back, if she had |
been rescued by her uncle or old Kirk
by-But Ifs" were idle, she had to
face the present situation to which |
she was utterly unequal.
She had entirely repudiated Arm.
strong. that was one sure point; she |
knew how guilty he had been toward |
Newbold's wife, that was another; she |
realized how he had deceived her, |
that was the third. These eliminated |
the man from her affections, but it is |
one thing to thrust man out of your
heart and another to thrust him out |
OF your life; he was still there And
by no means the sport of blind fate |
intended to have something /
TO say as to the course of events, to
use his own powers to determine the
issue.
OF but one thing beside her hatred |
for Armstrong was Enid Maitland abb
solutely certain; she would never dis
close to the man she loved the fact
tnat the woman, the memory of whose
supposed passion he cherished, had
been unfaithful to him in heart if
not in deed. Nothing could wrest that
secret from her. She had been in
fected by Newbold's quixotic ideasy
the contagion of his perversion of COM
mon sense had fastened itself upon
HHO NOu4u uOL nave DS6Q human |
either If she had not experienced a
thrill OF pride and Joy at the possibil-
lty that In some way, of which she yet
swore she would not be the instrument
blind or otherwise, the facts might be
disclosed which would enable Newbold
to claim her openly and honorably, with
out hesitation before or remorse aft
er, as his wife. This fascinating flash
OF expectant, hopeful feeling she
thought unworthy of her and strove
to fight it down, but with manifest i'm
possibility.
It has taken time to set these things
down; to speak or to write is a slow
and the ratio between outward
expressions and inward is as great as
that between light and sound. Cues
tions and answers between these three
followed as swiftly as thrust and parry
between accomplished swordsmen. and
yet between each demand and reply
they had time to entertain these swift
thoughts-as the drowning compass
life experiences in seconds!
Il may not be her friend" said Arm
strong steadily, "but she left me in
IL.