Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1913-10-09
CHAPTER xxxvIII.
Night.


tel before a table laden with tele-
grams, letters and marked newspa-
pers. The news OF his achievement
had gone abroad, and Derby was, for
the moment, the center of interest for
two continents.
His success was an established fact.
The second trial which he had made
with his car, this time with the whole
town gathered together in the streets
as witnesses, had proved not only the
reliability of its mechanism, but the
great advantages which it possessed
for direct flight to any given point.
Already he saw fortune reckoning to
him in the shape of an unconditional
offer of money from frst-class
source; and better still-for he was
man Of untiring energy and bound
less resource-that opportunity for
new and enlarged effort which comes
with the recognition of ones excep-
tional powers.
All this was his and more. A sweet.
er hope, more enduring joy had fol-
lowed hard upon gratified ambition.
Doris had smiled on him-Doris! She
had caught the contagion of the uni
versal enthusiasm and had given him
her first ungrudging token of approval.
1t had altered his whole outlook on
life in an instant, for there was an
+ eagerness in this demonstration which
proclaimed the relieved heart She no
longer trusted either appearances or
her dream. He had succeeded in con-
quering her doubts by the very force
of his personality. and the shadow
which had hitherto darkened their in
tercourse had melted quite away She
was' ready to take his word now and
Oswald's, after which the rest must
follow. Love does not lag far behind
an ardent admiration.
Famei Fortune! Love! What
more could man desire? What
more could this man, with his strenu-
an enlarged future, ask from fate than
this. Yet, as he bends over his letters,
lingering some, but reading none be-
yond a line or two, he betrays but a
passing citation, and hardly lifts his
head when Burst of loud acclaim
comes ringing up to his window from
some ardent passer-by: "Hurrah for
Brotherson! He has put our town on
the map!"
Why this dependency? Have those
two demons seized him again? 1t
would seem SO and with new and over
mastering fury. After the hour of
triumph comes the hour of reckoning.
proud attainment stands naked before
his own souls tribunal and the plead
er is dumb and the Judge memorable.
There is but one witness to such
struggles; but one eye to note the
waste and desolation of the devas-
tated soul, when the storm is over
past.
Orlando Brotherson has succumbed;
the attack was too keen, his forces too
shaken. But as the heavy minutes
pass, he slowly regathers his strength
and rises, in the end, a conqueror.
!; Nevertheless, he knows, even in that
moment of regained command, that
strain and stress is but momentary;
that the battle is on for life; that the
days which to other eyes would carry
a sense of brilliancy-days teeming
with work and outward satisfaction
would hold within their hidden depths
a broodfng uncertainty which would
rob applause of it's music and even
4, 10 Go 7
He quailed at the prospect, material
list though he was. The days-the In
terminable days! In his unbroken
strength and the glare of the MONDAY
sun, he forgot to take account of the
nights looming in black and endless
procession before him. 1t was from
the day phantom he shrank, and not
from the ghoul which works in the
darkness and makes a grave of the
heart while happier mortals sleep.
And the former terror seemed for
midable enough to him in this his
hour of startling realization, even il
he had freed himself for the nonce
from its controlling power. To escape
all further contemplation of 1t he
WOulQ WOIk- uSE6 loltST5 observed
attention. He would carry them to
Oswald, and in their consideration find
distraction for the rest of the day, at
least. Oswald was good fellow. If
pleasure were to be gotten from these
tokens of goodwill, he should have
his share of it, ' A CLEAN of Oswald's
old spirit in Oswald's once bright eye,
would go far towards throttling one of
those demons whose talons he had
Just released rom his throat; and
If Doris responded too, he would de-
serve his fate, If he did not succeed
in gaining that mastery of himself
which would make such hours as
these episodes in life big with inter
est and potent with great emotions.
Rising with resoiute air, he made
a bundle of his papers and, with them
in hand, passed out of his room and
down the hotel stairs