The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1914-12-11
CHAPTER XIV.
The Time o. Nioht.

IDigDy Woulu never nave approved had
he so much as suspected them) Alan
none the less deferred action until
after midnight.
And espionage was all he feared
save and except always, Of course, fail
lure to find his Rose
It was about one in the morning
when he arrived inconspicuously (but
mot so much so as to seem deserving
of police surveillance) in the neigh
lborhood of the Riverside drive home OF
his mortal enemy, grim white house
4 that lowered, stark and tall, upon |.
Corner.
His preliminary reconnaissance pro-
Iyided little more than comfortless ex-
ercise. Huge, still, its wall bathed in
che milk and ink of moonlight and
shadow, all its windows dark but
one--and that one, in the topmost tier,
showed only feeble glmmer, so slight
that Alan almost overlooked it.
< But once discovered, it focused upon
itself his thoughts with power little
less than hypnotic.
He believed with small doubt that
lAeOoO Wdo "a piioOnCl WltDlu luOSe
walls; that Judith must have con-
veyed her there with all speed.
And, this being the presumptive case,
that small, high window Of the light
might we'll be hers.
Directly across the street from the
Urine residence, on the opposite cor
ner, q colossal apartment structure
stood half-fnished, stonework to its
second story, gaunt iron skeleton rear
ing above.
To his infinite disgust, Alan found
the guardian very wide awake, very
much on the job: no chance here to
steal unseen into the building.
This in itself might have been
deemed suspicious circumstance:
not for nothing does an honest night
watchman so deny the laws of nature
and the tenets of his craft But Alan
merely praised the man while cursing
the very fact of his existence; and. ac-
costing, overcame with bank-notes
what seemed an uncommonly stubborn
reluctance, and got his way.
He could not know that another
skulked behind barrier of lime bar
reh0nd overheard all that passed and,
when Alan had ducked smartly into
the unfinished building, rose and stole
after him with footsteps as noiseless
as cats and face that had the saw
agery of tigers when it was tran
silently revealed in shaft OF moon
light.
At length Alan gained the gridiron
OF girders on plane with the lighted
window across the way and crept
along one Of these, gingerly on his
hands and knees, until he came to it's
end and might. If he cared to, look
down hundred feet to the sidewalks.
That view. however. did not tempt;
he kept his eyes level; and was re-
warded with bare glimpse Of pret.
tily-papered wall. framed in the lace Of
half-drawn curtains.
And CT sudden-whether through
fortuity, or instinct, or the psyche
logical attraction of his steadfast con-
centratioI he tenant of the room
came to d window and stood there
for little, looking pensively out, alto
gether unconscious of the watcher in
his aerial coign.
Again a horrible uncertainty har.
assed him. Was the woman Rose
or Judith? That she was one of these
be could plainly see. But which? Dared
he assume his hopes fulfilled?
With difficulty he detached his
hungry vision from her, and drawing
FROM his pocket a small notebook, tore
foutN blank page, placed this fiat on
the girder, found pencil, and with
the assistance of a ray or two OF
moonlight scrawled a message OF al
most stenographic brevity
When he looked up from this task,
che had vanished.
Sitting up, astride the girder, he
took his watch--a cheap affair he had
rtcked up when reclothing himself i'm
the garments of civilized society, at
Providence, that morning-opened the
back of the case, and closed it upon
the folded message.
Then drawing back his arm, he
breathed silent prayer to the god of
all true lovers, and cast 1t from him
with all his might-with such force
that 1t almost unseated him at the end
|of the swing. But nothing less would
have served to bridge that yawning
|chasm.
And the watch few straight and
true, squarely through the lighted win
|dow and to the further wall.
At that very instant of his exuItation
|over an obstacle overcome, he heard a
Sound behind him of heavy breathing.