Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1915-07-29
CHAPTER xVI-contlnued.

outside. 1t would not be possible tC
sleep in that room again. So he tip
toed out to the cafe veranda and
dropped into a comfortable chair. He
would hunt them up some time during
the day. He would ask Mallow for
fifty pounds, and he sincerely hoped
that Mallow would refuse him. For
he was grimly resolved that Mallow
should pay for those half-truths, more
damning than bald lies. 1t was due to
Mallow that he was never more to see
or speak to Elsa. He emptied the ash
from his Guilty which he slowed away.
The great heartache and the great
er disillusion would not have fallen to
his lot had Elsa been frank in Ran
COON, had she but told him that she
was to sail on the same steamer. He
would have put over his sailing. He
would have gone his way, still believ-
Ing himself to be Bayard, Galahad
or any other of those simple dreamers
who put honor and chivalry above and
before all other things.
Elsa! He covered his face with his
hands and remained in that position
for long while, so long indeed that
the coolies, whose business 1t was to
scrub the things every morning at
four, went about their work quietly for
fear Of disturbing him.
Elsa had retired almost immediate
ly after dinner. She endeavored to
finish some initial work on old en-
broideries, but the needle insisted
upon pausing and losing stitch after
stitch. She went to bed and strove to
sleep, but that sweet healer came not
to her wooing. Nothing she did could
overcome the realization of the shock
she had received. 1t had left her dull
and bewildered.
The name echoed and re-echoed
through her mind Paul Ellison. 1t
should have been an illumination; in
stead, she had been thrust into utter
darkness. Neither Arthur nor his
mother had ever spoken of brother,
and she had known them for nearly
ten years, Two men, who might be
twin brothers, with the same name; 1t
was maddening. What could it mean?
The beautiful whte-haired mother, the
handsome charming son, who idolized
each other; and this adventurer, this
outcast, this patient, brave and kindly
outcast, with his funns parrakeet,
what was he to them and they to
him? 1t must be, it must be! They
were brothers. Nature, full of amazing
freaks as she was. had not perpetrated
this one without calling upon a single
strain of blood.
She lay back among her pillows, her
eyes leveled at the few stars beyond
her door, opened to admit any cooling
breeze. Her head ached. 1t was like
the computations of astronomers; to
certain extent the human mind could
grasp the distances but could not com.
prehend them. 1t was more than
chance. Chance alone had not brought
him to the crumbling ledge. There
was a strain Of fatalism in Elsa. She
was positive that all these things had
been written long before and that she
was to be used as the key.
Paul Ellison.
She drew from the past those salient
recollections of Arthur and his moth.
er: First, the day the two had called
regarding the purchase of house that
her father had just put on the market
"a rambling old colonial affair, her
own mothers birthplace Sixteen; she
had not quite been that, just free from
her school days in Italy. With the
grand air Of youth she had betrayed
the fact almost instantly. while wait
ing for her father to come into the
living room.
"ltaly!" said Arthur's mother, whom
Elsa mentally adopted at once The
stranger spoke single phrase, which
Elsa answered in excellent If formal
Italian. This led from one question to
another. Mrs. Ellison turned out to
be schoolmate of her mothers, and
she, Elsa, had inherited their very
room. What more was needed?
The Ellisons bought the house and
lived quietly within 1t. Society, and
there was good deal of it in that
small Kentuckian city, society waited
for them to approach and apply for ad.
mittance, but waited in vain. Mrs. FL
lison never went anywhere. Her son
Arthur was student and preferred
his books. So eventually society intro.
duced itself. Persons who ignored it
must be interesting When it became
known that Mrs. Ellison had been the |
schoolmate of the beautiful and aristo-
cratic wife of General Chetwood;
when the local banker quietly spread !
the information that the Ellisons were
comfortably supplied with stocks and
bonds of high order. society con.
cluded that it could do very we'll with.
out past history. That could come |
later
With her father dead, Elsa became
as much at home in the Ellison house |
as in her own. But never, never any
where in the house, was there indica. |
ton of the existence Of brother. so |
like Arthur that under normal condi- !
lions 1t would have been difficult to |,
tell them apart Even when she used /
- LII