The Carlisle independent., 1915-03-18
CHAPTER xVIlI-ContInued.

for your solicitious care for me" He emphasized the word noticably. But have been doing some thinking of my own in the last half hour and my plans don't seem to go on at all where yours leave of. It might interest you to know, before you go, that l am going to stay right here and tell the truth From first to last-from the time you came to Staten Island, until Mrs. Key eolds received a letter from you the other day showing that you had vol 1ntarily squared a criminal transac- .ion for me at the bank"
 As he finished Bob's fist came down on the little center table and almost shattered it. There was the vigor and determination that Brand had had to respect once before when he had loosed his wiles on a more gullible re- cipient. But now, in this crisis, he had not even considered the chance of op- position to his will First astonished, then thoughtful, his fiorid features now revealed their old cunning.
 You play the game big. Reynolds" he said at last Either this is a Aoldup right. or you have gone clear crazy"
 All right Rave all you want to, Brand. It can't do any harm now. eold you last week there were two ways to get out of it all: One was money and the other was to make a clean breast of it. One can't have all he wants all the time You had your chance ten days ago and you threw it away. l gave you my terms and you took advantage of my helplessness and ignored them. You stayed away and paid that paltry s10.000 at the bank. You thought you would fright en my wife, that your magnanimity in releasing us from immediate peril would impress her and that in the end she would welcome the release you of fered. Well. you succeeded with her but not with me. For her sake I was almost inclined to let matters drop, but this terrible affair has changed it all. We have taken human life, and lot of it, and some one has got to pay, so if anyone is going to take the Lusi- tania. you're the man who had better hurry and pack his grip"
 Brand stepped quickly to Reynolds, a tower of indignant rage. Trapped or cornered he was always Brand; al ways ready to put his back to the wall and fght-in the open if he couldn't fight from ambush. Bearded and al- most beaten now, he quiYered in his wrath and shook a threatening fist straight in Reynolds face.
 You're big, blasted baby and an imbecile!" he cried. You play the quitter now and I'll make you regret it to the last day of your life. I'll fight and I'll win as I always have. You can't keep a man with money in jail. Those three words can't be grouped in the same language! But what's the use of talking" he added disgustedly. You can't lay down now if you want to- You haven't got the nerve to send that girl there to the penitentiary for six or eight or ten years, to come out a broken woman-not enough of her left to suggest who she was. Do you know what prison does to men, Key aoIds? Breaks 'em-bodv. mind and souli We'll, what will it do to a wom- an, then? To your wife? For If we go she goes with us. I've told you that and mean 1t, so l guess my bluh's about as strong as yours"
 He turned partly to Dick and. as if tO cinch his threat. added:
 And I'm not sure but that our vir- company. That's law and you know it."
 Bob" cried his wife, creeping to his side and cuddling against him as if she saw in Brand some hybrid monster whom she really feared, "I'll go. Any thing you say, dear. I'm not afraid not afraid" Weeping softly, in obvi- ous contradiction to her courageous stand. she nestled closer to his side.
 We stand upon the brink of high precipice and looking down are ob- sessed with a strange desire to jump. The thought of life has vanished in a vale of endless depths-the hold on 1t is infinitesimal. A bird flying over head, startled by the strange intruder in his realms, drops twig he is carry ing to his nest. The tiny bit of wood futters to the mountain top and at the precise moment that We have all but signed our passport to other worlds the twig falls at our feet. The sound of 1t Is scarcely audible, but slight as it is we hear it, turn, and the spell of self-absorption and abandon is broken. We lose no time in climbing back to terra frma-
 So Reynolds, possessed with the idea of -self-destruction, if ecessary-anything to bring to jus. tice the man he blamed for all his wrongs and for the awful climax that had just come, grew stronger in his purpose, more fascinated in the pur- port of it, with every word that Brand used to dissuade him. Even Brand s reiterated threat concerning Jane had lost it's power, but the sound of her voice came to him like the sound of the falling twig. It restored not the instinct of self-preservation for self alone, but the sense of duty to her