Williams news., 1915-08-26

any nearer right than we ha. been many times before; but for some yea son I found it harder to pardon hin. For the first time in our long ac- quaintance, I let Algernon Etheridge leave me. without any attempt at con ciliation.
 If only I had halted there! If, at sight of my empty study, I had not conceived the mad notion of waylaying him at the bridge for the hand-shake I missed, might have been a happy man now, and Oliver-But why dwell upon. these might-have-beens! What happened was this:
 Disturbed in mind, and finding my 1 self alone in the house, Oliver having evidently gone out while VIC two were disputing, decided to follow out the impulse I have mentioned. Leaving | by the rear, I went down the lane to the path which serves as a short cut to the bridge.
 That did this unseen by anybody
 is not so strange when you consider the hour, and how the only person 1 then living in the lane was, in all probability, in her kitchen. 1t would have been better for me-. little as might have recognized 1t at. the time.
 had she been where she could have
 witnessed both my going and coming
 and faced me with the fact 'r n' +1 John Scoville, in his statement, says
 that after giving up his search for his
 little girl he wandered up the ravine
 before taking the path back which led
 him through Dark Hollow. This was
 false, as we'll as the story he told of
 leaving his stick by the chestnut tree
 in the gully at foot of Ostrander lane. For I was on the spot, and 1 know
 the route by which he reached Dark Hollow and also through whose agency | the stick came to be there
 l Read and learn with what tricks the devil beguiles us men. I was descending this path. heavily shadowed, assyou know. by skirting of closely growing trees and bushes. | when just where 1t dips into the Hol. low, heard the sound of nasty foot come crashing up through the under. brush from the ravine and cross the
 path ahead of me- A turn in the path
 prevented me- from seeing the man himself, but as you will perceive and as I perceived later when circum- stances recalled it to my mind, had
 no need to see him to know who it
 was or with what intent he took this
 method of escape from the ravine into
 the fields leading to the highway. Sco-
 ville's stick spoke for him. the stick
 which I presently tripped over and
 mechanically picked up, without a
 thought of the desperate use to which
 was destined to put it. A Etheridge was coming. could hear
 his whistle on Factory road. There Twas no mistaking it. It was unusually Eshrills one and had always been a Ecause of irritation to, me. but at this
 moment itiMas more; it reused every | antagonistfc impulse within me. He ltwhistling hkesa-galIards after part. \ ing which had dissatisfied me to such
 an extent that I had come all this dis tance to ask his pardon and see his old smile again! Afterward, long aft ,erward, I was able to give: another
 interpretations to his show ofsapparent f tself-satisfaction, but then l saw. noth- ling but the contrast it offered ito my
 own tender regrets, and my blood be- gan to boil and my temper riss:to such a point that recrimination took the
 place of apology when in another mo
 ment we came together in the open
 space between the end of the bridge 1 and Dark Hollow. >35 & n
 I (TO BE CONTINUEDG