The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-10-23

that was fairly appalling, and the
healthy breakfast appetite vanished.
Griswoid knew what it meant, or he
thought he did, Margery Grierson was
gone out of his Hfe-gone beyond re-
call.
After that, there was all the better
reason why he should grapple with
himself in the faliow interval; and for
two complete days he was lost, even to
the small world Of the summer resort,
tramping for hours in the lake shore
forests or drifting about in one Of the
hotel skiffs. and returning to the inn
only to eat and sleep when hunger or
WEAKNESS constrained him On the
whole, the discipline was good He
fattered himself that the sense OF pro-
portion was returning slowly, and with
it some saner impulses. Truly, it had
been his misfortune to be obliged to
compromise with evil to some extent,
and to involve others, but was not
that rather due to the ineradicable
faults Of an imperfect social system
than to any basic defect in his own
theories? And was not the same i'm
perfect social system partly response
bic for the quasi-criminal attitude
which had been forced upon him? He
was willing to believe IT; willing, also.
TO believe that he could rise above the
constrafning forces and be the man he
wished to be. That he could so rise
was proved, he decided, on the morn
ing Of the third day, when he CHANGED
TO overhear the hotel clerk telling the
man whose room was across the CORR
dor from his own that Andrew Gal
braith still had fighting chance for
life In the pleasant glow of the high
resolve the news awakened none of
the murderous promptings, but rather
the generous hope that it might be
true.
1t was late in the afternoon of this
third day, upon his return from a long
pull in the borrowed skiff around the
group of islands in the upper and un-
frequented part of the lake, that he
found a note awaiting him 1t was
from Miss Farnham, and its brevity-
no less than its urgency, stirred him
apprehensively, bringing a suggestive
return of the furtive fierceness which
he promptly fought down. Il must
see you before eight O'Clock this eve
ming. 1t is Of the last Importance"
was the wording of the note; and the
heavy underscoring of the last" and
a certain tremulous characteristic in
the handwriting, stressed the Ut
gency.
1t was still quite early in. the eve
ming when the inn conveyance set him
down at the door of his lodgings in
upper Shawnee street. To the care
taking widow, who would have pre-
pared a late dinner for him, he ex-
planned that he was going out again al
most at once; and taking time only
for a bath and a change. he set forth
on the cross-town walk It lacked
something less than a half hour of the
time limit set in Miss Farnham's note,
but he attached no special importance
to that. He knew that the doctors
dinner hour was early. and that in any
event he could choose his own time
for an evening call.
It nettled him angriIy to find that
the premonition of coming disaster
was still with him when he crossed
the courthouse square and came into
the main street a few doors from the
Winnebago entrance Attacking from
fresh vantage ground it was warn
ing him that the town hotel was the
stopping place of the man Broffin, and
that he was taking an unnecessary haz-
ard in passing it. Brushing the warning
aside, he went on defiantly, and just
before he came within identifying
range of the loungers on the hotel
porch an omnibus backed to the curb
to deliver its complement of passen-
gers from the lately met northbound
train.
Griswold walked on until he was
stopped by the sidewalk-blocking group
of freshly arrived travellers paus-
ing to identify their luggage as it