New Mexico state record. (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1914-19??, 1918-07-12

balloon came close to the house. Two
and l begged them to save me. Their
balloon was caught somehow in a tree,
and they were so near for a minute
that l hoped they could take me with
them. They must have see how fright
ened>I was, and 1 think they meant to
help, but a wind came and freed the
balloon. whirling it out of sight, 80
they had no time"
A litter of i~ncredulOus laughter
among the OnlOokers interrupted her,
and was quickly checked. But it had
not died before Western, ignoring the
formalities of a corOner's inquest.
stepped forward. "They are here as
| witnesses! !" he exclaimed. "We are
| the two ballOOnists, my friend and L,
and we can c%Orroborate every word
Miss Plantagenet has said. We car
prove her innocence; for if she had
murdered her uncle she would have
known that his dead body was lying
half out of his window, that we had
probably seen it there, and she would
have hidden herself instead of rush
ing toward us and begging that we
would take her away"
you and your friend never saw
Miss %Plantagenet until the night in
question: the 0 asked.
NO"
"Then"--very slowly and distinctly
-"how IN it that you should have
declared, on your visiting card which
you sent in to me, that you were en-.
gagged to marry that young lady?"
AT this question there was a stir in
the room, and the jury gazed at West
ern with narrow eyes of distrust; but
he answered, unabashed:
Il didn't say l was engaged to marry
her. If you look again, you'll see that
l said I intended to marry her. 1 wrote
that. so that l might have a chance to
come In and give my evidence. But 1t
Is true. l do hope to marry Miss Planta-
genet-hOpe 10 beyond everything. I
shall propose to her o the first OppOr-
tunlty, and tell her that l fell in love
at first sight with the sweetest, purest,
most innocent girl l ever met. I can
prove every word I am going to say
about my balloon, which took us over
to Normandy before we could descend.
The first thing VIZ did was to catch a
train back and scOur the country In my
friends automobile, looking for the
lost girl and the lost house; we
couldn't locate them exactly. We
learned what W. wanted to know only
by the paper today. We were never
nearer the house at Abbey court than
being caught in a tree; we didn't de-
scend; the dead body in the window
was a mystery to us. But l would
wager my dearest pOssessiOn-which
is my ballOOn-that that pistol you
were talking about dropped out of the
dead mans hand when he had shot
himself in his frenzy and fell into the
bushes under the window where he
lay. l advise you to send and look
for it."
So frank, so enthusiastic and 81
handsome was Paul Western that he
carried all before him. Perhaps it was
largely due to his evidence and the
fact that his belief in the girls innO-
cence was unassailable, that the coro-
ner's jury brought in their verdict at
last: Suicide while temporarily in |
sane"
Christopher admired Paul Western
more than ever, freely admitted that
his was the first right" fairly won
and after all was glad to think that he
had helped him win 1t.
And Western did win the girl, 1t
would be strange If he did not. It
would also have been strange If Chris
TOPPER had not been asked to be the
best man at the wedding.
(END OF TENTH EPISODE.)