The Monticellonian., 1919-02-21
CHAPTER lll-Continued.

"I believe I did hear Miss Kip call | her father Wesley"
 Well, I'd like to help Wes out. I suppose I might take chance. Do you think you can pay for the ring in ninety days?"
 Easily"
 Wimburn would have promised to tear down the world apd rebuild it in ninety days.
 ''I shall have to add Il little to the price for the risk and the accommOda tion."
 Anything you like" said Clay mag nificently.
 Call it two hundred dollars"
 Certainly, ,' One could hardly haggle over an engagement ring.
 I'll ask you to sign little docu- ment."
 With pleasure
 He would have signed an agreement to surrender n pound of his flesh.
 Clay hurried out to find Daphne and fasten on her the glittering gyve.
 He might have taken further alarm from the immense and greedy rapture Daphne revealed at the sight of the petrified dewdrop set in the golden cfrclet. Women are all misers when It comes to diamonds. Wimburn noted only the joy the bauble gave to Daphne. and the pretty Submissiveness with which she poked out her slender finger and slid it into Jn fpl hat L of alliance was worth years of hard labor.
 It was hard and bitter to rend their cemented hearts in twain, but he had to go at last. She fioated him to the station In the little car and waved him through the iron paling. She was un- imaginably precious and pitiful as she stood there, and he wanted to blubber when the vestibule was slammed shut and the train slid out of the station like merciless snake.
 He vowed that he would work with the strength of ten and pile up for tune in the bank for her. But first he must pile up enough to pay for that solitaire.
 Clay wrote Daphne fat letter ev- cry day. He usually sneaked it in among his business correspondence and took great pains that it should never miss the Lake Shore limited at fivethirty in the afternoon. A spe- cial-delivery stamp put the letter in Daphne's hands every next forenoon.
 But after the letter had gone he usually remembered that he had omit ted to include some message of fright fully important urgence. So he had to send her every night a night letter. and frequently of mornings he must fire off day letter. These cost only sixty cents apiece. but often he had to send them ill double or triple length.
 For occasions where time was yet more uncomfortable there was the tele- phone-a pittance of three dollars and twenty-five cents for the first three minutes, and a dollar and five cents for each additional minute or fraction thereof would bring his lips to Daph- ne's ear.
 From the little rubber mouth of the receiver her voice came to him as from a distant star by interplanetary communication. The sense of remote ness was unbearable. She seemed to be dead and wailing across eternity
 Clay Wimburn was in complete dis tress. His health wavered and his of flee work suffered till it won rebukes and threats from his chiefs and com ment even from Bayard Kip. who never suspected and was never told of Wimburn's infatuation for his sister
 With lovers logic Wimburn per suaded himself that the only one who could save him from destruction was Daphne With her married and all and ensconced in little nest in New York, he could take up his office tasks with a whole heart. So he began to write. and to telegraph, and to groan across the living wire wilder and wilder cries for help.
 Daphne wept back and repaid his longings in kind and suffered heart rending ecstasies of yearning. And finally she promised frantically to marry him without further delay
 With desire to economize in pain she broke the double news to her two parents at the same time, telling them both that she was engaged and that she was about to wed.
 They were stunned. They had never experienced q suspicion of the acute state of Daphnes heart affairs. It is really astounding how blind parents are to their children's activities and how much can go on under their noses without catching their heavy eyes.
 Daphne easily browbeat her father and mother into consenting to her early marriage. Her father groaned at the thought of the wedding eX- penses, but conSoled himself with d ] Pisgah-sight of the Canaan when the last of his dear children should be 1 living at another mans cost.
 Mrs Kip made one stipulation; 1T 1 won't let Daphne sneak away to New i York and be married by a justice of the peace or coroner or whoever does such things in New York. She must have n church wedding and a home reception"
 Daphne accepted this unanimously. with one amendment.
 T must go to New York to get my rousseau"