The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-18

whom she loves-and, this woman loved
her husband. When she heard Of the
life Dan led, she thanked God that she
had been saved from him, and continued
serenely happy.
Nor did Dan mourn her. He looked
back at the time when he had faith in
her, at the time when the thought Of
her brought dreams Of children, Of a
warm, safe home, of life of effort to
shield and honor her, as time when he
had been~a fool. He felt a certain bitter
sense of gratitude to her for having
opened his eyes to his sentimental folly,
for having revealed to him the faithless-
ness of women, the unreality of truth
and hope.
Dan had no moral regrets for the life
he had lived. He believed that he had
led wise life. He looked upon hon
orable men as fools, either too blind to
see the fraud of righteousness or too
weak to break the imprisoning bonds of
moral convention.
But he hated the scent of roses It
brought back to him, as nothing else
could, memories that revived the sense
of pain in wounds long since Scared
over and almost forgotten. The loss of
the woman he loved had hurt Dan at
frst-had hurt him with such stunning
agony that any reminder of her ma
terialized the ghost of it in his con-
seriousness; and even the ghost hurt.
The scent of roses made the memory
of her real to him as nothing else could.
There was a rosebush in full bloom on
the lawn by the front gate on that
moonlit night when he had first taken
her in his arms. The scent of the flow
ers was inseparably associated in his
mind with the keen thrill of her first
kiss. On the night when he saw her In
the other mans embrace she had rose
in her hair.
So, after twenty years, the scent of
roses maddened Carwood with the recol-
lection of long dead agony. He had
become a crook; and the only good
thing that even a fellow crook could say
of him was that he never broke his word
to pal.
Carwood fulfilled Slemmer's prophecy
of prosperity. Properly introduced to
the guardians of semiprivate games, he
found opportunity to ply his trade. He
was clever enough to know the value Of
personal popularity, and had the ability
to develop it. He became a prime ia
vorite with the men who are the real
sustenance of the underworld-sportily
inclined lawyers, physicians, business
men and politicians. They looked upon
him as a romantic figure. He acquired
a reputation among them as a gentle
man gambler of the ole school. He spent
lavishly, pretending a fine scorn of
money, and they felt it an honor to lose
to him.
He lived with Slemmer in an ornate
apartment above Casey's Cafe, dressed
elegantly, dined on the best, and &C
cumulated bank account, He planned
to buy an interest in the cafe. He
realized that the day of ease and luxury
for the rowing gambler and man of the
underworld had passed with the pass
ing of old time dance halls and gambling
houses. With the acquaintance he had
formed he could invest what he had and
settle down to a reasonably profitable
and peaceful life as a permanent citi-
zen. he was getting on in years, and he
had no taste for hazard and hardship in
world that was rapidly growing
harsher toward men of his sort.
And then Slemmer made a mistake.
Dan was sitting in a comfortable