The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1920-12-10

Balneo tho street Vulcn leu 70 NE
house he began runaing like . mad
man. Truly It must 10 az the clergy.
man had said. Ida was at home. OF
course. with her little boy. She had
never left him; all that had been q
bad dream from which he would
awake when he entered. He let him
self In and switched on the electric
light. The room was empty and al
most bare. and 1t had never looked 80
forlorn and miserable before.
He realized that she was lost to
him forever. She would accept his
silence as final; she would never write
to him again. And her address had
vanished from his memory utterly.
He had barely glanced at It once and
purposely refrained from looking at
II again before he tore the letter into
fragments and flung them into the
stove. He had chosen his miser's gold,
and 1t lay like dead weight upon his
heart
A scrap OF paper on the floor caught
his eye. He picked 1t up; 1t was
morsel Of the envelope and bore his
name, julius Mayo. and the first fig
ure of the house number. Perhaps
other morsels might have fluttered
out of the fire-perhaps just the one
which would give him the clue to his
daughters address. Instantly he was
down upon his knees and raking
among the dying embers. turning over
the Goals. beginning his hands with
the clinker ash. Another scrap re-
warded his efforts. This was the up
per corner of the envelope. bearing
portion of the Cancelled stamp, with
the benign features of Washington.
There was no more; he could not find
SO much as single charred fragment.
The old man rose slowly and stared
at his white face In the little glass
that hung above the mantel. His eyes
were feverish and his gray hair hung
in disordered mass over HE fore
head. He remembered the old Ger
man legend that on one day In the
year the souls in hell were permitted
to stand outside the gates Of Paradise
and to look in. This was his day;
this was Christmas Eve. the anniver-
sary of Minna's death, the one day
in the year on which he might save
his soul. The pride and greed were
there. only dominated for the present
by the influence of his mood; II he
gave rein to them again he would be
lost irretrievably. And the mood
must pass because he could not find
hA latt To hA
work would absorb him again, his
heart would harden, as old mems
hearts do. The gates of Paradise
stood open wide for him-and he had
lost the key.
He walked slowly across the room.
His mind was made up: he would de-
stroy all the fruits of his experiments,
batter down that idol which he had
set up to wean him from his own.
He raised his arm to sweep every
thing to the fioor-test tubes. bottles.
papers. He hesitated. Could he let
the fruits Of all those years of expert
ment go? He might at least save the
formulate. Or was that sacrifice neces-
sary IL he was to save his soul from
hellf
Suddenly his rowing eyes rested
upon the test tube which he had left
on the table.
He shouted aloud with Joy. The
mood had passed; the idol had reared
itself again. Ida was forgotten.
Something had happened during his
absence that he had never managed to
bring about before. The liquid In the
tube had passed from gold to brown.
and from brown to streaky, fiaky
mass OF creamy. jelly-like fluid. 1t
was almost artificial rubber.
He was upon the track at last. His
composition, In cooling, had coagulat-
ed as rubber coagulates. This was
not rubber, but 1t was not far from
II. 1t was a compound which con-
tanned all the elements Of rubber.
But somewhere, In the building Of 1t,
two or three molecules had gone
astray, or fastened themselves to the
wrong elements. just as one may put
a picture puzzle together and not
quite fit the pattern. He was very
close now; he must try the next form
ula, and the next, and the next; It
might be only matter Of few days
before success crowned his efforts.
He sought feverishly for the paper
with the microscopic handwriting, the
result of years of research work and
endless experimentation. It was not
in its accustomed place. and he began
turning his notes over. hunting for It,
II must be on the other table, then
yes. there lay folded sheet under the
plotting sheet. He reached for 1t and
picked up-his daughters letter.
Mayo stared at It without under
standing. How had this paper. which
he had torn up and thrown into the
furnace. come back to him? At last
the staggering truth burst In upon
him. He had destroyed the formula
in place Of the letter.. and all the work
Of years had gone for nothing. He
could never begin all over again.
Even II he had the enterprise. there
was no time. for others we're hard
upon the scent.
He sank back into his chair. All
his life was ruined now and the last
illusion had come topping down. He
sprang to his feet and rushed into bis