The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-10-26
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xESxESESxXEsIEoXZSS2eS2eS2eS2eSfsS2A But we go?' she said on futter- 1 ing breath
 We must go!" Peter answered.
 And again, like the ominous fall of a
 heavy bell-tongue, the words formed
 in his heart: "Alix knows. Alix knows"
 a few weeks ago, when Cherry's beau l ty had made sudden and so fires
 istible an appeal to him. and of the | innocent delight of their Iuncheons
 together. when she had first confided | in him, and of the days of secret and | intense joy that her mere nearness
 and the knowledge that he would see her had afforded him. It had
 all seemed so fresh, so natural, so | entirely their own affair, until the tragic day of Martins reappearance and the hour of agonized waiting at the boat for the Cherry who did not come. There had been no joyous sef-confidence in that hour, none in the distressed hour at the Orpheum ana the hour just past, when Cherry's rarely displayed passion had wrench ed from him his last vestige of doubt But this was the cuIminating un- happiness that he should know, from Alix's brave and gentle and generous
 look as they parted, that Alix knew He had. in the wild rush and hurry of his thoughts, no time now to an alyze what their love must mean to her, but it hurt him to see on her thappy face those lines of sternness and gravity, to see her bright and honest eyes shadowed with that new
 look of pain. It was too late now to undo 1t; he and Cherry must carry their desperate appear and forget. They had tried, all this last dreadful week, they had both tried, to extinguish the flames. and they had failed. But to Peter
 there was no comforting thought any where. Wrong would be done to Martin, to Alix, to Cherry-and more than even these, wrong to himself
 to the ideal of himself that had been
 his for % many years, to the real Peter Joyce.
 "Iisten, that's Buck" said Cherry, as the dogs loud and violent barking g
 reached them from beyond turn in the twisting road. "He didn't catch them, then"
 Tho next instant a. woman came up the road. running and making a queer whimpering noise that Cherry never forgot. She was a stranger to them, but she ran toward them, making the odu. gasping noise with much dry mouthfns, and with wild eyes
 Morrow was in her aspect, and hor- TOT was the emotion that the first ghmpse of her awakened vaguely in their hearts, but as she saw them she suddenly found voice for so hideous
 scream that Cherry's knees failed her, and Peter sprang forward with a shout.
 her frantic eyes were turned to him. "Oh, my God!" she cried in a hoarse, cawing voice. My God! They're over the bank-they' over 1 the bankr'
 "Who?" Peter shouted, his heart turning to ashes.
 'Oh, the car-the automobiIe!" the
 woman mouthed. "Oh, my God-1
 saw it go! I saw it fall! Oh, God. save fhem-Oll. God, take them; don't | let them suffer that way!" They were all running now running | with desperate speed down the long
 road, about the curves, on and on
 toward the frantic noise of the dogs barking, and toward another noise. the sound of a human voice twisted l and wild with agony.
 The strange woman was crying out Wildly; Cherry was sobbing a prayer. Peter. without knowing that he spoke 1 at all, was repeating over and over
 again the words: Not AliX-n1y Godi it cannot be-she has never had an accident before-not AliXi'' 1 A last curve. and they knew. Over, one of the sharpsst and uglest of the descending precipices, crashing down
 through the saplinss and underbrush | and striking the trunks of a score of | trees on its way. the heavy car had | fallen Like a boulder. And Peter | saw that it was Alix's car, and with
 grea. cry he sprang over the bank
 and, slipping and stumbling, followed | its mad course down almost to the 1 dry creek bed in the canyon. and fell
 on his knees beside the huddled figure 1 that. erect and strong. in it's striped blue gingfram, had been Alix .only a i few short minutes ago. '-s 1 She had been flung clear of the car
 and although every bone in her body
 except fof a deep cut where the
 brown hair met the tanned forehead
 was untouched. And as he caught
 her in his arms and bent over her
 his own heart, soft: thick braid 1 loosened and fell like the touch oi her hand upon his own, and it seem
 cd to him that in the tranquil face
 and in the very look of the closed 1 and fast-shadowing eyelids he 1 caught glimpse of Alix's old smile Peter forgot everything else in the
 world. He held her close, to him and put his face against her face, and perhaps she had never so truly beer
 his own as in this moment of thei1 parting, when the quiet autumn
 woodland. shot with long shafts from
 cry:
 my wife,'' e
 There were other men and womer | little valley was beginning to ring
 with the tragedy. After a while some Sympa thetic man touched Peter
 on the arm to say that Mrs. Lloyd
 had tainted and that if he would
 please tell them what. to do about
 the other man-he Was not vel dead
 1 Peter reused himself, and with hefr
 from half a dozen hands on all sides he carried AIiX up to the road and l laid her upon motor robe fhat some kindly spectator had spread 1T the deep dust
 Presently he was conscious that 2
 small. slight woman with disorderl1
 fair hair and with her face streake6
 with dust and tears was standing be- side him, and looking down at her he saw that it was Cherry. l "Yes, Cherry" he said, moistening his dry lips.
 Peter" she said, they say Mar tins living-he was screaming-' She grew deathly pale and faintness swep-
 over her, but she mastered it. 'Hs
 was caught by that tree,' she said (Continued TomorroW)