Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1921-04-16
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rendezvous With Death.
|. FoREBoplNGs.


only with the four walls of her
own room shutting out the world was
Priscilla able to take up the task of
rebuilding equanimity out Of chaos
OF shattered nerves and scattered
wits.
BY sheer force of will she made
herself reconstruct and review that adj
venture which had loosed panic upon
her in the crowded street and driven
her hunted thing, to seek refuge
in flight from the hostility of those
who had walked bodily out of the
phantasmagoria Of her dreams, like
ghosts by some black magic material
lied in flesh and blood.
Nevertheless they had been curious
~ metamorphosed in process of ma
terialization. There could be no ques-
ton as to their identity; but they sim
gularly were and at the same time
were not the Inez and Harry the Nut
whom Priscilla had known In dreams.
But the look and attitude of Harry
and Inez had been etched indelibly
upon the tablets of her memory by
acid fear.
She could see now, as clearly as she
had then, the blazing hatred in the
black eyes of Inez, the supercilious
and derisive malevolence In Harry's.
AS definitely she retained the de-
tails of their appearance; which was
something vastly different in the case
of both from the time of LeonOra's
knowledge of them.
The Nut, for one, had won his nick
name as much for his weakness for
fiashy if expensive clothing as for the
silly-ass manner which he commonly
affected, finding it useful in his bust
ness. But today he was well, if per-
haps too much, dressed. A black
morning coat with striped gray trous-
ers, white linen waistcoat and spats,
radiant topper and vanished shoes,
makes a perfectly correct costume for
afternoon on the avenue. For all that,
on a day of summer heat it is unde-
niably conspicuous.
In the case Of Inez the transforma-
ton had proved even more startling.
The Inez whom Priscilla had seen with
the eyes of Leonora was prone to
shOddy finery and strident color
schemes, and displayed lofty contempt
for trihes such as buttons missing or
hanging by thread, grease stains,
shoes down at the heels, skirts that
cleared the ground at the same ele-
walton fore and aft. Whereas today
she was trinity turned out in the
smartest of tailleurs, with a hat the
last cry in popular impudence, and
gloved and shod as well in a way that
none could criticise.
Clearly the Nut had prospered since
that night at Ristori's. AS clearly the
inconstant Inez, following the arrest
of Leo the Blood, had been swift to
forsake sinking ship for passage on
a more seaworthy craft with every
promise Of a prosperous voyage.
But priscilla argued firmly with
herself) what Of that? What was 1t
to her whether Inez and Harry Jared
we'll or Ill?
After all, why in the name of rea-
son need she have been so easy a prey
to CONSERVATION on Unexpectedly COM
ing face to face with the pair?
What though Inez and Harry had
mistaken her for Leonora? She was
not, she was merely one who resem-
bled Leonora strangely and still more
strangely was sib to her in spiritual
affinity. A woman of another world
entirely, occupying an established po-
sitlon In an ordered and solid state of
society, she was secure against any
offense which wrong-headed malice
might offer her.
She had nothing, positively nothing,
TO fear from them.
And yet-she was afraid. fear crawl
cd. in the back of her mind, outside
the bright arena of common sense, like
snake In a shadowy thicket.
She pondered the riddle for a long
fine before 1t was revealed to her
that her fear was not for herself but
for Leonora.
Imagination called up again those
faces that had glared at her in the
crowd, two masks of evil lighted from
within by a hatred deadly aud i'm
placable.
As long as those two remained at
large. Priscilla knew. so long would
the happiness, II not the life, Of Lee
onora be in jeopardy.
She tried to think of something she
could do 20 confound them, Illustrate
them, reduce them to impotence.
But she knew SO little, her life had
been too well sheltered she could not
imagine how to deal with creatures
Of their sort--recourse to the police
being out Of the question since It
must necessarily involve Leonora.
A Ginning clock reminded her that