Connecticut western news., 1922-08-31

stepped down among the crowds hurrying to and from the trains. He was not confused, he was only in- tensely excited. Acting in implicit ac- cord with the instructions of the letter which he knew by heart, he went to the uniformed attendant and engaged a taxicab-itSelf no small experience; there would be no one at the station to meet him, the letter had said He gave the Astor street address and got into the cab.
 It had begun to snow heavily. For a few blocks the taXicab drove north past more or less ordinary build ings, then turned east on a broad boulevard where tall tile and brick and stone structures lowered till their roofs were hidden in the snowfall. A strange stir and jingle, quite distinct from the excitement of the arrival at the station, pricked in Alan's veins, and hastily lie dropped the window to his right and gaZed out. The lake, as he had known since his geography days, lay to the east of Chicago; therefore that void out there beyond the park was the lake or, at least, the harbor. A different air seemed to come from 1t; sounds Suddenly it all was shut off the taxicab, swerving a little, was dashing between business blocks; a row of buildings had risen again upon the right; they broke abruptly to show him wooden walled chasm in which flowed the river full of ice with a tug dropping it's slnokestack as it cut below the bridge which the cab crossed; build ings on both sides again; then, to the right, a roaring, heaving crashing ex- panSe. fl
 The sound, Alan knew, had been coming to him as an undertOne for many minutes; now it overwhelmed, swallowed all other sound. It was great, not loud; all sound which Alan had heard before, except the sOughing of the wind over his pralries, came from one point; even the monstrous city murmur was centered in compari- son with this. Over the lake, as over the land, the soft snowflakes lazily f1oated down, scarcely stirred by the slightest breeze; that roar was the voice of the water, that awful power its own.
 Alan choked and gasped for breath, his pulses pounding in his throat; he had snatched off his hat and, leaning out of the window sucked the lake air in his lungs. There had been nothing to make him expect this overwhelming crush of feeling. The lake-he had thought of 1t, of course, as a great body of water, an interesting sight for a prairie boy to see; that was all. No physical experience in all his memory had affected him like this; and it was without warning; the strange thing that had stirred within him as the car brought him to the Drive downtown was strengthened now a thousand-fold; :. it amazed, half frightened, half dizzied him. Now. as the motor suddenly swung around a corner and shut the sight of the lake from him, Alan sat back breathless.
 The car swerved to the east curb about the middle of the block and came to a stop. The house before which 1t had halted was a large stone house of quiet, good design; it was some generation older, apparently, than the houses on each side of it, which were brick and terra cotta of recent fashionable architecture; Alan only glanced at them long enough to get that impression before he opened the cab door and got out; but as the cab drove away, he stood beside his suitcase looking up at the old house which bore the number given in Ben jamin Corvet's letter, then around at the other houses and back to that again.
 The neighborhood obviously pre- cluded the probability of Corvet's be- ing merely a lawyer-a go-between. He must be some relative; the ques- tion ever present in Alan's thought since the receipt of the letter, but held In abeyance, as to the possibility and nearness of Corvet's relation to him, took sharper and more exact form now than he had dared to let 1t take before. Was his relationship to Corvet, perhaps, the closest of all re- lationships? Was Corvet his father? He checked the question within himself, for the time had passed for mere speculation upon 1t now. Alan was trembling excitedly; for-whoever Corvet might be-the enigma of Alan's existence was going to be answered when he had entered that house. He was going to know who he was. All the possibilities, the responsibilities, the attachments, the opportunities, perhaps, of that person whom he jwas-but whom, as yet, he did not know-were before him. He went up the steps and, with fingers excitedly unsteady, he pushed the bell beside the door.
 The door opened almost instantly so quickly after the ring, indeed; that Alan, with leaping throb of his heart, knew that some one must have been