New Britain herald., 1927-01-13
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WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE

to beautiful womanhood have been adopted and named Margaret and Elizabeth. They are called Rusty and ! Betty.
 Jim Elwell. the son enlists in the World War. He then discovers that one of the twins loves him. He is shell shocked at the battle of Sedan and at first is reported dead. Later he is identified in a New York hospital and his mother and father hasten to him to find i his memory and speech gone. Specialists despair of his recovery. The day before his parents are 10 take him home, Jim wanders away from his nurse. Nellie Downing. A frantic search is begun. Late that night he is found in Bellevue hospital. unconscious, his skull frac- tured. expected to die. He was hit by a truck.
 The twins are in Indianapolis at l the home Of their uncle, John Clay I ton. the mystery of their identity l having been cleared up while Jim was in France. They make prepara- tions for his homecoming not knowing of the accident, but when ! the train pulls in the Elwells are not aboard.
 NOW BEGIN THE STORY CHAPTER NXNVII
 Why. they didn't come!'
 Both Rusty and Betty uttered the | dismal truth in the same words. No body questioned or supplemented 1 their statement.
 What could have happened ." Again they spoke in concert and no one answered. The crowd began to disintegrate. The band silently packed it's pieces and shuffled off. Harvey Weir swore and found him. self a pleasant spot to sit in the park. To have gone out and got so eXpensively illuminated for an occasion that failed to matorialize was something of disappointment to Harvey. He had wasted some thing.
 Martha Dalton clbowed her way up to the two girls. l Something must have happened" ." It seemed the obvious thing 10 say, so she said it. There was very little else to say.
 The girls nodded their heads. Words had failed them for the mo- ment.
 The old nurse slipped an arm around the waist of each of them and escorted them back to the FL we'll cottage. Once inside and away from the sympathetic looks Of their | lifelong acquaintances the two gave vent to their disappointmenta accord ing 10 the prescribed form. They cried.
 i With the passing of this came the 1 regulation question again, altered slightly but in purport the same:
 What do you suppose could have happened?"
 Martha Dalton began probing among the multitude of possibilities for the most likely one.
 'They might have missed their connection in Chicago: they might have missed their train in New York; they might have-or else they didn't start. Why. hundred and one things might have happened .
 Yes" Betty said miserably, "a 1 hundred and one things-a thousand and one things. Among them the possibility that something has hap- pened to Jim."
 1 "Or. Nurse" cried Margaret, do you suppose-do you think"
 Now. be quiet, dear. Anything might have happened, of course, but don't you suppose they'd have tele- graphed if it had been something serious? They knew you'd be here expecting them on the seven o'clock | train"
 l Margaret twisted her fingers rervously and sighed and Betty sighed with her.
 That's it, I'm afraid. Daily dear" said Margaret with an odd little smile that was wanly pathetic. I've l have no reason for thinking that Mollie and Prof really expected us to be here to meet them. In her | letter, written more than a week ago, she just named the day they would leave New York and the train they would arrive home on."
 Mollie, she added. hadn't asked them to meet the train-hadn't even suggested it. We waited for her to 1 write again but she didn't, so yes- terday we decided-or rather, Uncle John told us-that is, he-'' Rusty had floundered around until she had finally got into a cross cur rent She was between the devil and the deep blue sea. She must either lie now, back up or go ahead.
 Like the game little girl she was she went ahead and told their old friend the truth as it had been pointed out to them by their uncle. The truth was the more difficult to tell for the very fact that neither Betty nor she had realized it was the truth until Uncle John had shown them.
 And he didn't think we should wait for Molie to suggest it. He thought we should have seen in stantly that Mollie felt delicatcly about the situation. I'm afraid Mol lie will think we've neglected her terribly. So you see, Daily dear" she wound up finally, bravely try ing to keep from crying again, that probably is the reason why. as dear old Jim would have put it, we're up tree now"
 Well. the thing for us 10 do," de- clared Martha Dalton with her GUS tumary promptness in reaching de- cisions, 'is 10 telegraph them at the Staten Island hospital. If something happened 10 Jim or either of them 10 make them change their plans, the hospital people probably will know about it."