New Britain herald., 1929-07-16
RIVAL gW1| gW1|IVES
| A4nRAAstW |. Author of lMNah&9eon44:l

| moving, Of course, What a fool
 she was to be so frightened! She
 was John Curtis Morgan's wife!
 Estelle, watching from the stairs,
 saw the little brown head go up.
 the slim, boyish shoulders straight | en before Nan turned the knob. | With a sob of relief, the maid dart
 ed around the staircase to the | kitchen, to pour the latest news
 bulletin into Maude O'Brien's avid 1 ears.
 She's going to fight for her ! man, Maude - God bless her," l Estelle exulted. Fair knocked
 her out, it dld. I thought for q minute that the poor little dear
 would pack her things and beat it. | leaving that hell-cat to get her
 claws into the poor mister again." | What stumps me-" Maude
 O'Brien marNeled, scowling pro- ] digiously and clattering the dishes 1 in the sink to keep her words from i penetrating to the dining room, 'is
 why the high and mighty Lady Iris come back? Anyone that was blind | in one eye and couldn't see out of
 the other coulda seen she didn't
 care snap of her finger for the 1 poor dear man when she had | him"
 "Hunh." Estelle snorted, dab
 bing the tears from her eyes with
 her apron. That don't bother me none, Maude, That crook Craw- ford that she run off with give her i the air Oh. Lordy! Listen,' she | gasped, as a scream rose and rose
 till it reached erve-shattering cre- scendo, then broke abruptly.
 CHAPTER NJNNI
 Nan Carroll Morgan was not one ! of those women who thrive on ! drama. She had never lost her lit 1 girl horror and sick distaste of scenes. Her own Well-bred home 1 had been singularly free of open discord, but once, inadvertently when she was child, she had over i heard her mother and father quar-
 reling bitterly. For days her shamed 1 eyes had avoided them, fearful Of i seeing those two she had idolizei
 in that dreadful state of soul-naked- ness to which their quarrel hal stripped them.
 ! Now, her hand on the knob of l the door beyond which an unspeak- ably shameful scene was being en. acted, every ounce of physical cour- age which the girl possessed had to be desperately summoned before she could force herself to go on.
 A wave of nausea swept over her. If she had had only herself to con-
 sidCr she would still have done as
 F,stelle had feared-she would have fled the house, leaving Iris in pos session. But. as always. John Cur tis Morgan came first. What was it he had said last night?-'I was
 a slave in bondage" Could she,
 whom he had loved as his deliv
 crer, consign him to slavery again? He had said. too, "I hope I shall never see Iris again." Well, now
 that he had seen her again. But he had sent Estelle 10 find her. He needed her. She had never failed him yet.
 Mans icy fingers turned the knob
 slowly, noiselessIy. though with no intention of muting her entrance. 1 She forced her eyes to take in every detail of the tableau before her:
 Morgan standing tall and stiff,
 his pale face stern and forbidding, but such agony in his deep-set black
 eyes that Nan could have screamed, Swaying against his stiff body, her
 hands locked behind his rigidly un-
 bending neck, was an Iris Morgan such as Nan, in her most uncon-
 trolled flights of imagination, Could
 not have pictured.
 The divorced wife had torn off her hat and thrown aside her fur coat-thc same mink coat in which
 she had gone away to join Bert
 hair was in wild disorder, the thick knot on her neck almost shaken free by the violence of her emo ton.
 Before Nan became aware of the words Iris was pouring out upon her former husband her eyes took i in. with curious detachment, the 1 fact that Iris normally slender body had become painfully thin. | But somehow, subtly, her beauty
 had fed upon the wasting of her body. Undoubtedly Iris had suf- fered. and as a result was far love- | Her than ever. Even her voice had
 a new quality q throb of sincerity in what had formerly been an ar 1 tificial. beautifully modulatcd rip pie of music. Gradually her words beat into Nan's still half-dazed brain;
 "It can't he true, Jack You've said these horrible things to punish me. I'm punished. See, I'm crying, Jack, Now put your arms about mo. Kiss me, Hold me so tight l