Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-26

thing that could have no reality until
| he recognized it.
The man who had CHANGED to record
| that matchless vision of loneliness and
CHANGED coincidentally to conceal its
| index-that obsequious operator who
had rushed to volunteer an explana-
ton of his blunder and to make its
completeness clear-that creator of
| magic and maddening mystery-that
| wearer of disguise-it was he who had
| fired the shot from the Norman garden,
meant for the man who had injured
him! 1t was he who had since covered
| in the power of the man he had tried
| to kill!
Brainard lay like a man collapsed
within himself. Like a man robbed of
| his breath by a blow under the heart.
He who had yesterday believed himself
| suddenly in the saddle, the worlds new
ringmaster! He who had thought him.
| self immune to the effect of the draft
he had brewed, mad now with craving
| fired by single sip of his own potion!
| iegfried-Achilles-o the vulnerable
spot!
He scarcely reflected upon his own
insane fooliShneSs in allowing opportu-
nifty to man with motive for injur-
ing him. He had been so sure OF his
hold over the felloW-So sure of his
power!
1t was after midnight that Ushigi
came with faltering voice and apollo
getic hands begging him to rest. Brain
ard motioned him away But the Jap's
concern for him reused him. He sat
up in his chair, and of sudden, like
the flow of stirred circulation of his
blood, an idea flowed through his brain.
He stood up with the heat of it running
over his body like the tardy heat OF the
| liquor he had taken. Spirit came back
into him and filled out his flesh.
| Laughter dubbed up within him once
more, like champagne. He was drunk
again-and not with alcohol.
He tossed papers and sticks from his
basket together upon his hearth and
lighted them. OF what had he been
watched its rising light climb up his
own figure and flood over him like new
life. At ! o'clock he rang and called
for food. And Ushigi brought him fra
grant Steaming coffee, which he drank
and blessed like a convaleScent FAM
ished by fever.
The Jap told him that reporters had
come at II, relating that a woman had
committed suicide in the street after
viewing the scenes in the theater called
the Swan, and asking what Radley
Brainard might have to say to that.
Brainard shook his head, with that ges-
ture which covers the worlds misery
like blanket for those whom it does
not touch. He ate hugrily of sand
wicheS and cakes and fruit. and when
Ushigi carried the tray away, with
orders to go to bed himself, his
master sat in his chair and smoked,
and smiled, and smoked, and stared at
an indelible print upon his brain, at
which he dared once more to look.
He did not sleep. Consciousness
seemed too sweet. Vistas opened now
before his inner eyes which had been
only dazzled before.
Assured once more of the sound
ness of his own reasoning, he traced
slowly to and fro the line of prob
able action taken by the criminal mind
of Homer in scheming his undoing.
Homer had recovered from his own
first terrifying taste of relieved life.
He had recognized at least in some
degree that no living being could be
free from some key-chord in the gamut
of human emotion-that for every man
there must be some keynote to which
vital chord within him would re-
spond, and that every such note must
have been struck, and often struck in
the infinite variety of music of the
past, and so might be struck again;
that this note, once heard, might so
command the man that he would live
only that he might experience it again!
Recognizing this, the Scheming crimi-