Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-04-26

~ TX months and six thousand dollars
then death.
Philip Harding smiled, smile Of
4 genuine amusement that q situation
so beloved of fiction writer's should
suddenly have projected itself into his own
life.
The famous specialist who had just told him
that he had only one-hah year to live had i'm
posed no restrictions. 1t was perfectly all right
for him to sit on a park bench in a moon
flooded world and smoke his pipe while he laid
plans. He was free to do as he pleased in
everything
After all, he told himself this sentence
wasn't nearly so bad as one Of lifetime Of
semi-tnvahdism. Perhaps he could write de-
cent story or two. He was glad that he had
managed to save the &C, 900 from his other tales.
1t would tide him over the interval during
which he waited for death.
But there was no need Of saving the $4,000
any more, for he had no one to leave it to.
thousand dollars month! What would he do
with IT.?
Travel. Of course, was the thing until just be-
fore the end. He wasn't particularly senti-
mental; but still-he would make sure Of being
hsFe then. In sight Of the slow brown river and
thu hrooding hills beyond.
In so far as was possible there was little un-
lovely or eondning about his sentence. Save
for an intensthcation Of the leanness which had
0Gca C6at2ceef1Sblc
look notieeably Ill. With the not uncommon
feeling that serious sickness-especiaIy In q
mans something disgraceful, he had told no
one about 1t, and no one had ever noticed any
thing amiSs. Sometimes. when things were par
hculaxly bad. he found himself wishing that
they wOuldI
THE pain could always be borne without out
ward sign. Nearly always, anyway: and
there was something to take when Il couldn't.
There would be little change. the specialist had
assured him, till shortly before the end. when
matters would move swiftly. Meantime. one
might still see Rome and the pyramids and the
gannt fairy glens Of Ireland One might still
have much with $6,0o0-and no more restric-
tons.
mo restrictions Of any kind" the specialist
had said. But he knew only those restrictions
which he himself had imposed and which he
could remove. Not the great restriction, i'm
posed 10 years before by Fate and forever ire
movable; the restriction which was the ultimate
reason for Philips ability to accept 90 regret
lessly the hopeless verdict. The restriction that
he dare not marry Barbara.
II only that one might be set aside with the
restl If only he might have Barbara for that
little time, her hand in his her voice In his
ears-the blessing Of her presence at the last!
And he buried his head in his hands, rscked by
the cumulative intensity Of the empty longing
Of the years that had passed since Barbara had
become unattainable-forevef.
Before the war Barbara had been attainable;
slim and sweet. merry and tender, always lovely
in the simple dresses which she made herself
and which looked as though she hadn't; keep
ing house for her father IN the eficient and ef-
FORTRESS fashion that proclaimed her an ideal
helpmeet for one not burdened with the goods
Of this world.
He hadn't spoken then. One didn't, for fear
Of what might come back to her. And when
he did return, in one Of the last regiments to be
sent home, it was TO discover that q couple Of
Killed in action" reports, topped by an aston
ishingly complete automobile accident. had
made Barbara-who had been III and had not
accompanied her father on the trip with his
wealthy cousins-sole heir to the great Mac
Lane fortune and estate. And therefore unat-