The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-08-12
Chapter 25 THE cABLEGRAM

s( THE CABlEGRAM tI I CEoRGIE went home with al " strange feeling of excitement. it almost seemed as if the closed doors of Life, as other people knew it, had slowly begun to open and let her. through.
 | She sighed and let herself into the house. It was five o'clock and there was a smell of burning toast in the house; why was it that Mrs. Drill could never make toast with out burning it. Georgie wondered impatiently. and she thought rather wistfuily of the wonderful lunch she had had; tea would probably have been just as good if they had had 1t in the same restaurant.
 Mrs. Drill came out O. the kitchen.
 "Your uncle's been hollerin' all over the place for you" she said.
 "Where is he?" Georgie asked.
 "Gone out. but there's telegram on the dining-room table, and he said was to tell you to read it."
 Georgie went into the dining room; the telegram lay on the tray beside an empty tumbler. and she took 1t up with a vague feeling of distaste. ,s ga tas
 Whoever could be sending tele- gram? She could not remember ever having seen one in the house be- fore. This was on different paper to the usual ones too: she looked at the printed heading curiously.
 It was cable. brief but to the point. @s s sii ! a
 Arriving Friday the twenty-sec- ond. Evelyn"
 ' Georgie always thought it seemed funny her mother should invariably sign herself by her christian name and not Mother" esa'
 Friday the twenty-second was next Friday; funny they should have troubled to cable her at all. She was of such little Importance in the life Of this woman who would sign her. self Evelyn.
 Mrs. Drill spoke from the door, way. z t*st t33
 "No bad news, 1 hope?" She was sll inquisitiveness.
 "No. only that my mother is com. Ing home," Georgie said.
 That will be nice," Mrs. Drill said trifle disappointediy: to her way # thinking telegrams only meant ,ne thing. and that was bad news. She waited a moment and then went back to the kitchen to finish | atrni9g the toast. vNaEN Edward Bancroft came " home later in the evening. he sould talk of nothing else but the | cablegram: he seemed to consider t as personal insult. Aa Wasting money-the kind of thing an empty headed woman would do. Why the devil .does she want you to know that she arrives on Friday the twenty-second? She's not coming to see you, I'll bet al 6ver." E
 s''I think it was kind of her." Georgie said. "Kind!" Edward Bancroft roared | like a bull. "She doesn't know the | meaning of the word. Where's the | whisky?" { M Georgie escaped. She went out into the garden and looked at the moon. It was a young moon like a thin sickle. and 1t lay on its back. which Lovelock had always de- clarei was a bad sign.
 She supposed that tho same moon shone down on Germany, where Nicholas would soon be; they would have that in common anyway; not | that ne cared whether they had any thing in common or not.
 .Georgie opened the creaking Iron gate and looked out into the road. It was nearly nine o'clock. and everything was very still.
 Up in a tree somewhere an owl called mournfully. and away in the distance dog was barking; they | were the only sounds to be heard except slow footstep coming down the road.
 A slow. uneven footstep.
 Georgie's heart missed beat: she would know that footstep any where: surely if she were dead and | 1t passed over her grave she would know it.
 She stood staring, her heart beat Ing fast,
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