Newspaper Page Text
CHAPTER XXVII.
N THE following morning, Faith, carry
ing a dainty little breakfast arranged on
a tray, tapped on the door of Claude’s
room. He opened the door, and she was
surprised to see that he was dressed as
for going out, and that his trunk was
open and seemed to be half packed. •
“Claude, you are going away?” she
asked.
fig/
He took her hand and pressed his hot forehead
against it.
“Yes, Faith, I am going away—on the next train.
I can’t stay here any longer. Life here is slow torture
and I am only a burden and a trial to you.’’
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. I will go as far as I can. I will
write to you. Don’t try to hinder me, Faith.
She did not try to hinder him. She felt that any
thing was better for him than his life here. She saw
that he would die or sink into helpless imbecility.
She made him sit down by the little table and eat
the breakfast she had brought, while she packed his
clothes, his books, all the little gifts and keepsakes
he had ever received, which she had carefully pre
served for him. She thought of everything. At last
she brought her mother’s watch which she prized
above all her possessions. On the gold case out
side ■were the initials of her mother’s name in blue
enamel; inside was a miniature picture of her mother
painted after sorrow had softened and ennobled her
beauty.
She came up to him where he sat and put the slen
der chain about his neck, saying: “May this be an
amulet to keep you from harm, my dear brother.”
“Oh, Faith!”
He threw his arms about her and with his head
against her breast sobbed like a child. She put aside
her own pain and misgivings to comfort and encour
age him.
“Be brave, dearest,” she said. “Have faith in your
self and trust in God. Take your stories to a pub
lisher and if rejected at one place, try another.”
She put into his hand an envelope containing her
certificate of deposit in a bank in Altamont together
with an order that the money be paid to him.
“You must take it,” she said when he would have
protested against taking it. You can not get on with
out money, and I can make more.”
The money was the sum she had saved from her
salary during the three years she had been a teacher.
He went away, an hour later, his sister accompany
ing him to the train and bravely bidding him a tear
less and cheerful good-bye.
“I shall look for you to become a famous author,
after awhile,” she said. “Don’t get discouraged if
success doesn’t come at first.”
She passed a dreary day and night. It seemed to
her that the brother whom she loved with the devo
tion of a mother rather than a sister’s affection, was
lost to her forever.
At twilight of the following day she was sitting on
the steps of her cottage home wondering if there
was any one as desolate as she, when Charley rode
up to the gate. He dismounted and walked with
quick, excited step to the house. As he came near
she saw that he was greatly agitated. He spoke to
her, then abruptly put a letter in her hand. It was
signed Anabel. There was sufficient light to read
the lines.
“I have gone away from you forever. I came into
your life, it seems only, to ruin it, and you will be
relieved to know that I have at last gone out of it.
You never loved me. You married me through im
pulse and pity. I knew this and it helped to make
me reckless. If I had been a good woman I would
have won your love. You were ready to give it as
freely as you gave me kindness and indulgence. But
I am not a good woman. I never can be. The evil
in me overpowers the good. I have tried, God knows
I have tried!
I have taken two hundred dollars from your desk.
I shall never ask you for any more money. You
will never hear from me again. I thank you on my
knees for your forbearance. If I dared pray, I would
TRIAL AND TRIUMPH
A Story of the Conflict of Good and Ebil —By Mary E. Bryan.
The Golden Age for December 22, 1910.
pray that you might be happy (as you were on that
fateful day when I crossed your path), in the esteem
of your friends and the love of the woman who
should have been your wife instead of the wayward
and wicked.
ANABEL.
For a moment, Faith sat silent, holding the letter
in her hand. Then, as a thought flashed into her
mind, she asked:
“When did Anabel go away?”
“Yesterday evening—while I was away. She told
my father she was going to visit a friend in Alta
mont. This letter came in the afternoon mail. It
was posted in Altamont.” Then, suddenly, “Faith,
where is Claude?”
“He is gone. He went yesterday morning.”
Their eyes met in a glance full of meaning.
“Yes, they have gone away together. “Charley
said. “He waited in Altamont for her to join him.”
Faith made no reply. She felt that what he said
was true. When she spoke it was to ask with sud
den apprehension:
“You will not follow them, Charley?”
“Fellow them?” he laughed bitterly. “Why should
I follow a woman who never cared for me —a woman
I never loved? She told the truth; it is a relief to
have her go out of my life. But she has left her
shadow; I can never be the man I was. Hope and
inspiration are gone forever.” He stopped in his
rapid walk up and down the piazza and stood beside
her.
“Oh, Faith, what a mad mistake that marriage
was —what a wrong to myself, what a wrong to you!”
“All of us make mistakes,” she answered, meet
ing his sad, burning eyes as calmly as she could.”
We progress on crooked lines; we tack like a vessel
before the winds of passion and circumstance. It
may be you were too prosperous. Your good pros
pects might have given you a greed for money. Your
trials are meant to make you stronger and nobler.
Try to take it this way and begin anew.”
“There seems a dreary outlook for a new begin
ning,” he said gloomily.” My friends are estranged.
I am restless and unsettled. If only I had you by
my side. It is the bitterest reflection of all that my
own hand has raised a barrier between us.”
“The barrier is there,” she said, withdrawing
her hand from his grasp.
“Oh, Faith! tell me only this —that you are not in
different to me —only this.”
She was shaken by an inward tremor, but her an
swer came calmly almost coldly from lips that felt
the restraint of duty and honor.
“I am not indifferent to you. I shall always be your
friend. No matter what befall you I shall never fail
you in sympathy and help—if help of mine can avail.
I promise you this. More you will not ask.”
“No matter what befall you?” Faith did not know
why she used that phrase, but afterwards it seemed
■ to her that a moment of prescience had been given
her, and that she had pledged herself to stand by
Charley Glenn in darker hours and sadder trials than
had yet been his.
On the following day an unexpected thing oc
curred.
Faith was sitting at her desk in the school house,
when a young son of the postmaster came in and
handed her a letter, saying: “This has just come
and Father wanted you to get it at once. He said the
handwriting on the envelope looked like Miss Sylvia’s
and maybe it was from her.
Faith glanced at the superscription. It certainly
resembled Sylvia’s writing. The large square envel
ope bore a London postmark. She broke the seal,
her heart beating fast. The only enclosure was a
birthday card, beautifully hand painted in forget-me
nots. In one corner was pasted a small picture of
Sylvia—no larger than a postage stamp but remarka
bly clear.
Faith was greatly excited. Her breast was a tu
mult of emotions—doubt, hope, joy—but joy was pre
dominant. Were all her fears then unfounded? Was
Sylvia really living? Was no being dear to her guiltily
connected with her disappearance? The handwriting
and the picture gave her strong reasons to hope. She
at once enclosed the card to King and anxiously
waited his reply. The following day he sent back
the card accompanied by a note. “I have taken this
to an expert. He declares this is Sylvia’s handwrit
ing. Still, as it is in pencil, it is difficult to be sure.
I believe myself that the card was sent by the same
hand that sent the letter soon after Sylvia’s disap
pearance, and like that letter, it is intended as a
blind, to throw searchers off the real track. This is
my belief, yet I have already sent Sylvia’s picture
and a description of her to a detective agency in
London, with instructions to spare no pains in trying
to find her.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The October elections were at hand. The cam
paign was to be unusually important and exciting.
The issue was wet or dry for the state—prohibition
or non-prohibition. It would be a close fight—the
election for governor being first on the campaign pro
gram.
Charley Glenn, always a strong advocate for tem
perance, now threw himself heart and soul into the
contest. The work was an outlet for his restless en
ergies; it brought forgetfulness of his domestic un
happiness. He quickly developed into a fiery plat
form speaker.
The caldron of political passion bubbled high in his
country. Many who had been his professed friends
now became his opponents and enemies.
It was in the heat of this contest that the smolder
ing suspicion against young Glenn broke out into
flame. The theory that he had “made way with Syl
via Thorne to get her fortune” which before had been
whispered with bated breath was now openly voiced.
Charley heard it and laughed it to scorn. “Sylvia
is in London with her father’s relatives,” he said.
“Faith has heard from her.” “They say the card was
a blind sent by you as was the letter that came soon
after she disappeared,” was the response of the one
who had brought the story of suspicion.
“Let any one dare to say it to my face,” cried
Charley.
One night he was making a speech in the town hall
at Glenwood. He was unusually severe in his ar
raignment of the whiskey candidate and his adher
ents, who would fasten the curse of the saloon upon
the State. Hisses and excited protests interrupted
him, but he went on without giving these any notice.
At length a voice at the back of the hall cried out:
“Now tell us what has become of Sylvia Thorne!”
The blood mounted to Glenn’s face but he went on
speaking. The man who had interrupted was wound
up by whiskey and a bribe from Charley’s enemies.
He moved up close to the low platform on which
the speaker stood and hoarsely called out:
“What did you do with Sylvia Thorne? Tell us
that!”
With a bound like a tiger’s, Glenn leaped from the
platform and with one blow of his clenched fist, felled
the bully to the floor. Then, turning his blazing eyes
over the crowd, he demanded:
“Are there any others here who care to ask me
that question?”
No one spoke and he stepped back upon the stand
and went on speaking where he had left off.
But this did not silence the whispers against him.
They were poured into the ears of a creature whose
dog-like devotion to Sylvia was well known in the
community. Samp, the widow Vance’s half-witted son,
had cause to be eternally grateful to Charley Glenn,
who had befriended him and helped his mother on
numberless occasions. But the boy was incapable of
reason —a creature of instinct and impulse.
He had joined, night and day, in the search for Syl
via; he had never ceased to lament her absence.
And now they told him that this idol of his benighted
soul had been murdered. by Charley Glenn. He got
the idea fixed in his warped brain and along with it
another idea that he must avenge her death. He hid
in the bushes and threw stones at Glenn as he passed
along the road. He sent a brick crashing through
the window glass in Charley’s room, trying to kill him
as he lay in bed. He- was cunning in his malignity,
and Charley could not find out certainly who his
secret assailant was.
(Continued on page 15.)
3
