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MISS CRANE’S CHANCE • By ODESSA STRICKLAND PAYNE
CHAPTER XV.
IE glow of the electric lights was
reflected brightly, the next evening
in the panel mirrors, between the
high mahogany bookcases in the
library. And the great crystal
bowl of pink roses on the long
centre table, as well as the red and
yellow canna sheafs in the Bohem
ian vases on the mantel, all added
IT
the necessary touch of color and charm to the
rich, but rather sombre, furnishings of the
room. Nell had already departed with Hale
Carrol and his sister in their tonneau, but Miss
Crane had stayed down stairs, to talk with the
other members of her household. Mr. and Mrs.
More were both unaffectedly glad of her return,
and their attitude towards her, was so sin
cere and affectionate, that it added much to
the happiness of her home life. “Miss Crane,”
Gordon observed, with a flashing smile over the
top of his newspaper, “Gertrude had our chil
dren out to luncheon while you were gone, and,
barring their names, I really found them quite
decent.”
“Why don’t you say interesting?” Gertrude
interposed. “For as difficult as you may find
it to believe, Miss Caroline, they are that in
many ways. Phelia looks like a patrician, and
Julia is a vivid creature, who entertains sim
ply by being so spontaneously herself. They
looked so nice and dainty, in their new clothes,
with their tan stockings and shoes, that I real
ly felt quite proud of them. The joy of posses
sion, you know, is nine-tenths of the law. I
forgot all about tlie imperfection of their table
manners, and the horrid way they murdered
the King’s English at times. And that night,
after the poor little kids were gone, when I
took down my hair before my mirror, I caught
such a bright reflection of my halo, that I real
ly felt comforted clean down to my slippers.”
Gordon looked up and laughed, as he crushed
his newspaper against his knee.
“Gertrude, you are incorrigible,” he ex
claimed. “How many halos do you suppose
there would be, in the great beyond, if
everybody had to pay six thousand dollars
apiece for the distinction?”
“Oh, that is cheap,” she retorted, as she
swept in the blue lengths of her long gown to
wards the arch which opened near the foot of
the stairway. “Miss Caroline’s will probably
cost a half million dollars.”
Gordon looked over at Miss Crane with a
thoughtful expression. “Gertrude will not
have a jew T el left,” he declared, “by the time
she gets through with the maintenance, and
education of Mary Brand’s children. Recent
ly I asked her, about an amethyst necklace, and
diamond bracelet, that she used to be fond of
wearing in the evenings. I told her that I
wished to see them, and when she failed to
produce them, I knew, of course, that they had
gone the way of the diamond rings. Now I
would like to know, Miss Caroline,” he con
tinued in a tone of mock gravity, “what I
ought to do about it?”
“Nothing,” Miss Crane answered. “She
enjoys the sacrifice, and the children, in conse
quence of it, will be much more dear to her,
than if you gave her the money. And, you
know, Gordon,” she added, with a tender smile,
“that Gertrude is very much improved—love
lier in every way—since she began to take such
a deep, personal interest in the well being of
those children.”
“Admitted,” he returned, as he rustled his
newspaper, expressively. “But, who wants a
wife without a jewel to her name?”
“You do,” she answered, quietly. “And you
are just as proud of Gertrude’s sociological
experiment almost, as she is. And so, you need
not fuss, my dear boy, just to hear yourself
talk.”
‘ ‘ Thanks, ’’ he said, with a genial smile. “I’ll
The Golden Age for February 6,1913.
take my medicine like a little man. But, all
the same, I am afraid that jewel fund will prove
insufficient one of these days, about the time
our girls get grown. There will be college
bills and dresses and books, and tennis suits
galore to settle so then, where will
father be?”
“Doing his duty, I hope,” Miss Crane re
plied, as she got up to leave the room. “But
you know, Gordon, that those girls will be
trained to take care of themselves. Gertrude
has too much common sense to give them an
artificial education. ’ ’
“Why shouldn’t we have some daughters in
our old age ? ” he demanded gravely, though his
eyes scintillated with mirth, “to brighten our
home like other fortunate folks?”
“Well, that will be as you desire,” she re
plied. “I expect that Gertrude would be
charmed to adopt them legally, if you would
allow her.”
Miss Crane had been thinking of her lover’s
journal all day, and while she had restrained
herself from reading it the previous evening,
she felt now, as she slowly climbed the stairs,
that it was impossible for her to defer it any
longer. She glanced at Powhattan Gray’s por
trait as she entered the brightly lighted sitting
room, and going up to the mantel she touched,
with a soft, caressing hand, the violets which
sent up their incense from a silver bowl beneath
it.
“Oh, Powhattan,” she said, at last with a
flush on her face, “it seems almost like sacri
lege, to read your diary, but I am sure that
you would have destroyed it, if you had not
meant for me to see it. Because you arranged
everything else, you know, your will, and that
bank book, and you wrote me, too, that fare
well letter. Yes, it is the logical conclusion,
dear, and I hope,” she continued, as she walk
ed over to the desk, and opened it, “that I shall
find some satisfactory explanation in the jour
nal of why you placed such an inviolable seal
upon your lips, while you were alive.”
She took the book out of the secret drawer,
and went back to the table and sat down in
a low rocking chair, under the electric light.
She had put on a soft lilac silk dress, which she
had had a long time, but which still possessed
an old fashioned charm. And, as she sat
there, with the white lace outlining her throat,
and elbow sleeves, she could have passed for
a much younger woman, than she really was.
She held the book in a loose clasp on her lap
a long time, and then, with a glance at the por
trait, she slowly opened it, and began to read.
He told the story of their meetings, at a few
dinners, and many times on the suburban cars
in chronological order. It was all there, the
conversations brilliant and intimate, and often
how he had felt and thought about her, after
they had parted. Once he confessed that he
had walked the floor, half the night, battling
with the consciousness of his love for her, and
what he considered was the right thing for him
to do, in the matter. Finally, he had resolved
to go to her and tell her the truth, that he had
organic heart trouble, that his days were num
bered, and then leave.the decision, as to wheth
er they should marry or not, with her. But
he had an alarming attack the next morning,
and when he did recover from it, he would not
go. “And now lam convinced,” he wrote, and
the handwriting was rather nervous for the
first few lines, “that it w r ould be a cruel and un
manly thing to do, for I know that she loves
me as unconditionally as I do her, by every
sign the heart can give, without words. She
would not hesitate to make the sacrifice, she
would marry me tomorrow, if I were enough
of a coward to ask her, if she thought that it
would add an hour’s happiness to my life.”
“Oh, if you had only given me the chance,
Powhattan,” Miss Crane said, as she lifted her
tear-filled eyes to the portrait. “I would not
have hesitated an instant. I would have been
only too glad to have had the privilege of mak
ing you happy—even a half hour. ’ ’
“But it has never been an easy matter,” he
wrote, upon a date two weeks later, “for me
to surrender my own will, so I have been, since
my last entry in this book, to New York to see
another specialist. I have seen Caro in my
library a thousand times, embroidering quietly,
while I sat near by, with an unread newspaper
in my hand, watching her. I was so determin
ed that my dream of home happiness should
materialize, that I took my last chance to se
cure it with some degree of hopefulness, not
withstanding the many defeats I have experi
enced. But the great specialist agreed abso
lutely with the diagnosis of my own physician
in the city, so I came back a sadder man, if
possible than when I went away. And so my
doom is sealed, and as I have not even a fight
ing chance, there is nothing left for me to do,
but to put my house in order. I have design
edly made Miss Crane repeat a number of times
what she would do with money if she had it;
and so, I feel perfectly safe in leaving my for
tune to her. I know that she will use it wise
ly and intelligently, in all the manifold ways
which may be suggested to her by time and op
portunity, for the relief of suffering humanity
and that is enough for me. I only hope that
she will reserve a legitimate share for herself,
and that charming niece of hers, out of it all.
She is so sensitive to any touch of woe, and so
generous withal, that my great fear is not that
she will not give the money away where it is
needed, but that she will not keep enough to
protect properly her own and the dear little
girl’s future. . But, oh! my darling, don’t wait
too long to join me. Do the work which I
have been too. busy to do, except at long inter
vals —do it wisely and well, and then come to
me. For no other being, human or angelic,
can be what you are and will be forever to
me.”
Miss Crane knew that the shadow of his
doom must have been on him when he wrote
the last paragraph, and after reading it again,
she bowed her head on her arm on the table, and
sobbed as unrestrainedly as a broken-hearted
girl.
After a long time, she got up and v ent me
chanically back to the desk and, placing the
book in the secret drawer, pulled down the top
and locked it. Then she walked back to the cen
-ler of the room, and stood before the portrait,
gazing long and tenderly into the grand, high
bred face. She looked very lovely as she stood
there, in her long clinging gown, with her
'brilliant blue eyes shining, her sensitive lips
parted, and her cheeks flushed with inward
emotion.
“Powhattan, I never realized it before,” she
said, at last, in a voice that was soft as the
sigh of the South wind, “but I know now that
I had a perfect right to your fortune. For
we were married in spirit, dear, long ago, and
you left it naturally, to your wife.”
******
The moonlight fell in sliver splashes of splen
dor between the groups of oak and moss-hung
magnolia trees, disposed about the grounds of
the club house, which stretched in a wide green
expanse to the edge of the lake, which seemed
to melt on the farther side into the star-hung
horizon.
The automobile party—which had been got
ten up in honor of Nell Crane —had dined with
all the artistic accessories which belong to
such festivities, and were now sitting on the
veranda, enjoying themselves in their individ
ual ways. Hale Carrol was a handsome blond,
who drawled delightedly sometimes in his con
versation, and was either consciously or uncon
sciously, a remarkably fascinating man. He
was a social leader because he liked power,
(Continued on Page 11.)
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