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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER It. In this story Mr. Palmer, the noted war correspondent, has paint* ed war as he has seen It on many battlefields, and between many na tions. His Intimate knowledge of armies and armaments has enabled him to produce a graphic picture of the greatest of all wars, and hla knowledge of conditions has led him to prophesy an end of armed conflicts. No man Is be,ter quali fied to write the story of the final world war than Mr. Palmer, and he hae handled his subject with a master hand • tavaa* (Continued ironi Yesterday.) - - “That is !i,” she exclaimed ,vtth a 1 si-udder—“ail :~v eavesdropping, all j my breach of confidence! If—if It" — j tad her voice trembled with the In tensity of the one purpose that was bhining with the light of truth through the murk of her deception—"it will only help to and the slaughter!” Bhe held out her hand convulsively in pasting as if she would leave the rest with him. "I think it will,” he said soberly. ! "I thtuk it will prove that you have dons a great service,” he repeated as , be caught both ner hands, which were cold from her ordeal. His own were warm with the strong beating of his heart stirred by the promise of what ! he had just heard. But he did not prolong the grasp. He was as eager to be away to his work as she to be alone. “I think It will. You will kuow in the morning," he added. His steps were sturdier than ever in the power of five against three as he started back to the house. When ' he reached the veranda, Bouchard, the saturnine chief of intelligence, ap peared in the doorway of the dining room; or, rather, reappeared, for ha*< had been standing there throughout the interview of Westerling and Marta, whose heads were-just visible, above the terrace wall, to his hawk eyes. “A little promenade in the open and tny mind made up,” Raid Westerling, clapping Bouchard on the shoulder. “Something about an attack to night?” asked Bouchard. "You guess right. Call the others.” Five minutes later he was seated at the head of the dining-room table with hie chiefs around him waiting for j their chairman to speak. He asked some categorical questions almost per- : functorily, and the answer to each was. “Ready!” with, in some instances, a qualification—the qualification made by regimental and brigade command ers that, though they oould take the position in front oij them, the cost would be heavy. Yes, all were willing and ready for the first general assault of the war, but they wanted to state the costs as a matter of professional self-defense. Westerling could pose when it served his purpose. Now he rose and, going to one of the wall maps, indi cated a point with his forefinger. “If we get that we have the most vital position, haven't we?” Some uttered a word of assent; some only nodded. A glance or two of curiosity was exchanged. Why should the chief of staff ask so ele mentary a question? Westerling was not unconscious of the glances or of their meaning. They gave dramatlo value to his next remark. “We are going to mass for our main attack in front at Bordir!” “But,” exclaimed four or five offi cers at once, “that is the heart of the position! That is—” “I believe it is weak—that It will fall, and tonight!” “You have information, then, lnfor -mation that I have not?” asked Bou chard. "No more than you,” replied Wester ling. "Not as much If you have any thing new.” "Nothing 1” admitted Bouchard wryly. He lowered hie head under Wester ling’s penetrating look In the con sciousness of failure^ “I am going on a conviction—on putting two and two together!” Wes terling announced. "I am going on my experience as a soldier, as a chief of staff. If I am wrong, I take the re sponsibility. If I am right, Bordir will be ours before morning. It is settled!" "If you are right, then,” exclaimed Turcas—“well, then It’s genius or— ’’ I He did cot finish the sentence. He 1 had been about to say coincidence; j while Westerling knew that If he were right all the rising skepticism in cer tain quarters, owing to the delay in bis program, would be silenced. His | prestige would be unassailable. CHAPTER XVI. Marking Time. Boon after dark the attack began. Flashes from gun mouths and glow ing sheets of flame from rifles made ugly revelry, while the beams of search-lights swept hither and thither. 7 his kept np till shortly after mid night, when It died down and, where hell's concert had raged, silent dark ness shrouded the hills. Marta knew that Bordir was taken without having to ask Lanstrnn or wait for confirms Hoc from Westerling. She was seated in the recess of the I grboc U>« gorging, when she heard the approach of those regular, powerful steps whose character had become as distinct to her as those of a member of her own family. Five against three! five against three! they were saying to her; while down the pass road and the castle road ran the stream of wounded from last nlght/s slaughter. Posted in the drawing-room of the Galland house were the congratula tions of the premier to Westerling, who had come from the atmosphere of a staff that accorded to him a mili tary insight.far above the analysis of ordinary standards. But he was too clever a man to vaunt his triumph. He knew r how to carry his honors. He accepted success as his due, in a matter-of-course manner that must In spire confidence in further success. “You were right,” he said to Marta easily, pleasantly. “We did It—we did it —we took Bordir with a loss of only twenty thousand men!” Only twenty thousand! Her revul sion at the bald statement was re lieved by the memory of Danny’s word over the telephone after breakfast that the Browns had lost only five thou sand. Four to one was a wide ratio, she was thinking. “Then the end —then peace la ao much nearer?" she asked. “Very much nearer!” he answered earnestly, as he dropped -m the bench beside her. He stretched his arms out on the b’ack of the seat and the relaxed atti tude, unusual with him, brought into relief a new trait of which Bhe had been hitherto oblivious. The con queror had become simply a compan ionable man. Though he was not git ting close to her, yet, as his eyes met hers, she had a desire to move away which she knew would be unwise to gratify. She was conscious of a cer tain softening charm, a magnetism that she had sometimes felt In the days when she (Inst knew him. She realized, too, that then the charm had not been mixed with the indescribable, intimate quality that it held now. "In the midst of congratulations after the position was taken last night,” he declared, “I confess that I was thinking less of success than of its source.” He bent on her a look that was warm with gratitude. She lowered her lashes before it; before gratitude that made her part appear in a fresh angle of misery. “There seems to be a kind of fa tality about our relations,” he went on. “I lay awake pondering it last night.” His tone held more than gratitude. It had the elation of discovery. “He is going to make it harder than I ever guessed!" echoed her own thought, in a flutter of confusion. “Yes, it was strange our meeting on the frontier in peaoe and then in war!” she exclaimed at random. The sound of the remark struck her as too sub dued; as expectant, when her purpose was one of careless deprecation. "I have met a great many women, as you may have imagined,” he pro ceeded. “They have passed in review. They were simply women, witty and frail or dull and beautiful, and one meant no more to me than another. Nothing meant anything to me except my profession. But I never forgot you. You planted something in mind: a memory of real companionship." “Yes, I made the prophecy that came true!” she put in. This ought to bring him back to himself and hie ambitions, she thought. “Yes!” he exclaimed, his body stif fening free of the back of the seat. “You realized what was in me. You foresaw the power which was to be mine. The fate that first brought us together made me look you up in the capital. Now it brings us together hern on this bench after all that has passed in the last twenty-four hours.” She realized that he had drawn per ceptibly nearer. She wanted to rise and ory out: "Don’t do this! Be the chief of staff, the conqueror, crushing the earth with the tread of five against three!” It was the conqueror whom she wanted to trick, not a man whose earnestness was painting her deceit blacker. Far from rising, she made no movement at all; only looked at her hands and allowed him to go on, con scious of the force of a personality that mastered men and armies now warm and appealing In the full tide of another purpose. “The victory that I was thinking of last night was not the taking of Bor dir. It was finer than any victory in war. It was selfish—not for army and country, but horn of a human weakness triumphant; a human weak ness of which my career bad robbed me,” he continued. "It gave me a joy that even the occupation of the Browns’ capital could not give. I had come as an invader and I had won your confident's.” "In a cause!” she interrupted hur riedly. wildly, to stop him from going further, only to find that her intona tion was such that it was drawing him on. "That fatality seemed to be working Itself out to the soldier so much older than yourself In renewed youth. In another form of ambition. I hoped that there waa more than th« cause that led you to trust me. I hoped— ’’ Was he testing her? Was he play ing a part of his ow n to make certain that she was not playing one? She looked up swiftly for answer. There was no gainsaying what, she saw In his eyes. It was heating into hers with the power of au overwhelming masculine passion and a maturity of intellect as his egoism admitted a com rade to its throne. Such is ever the ray of a man in the forties when the clock strike© for him. But who could know better the craft of courtship than one of Westerling's experience? He was fighting for victory; to gratify a desire. "1- did not expect this—l—” the words escaped tumultuously and chok ingly. He was bending so close to her that she felt his breath on her cheek burn ing hot, and she was stckeningly con scious that he was looking her over in that polnt-by-Rolnt manner which she had felt across the tea-table at the hotel. This horrible thing in his glance she had sometimes seen In strangers on her travels, and It had made her think that she was wise to carry a littlo revolver. She wanted to strike him. “Confess! Confess!” called all her owm self-respect. “Make an end to your abasement!” “Confession, after the Browns have given up Bordir! Confession that makes Lanny, not Westerling, your dupe!” came the reply, which might have been telegraphed Into her mind from the high, white forehead of Par tow bending over his maps. “Confes sion, betraying the cause of the right against the wrong; the three to the conquering five! No! You are in the thing. You may not retreat now.” For a few eeoonds only the duel of argument thundered in her temples —seconds in which her lips were part ed and quivering and her eyes dilated with an agitation which the man at her side could interpret as he pleased. A prompting devil—a devil roused by that thing in his eyes—urging a finesse In double-dealing which only devils understand, made her lips hyp notically turn in a smile, her eyes soften, and eent her hand out to Wes terling In a trancelike gesture. For an Instant it rested on his arm with tell ing pressure, though she felt it burn with Bhame at the point of contact. “We must not think of that now,” she said. “We must think of nothing personal; of nothing but your work until your work is done!" The prompting devil had not permit ted a false note In her voice. Her very pallor, In fixity of idea, served her purpose. Westerling drew a deep breath that seemed to expand his whole being with greater appreciation of her. Yet that harried hunger, the hunger of a beast, was still in hla glance. "This is like you—like what 1 want you to be!” he said. “You are right.” He caught her hand, inclosing it en tirely in his grip, and she was sen sible, in a kind of dazed horror, of the thrill of his strength. "Nothing can stop uel Numbers will wlnl Hard fighting in the mercy of a quick end!” he deolared with his old rigidity of five against three which w’as welcome to her. “Then," he added “and then—” “Then!” she repeated, averting her glance. “Then—" There the devil ended the sentence and she withdrew her hand and felt the relief of one es caping suffocation, to find that he had realized that anything furtner during that interview would be banality and was rising to go. “I don’t feel decent!" she thought. “Society turned on Minna for a hu man weakness, but I —l’m not a human being! lam one of the pawns of the machine of war!" Walking slowly with lowered head as she left the arbor, she almort ran into Bouchard, who apologized with the single word “Pardon!" as he lifted his cap In overdone courtesy, which his stolid brevity made the more oom splcuous. “Miss Galland, you seem lost in ab straction,” he said in sudden loquao ity. “I am almost on the point of accusing you of being a poet.” “Aocuglng!” she replied. "Then you must think that I would write bad poetry.” "On the contrary, I should say ex cellent—using the sonnet form,” he re turned. “I might make a counter accusa tion, only that yours would be the epic form," answered Marta. “For you, too, seem fond of rambling.” There was a veiled challenge in the hawk eyes, which she met with com monplace politeness In hers, before be again lifted his cap and proceeded on hl« way. For the next two weeks Marta's role resolved Itself Into a kind of routine. Their cramped quarters became a refuge to Marta in the trial of her secret work under the very nose of the staff. With little Clarissa Kllecn, they formed the only feminine society in the neighborhood. On sunshiny days Mrs. Galland was usually to be found In her favorite chair outside the lower door; and here Minna set the urn on a fable at four-thirty as In thee,id days / (To be :t>.otLaued Tomorrow.) THE AUGUSTA HERALD, AUGUSTA, GA. “THE SHOP OF QUALITY” Our buyer is in the Northern markets, and every day we see the fruits of his labors. New goods are coming in daily. They are carefully selected and at this end of the line we are doing our part by marking these new things ac cording to the “live and let live" method. Our Ready-to-Wear Department is putting on Winter Attire. We invite you to visit us and look. You’ll find it interesting as well as profitable. The lookers of today are the buyers of tomorrow. We only ask you to look at our line when passing this way. FOR FRIDAY AND SATURDAY’S SELLING House Dresses SI.OO Values 75c $1.25 values 89c $1.50 values SI.OO Boys’ Nainsook Underwear. ...17c Men’s Nainsook and Gauze Under wear •. ...19c A good Gingham at 5c Standard Calicoes at 5c 36 inch Sea Island at 5c Ladies’ Linen Handkerchiefs at.. .5c Good Outing at 71-2 c LADIES* WAISTS Lot No. 1 Values up to $1.50 to go at 25c Lot No. 2 Values up to $3.50 to go at 50c Lot No. 0 Some $5.00 Silk Waists in the lot SI.OO 1 lot Satteen Petticoats, silk ruffle SI.OO Children's Rain Capes, good values, $1.50 Kimonos Pure Silk, values up to $7.50, at. $3.98 A good Kimono for 75c $1.25 value Kimono for 89c $1.50 value Kimono for SI.OO $2.00 value Kimono for $1.49 $2.50 value Kimono for $1.95 Hosiery Specials Guaranteed Hose for men, women and children 10c Ladies’Silk Boot 15c 50c Quality 39c SI.OO value 89c Children’s Hose, pink, blue, white 19c THIRTEEN