Benoit
Bellefonte, Pa., June 8, 1917.
“RY
m——— By”
Mary Roberts Rinehart
© mes me me
“hn red) ¢ 4
Copyright, by Mcciure Publications, Inc.)
(Concluded from last week.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
Late September had come. The
Street had been furiously busy for a
month. The cobblestones had gone,
and from curb to curb stretched smooth
asphalt. To this general excitement
the strange case of Mr. Le Moyne had
added its quota. One day he was in
the gas office, making out statements
that were absolutely ridiculous. And
the next there was the news that Mr.
Le Moyne had been only taking a holi-
day in the gas office and that he was
really a very great surgeon and had
saved Dr. Max Wilson.
The Street, which was busy at the
time deciding whether to leave the old
sidewalks or to put down cement ones,
had one evening of mad excitement
over the matter—of K., not the Sside-
walks—and then had accepted the new
situation.
But over the news of K.’s approach-
ing departure it mourned. The Street
made a resolve to keep K., if possible,
If he had shown any “high and mighti-
ness,” as they called it, since the
change in his estate, it would have let
him go without protest. But when a
man is the real thing—so that the
“I'm Sorry, Dear Max.”
newspapers give a column to his hav-
ing been in the city almost two years—
and still goes about in the same shabby
clothes, with the same friendly greet-
ing for everyone, it demonstrates clear-
ly, as the baritone put it, that “he’s got
no swelled head on him; that’s sure.”
A little later, K., coming up the
Street as he had that first day, heard
the baritone singing:
“Home is the hunter, home from the hill,
And the sailor, home from the sea.”
Home! Why, this was home. The
Street seemed to stretch out its arms
to him. The ailanthus tree waved in
the sunlight before the little house.
Tree and house were old; September
had touched them. Christine sat sew-
ing on the balcony. A boy with a piece
of chalk was writing something on the
new cement under the tree. He stood
back, head on one side, when he had
finished, and inspected his work. K.
read in chalk on the smooth street:
Max Wilson.
Sidney Page.
The baritone was still singing; but
now it was “I'm twenty-one, and she’s
eighteen.” The light was gone from
K.’s face again. After all, the Street
meant for him not so much home as it
meant Sidney. And now, before very
long, that book of his life, like others,
would have to be closed.
He turned and went heavily into the
little house.
Christine called to him from her lit-
tle balcony: .
“I thought I heard your step outside.
Have you time to come in?”
K. went through the parlor and stood
in the long window. His steady eyes
icoked down at her.
“I see very little of you now,” she
complained. And, when he did not
reply immediately: “Have you made
any definite plans, K.?”
“I shall do Max’s work until he is
able to take hold again. After that—"
“You will go away?”
“I think so. I am getting a good
many letters, one way and another. I
suppose, now I'm back in harness, I'll
stay. My old place is closed. I'd go
back there—they want me. But it
seems so futile, Christine, to leave as 1
did, because I felt that I had no right
| strongest weapor.
to go on as things were; and now to
crawl back on the strength of having
had my hand forced, and to take up
things again, not knowing that I've 2
bit more right to do it than when I
left!”
“I went to see Max yesterday. You
know what he thinks about all that.”
He took an uneasy turn up and down
the balcony.
“But wha?’ he demanded. “Who
would do such a thing? I tell you,
Christine, it is impossible.”
She did not pursue the subject. Her
thoughts had flown ahead to the little
house without K., to days without his
steps on the stairs or the heavy creak
of his big chair overhead as he dropped
into it.
But perhaps it would be better if he
went. She had her own life to live.
She had ro expectation of happiness,
but, somehow or other, she must build
on the shaky foundation of her mar-
riage a Lcuse of life, with resignation
serving for content, perhaps with fear
lurking always. That she knew. But
with no active misery. Misery implied
affection, and her love for Palmer was
quite dead.
“Sidney will be here this afternoon.”
“Good.” His tone was noncommit-
tal.
“Has it occurred to you, K,, that Sid-
ney is not very happy?”
He stopped in front of her.
“She's had a great anxiety.”
“She has no anxiety now. Max is
doing well.”
“Then what is it?” !
“I'm not quite sure, but I think I!
know. She’s lost faith in Max, and |
she’s not like me. I—I knew about |
Palmer before I married him. It’s all |
rather hideous—I needn’t go into it. |
3ut Sidney has more character than I |
have. Max isn’t what she thought he |
was, and I doubt whether she'll marry |
him.” |
K. glanced toward the street where
Sidney’s name and Max’s lay open to
the sun nnd ta the woul cca the o
Christine might be right, but that did
au dlter tunings for him.
- Charistine’s thoughts went back in-
evitably to herself; to Palmer, who
was doing better just now; to K., who
was going away—went back with an
ache to the night K. had taken her in
his arms and then put her away. How
wrong things were! What a mess life
was!
“When you go away,” she said at
last, “I want you to remember this.
I'm going to do my best, K. You have
taught me all I know. All my life I'll
have to overlook things; I know that,
But, in his way, Palmer cares for me.
He will always come back, and perhaps
sometime—"’
Her voice trailed off. Far ahead of
her she saw the years stretchirg out, :
marked, not by days and months, but
by Palmer’s wanderings away, his re-
morseful returns.
“Do a little more than forgetting,”
K. said. “Try to care for him, Chris-
tine. You did once. And that’s your
It’s always a wom-
an’s strongest weapon. And it wins in
the end.”
“I shall try,
obediently.
But he turned away from the look
in her eyes.
Harriet was abroad. She had sent
cards from Paris to her “trade.” It
was an innovation. The two or three,
people on the Street who received her !
engraved announcement that she was |
there, “buying new chic models for the |
autumn and winter—afternoon frocks,
evening gowns, reception dresses, and ,
wraps, fro Poiret, Martial et Armand, |
and others,” left the envelopes casual- |
|
K.” she answered
ly on the parlor table, as if communica-
tions from Paris were quite to be ex:
pected.
So K. lunched alone, and ate little. |
Sidney carne home at half-past two— !
came delicately flushed, as if she had !
hurried, ard with a tremulous smile
that caught Katie's eyes at once.
“Bless the child!” she said. “There’s
no need to ask how he is today. You're
all one smile.”
The smile set just a trifle.
“Katie, someone has written my
name out on the street, in chalk. It's
with Doctor Wilson's, and it looks se
silly. Please go out and sweep it off.”
“I'm about crazy with their old chalk.
I'll do it after a while.”
“Please do it now. I don’t want any-
one to see it. Is—is Mr. K. upstairs?”
But when she learned that K. was
upstairs, oddly enough, she did not go
up at once. She stood in the lower
hall and listened. Yes, he was there.
She could hear him moving about. Her
lips parted slightly as she listened.
Christine, looking in from her bal-
cony, saw her there, and, seeing some-
thing in her face that she had never
suspected, put her hand to her throat.
“Sidney!”
“Oh—hello, Chris.”
“Won't you come and sit with me?”
“I haven’t much time—that is, I want
to speak to K.”
“You can see him when he comes
down.”
Sidney came slowly through the par-
lor. It occurred to her, all at once,
that Christine must see a lot of K,,
especially now. No doubt he was in
and out of the house often. And how
pretty Christine was! She was un-
happy, too. All that seemed to be nec-
essary to win K.'s attention was to be
unhappy encugh. Well, surely, in that
case—
“How is Max?”
“Still better.”
Sidney sat down on the edge of the
railing ; but she was careful, Christine
saw, to face the staircase. There was
silence on the balcony. Christine
sewed ; Sidney sat and swung her feet
idly.
“Doctor Ed says Max wants you to
give up your training and marry him
now.”
“I'm not going to marry him at all,
' I'm Not Going to Marry Him
were not eating.
, ward her.
+ could see the magnolia tree shaped like
Chris.”
Upstairs, K.’s door slammed. It was
one of his failings that he always
slammed doors. Harriet used to be
quite disagreeable about it.
Sidney slid from the railing.
“There he is now.”
Perhaps, in all her frivolous, selfish
life, Christine had never had a bigger
moment than the one that followed.
She cculd have said nothing, and, in
th2 queer way that life goes, K. might
=
Chris.”
have gone away from the Street ax:
empty of heart as he had come wo it.
“Be very good to him, Sidney,” she!
said ungteadily. “He cares so much.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
K. was being very dense. For sc!
long had he considered Sidney as unat- |
tainable that now his masculine mind, a!
; little weary with much wretchedness, |
refused to move from its old attitude.
“It was glamour, that was all, K.,"
said Sidney bravely. ’
“But, perhaps,” said K., “it’s just be. |
cause of that miserable incident with
Carlotta. That wasn’t the right thing,
of course, but Max has told me the
story. It was really quite innocent. She
fainted in the yard, and—"
Sidney was exasperated.
“Do you want me to marry him, K.?"
K. looked straight ahead.
“I want you to be happy, dear.”
They were on the terrace of the
White Springs hotel again. K. had or-
dered dinner, making a great to-do
about getting the dishes they both
liked. But now that it was there, they |
K. had placed his!
chair so that his profile was turned to-
Past Ks profile Sidney
a heart. .
“It seems to me,” said Sidney sud-
denly, “that you are kind to everyone
but me, K.”
He fairly stammered his astonish-
ment:
“Why, what on earth have I done?”
“You are trying to make me marry
Max, aren’t you?”
She was very properly ashamed of
that, and, when he failed to reply out
of sheer inability to think of one that
would not say too much, she went
hastily to something else: “It is hard
for me to realize that you—nat you
lived a life of your own, a busy life,
doing useful things, before you came
to us. I wish you would tell me some-
thing about yourself. If we're to be
friends when you go away,”’—she had
to stop there, for the lump in her
throat—“I'll want to know how to
think of you—who your friends are—
all that.”
He made an effort. He was think-
ing, of course, that he would be vis-
ualizing her, in the hospital, in the lit-
tle house on its side street, as she
looked just then, her eyes like stars,
her lips just parted, her hands folded
before her on the table.
“I shall be working,” he said at last,
“So will you.”
“Does that mean you won't have
time to think of me?”
“I believe I'm stupider than usual to-
night. You can think of me as never
forgetting you or the Street, working
or playing.”
Playing! Of course he would not
work all the time. And he was going
back to his old friends, to people who
had always known him, to girls—
He did his best then. He told her of
the old family house, built by one of *
his forebears who had been a king's
man until Washington had put the case
for the colonies, and who had given
himself and his oldest son then to the
cause that he made his own. He told
of old servants who had wept when he
decided to close the house and go
away. When she fell silent, he thought
he was interesting her.
But a terrible thing was happening
to Sidney. Side by side with the won-
ders he described so casually, she was
placing the little house. What an exile
it. must have been for him! When K,,
trying his best to interest her and to
conceal his own heaviness of spirit,
told her of his grandfather’s old car-
riage, she sat back in the shadow.
“Fearful old thing,” said K.—“regu-
lar cabriolet. I can remember yet the
family rows over it.”
“When I was a child,” said Sidney
quietly, “and a carriage drove up and
stopped .on the Street, I always knew
someone had died!”
There was a strained note in her
| would be, with nothing else to think of
i skimp
voice. K., whose ear was attuned to
every note in her voice, looked at her
quickly. |
“My great-grandfather,” said Sidney |
in the same tone, “sold chickens at |
market. He didn’t do it himself; but |
the fact’s there, isn’t it?” i
K. was puzzled.
“What about it?” he said.
“Go on,” said Sidney dully. “Tell |
me about the women you haye known, |
your friends, the ones you liked and
the ones who liked you.”
K. was rather apologetic.
“I’ve always been so busy,” he con-
fessed. “I know a lot, but I don’t think :
they would interest you. They don’t
do anything, you know—they travel
around and have a good time. They're
rather nice to look at, some of them.
But when you've said that you've said
it all.”
Nice to look at!
Of course they
in all the world but of how they looked.
Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She
wanted to go back to the hospital, and
turn the key in the door of her little
room, and lie with her face down on
the bed.
“Would you mind very much if 1
asked you to take me back?”
He did mind. He had a depressed
feeling that the evening had failed.
And Lis depression grew as he brought
the car around. He understood, he
thought. She was grieving about Max.
After all, a girl couldn’t care as she
had for a year and a half, and then
give a man up because cf another
woman, without a wrench.
“Do you really want to go home, Sid-
ney, or were you tired of sitting there?
In that case, we could drive around for
an hour or two. I'll not talk if you'd
like to be quiet.”
Reing with K. had become an agony,
i107 that she realized how wrong Chris-
tir: had been, and that their worlds,
hers and K.’s, had only touched for a
time. But she was not disposed to
as to agony. She would go
through with it, every word a stab, if
only she might sit beside K. a little
longer, might feel the touch of his old
gray coat against her arm.
“I'd like to ride, if you don’t mind.”
K. turned the automobile toward the
country roads.
“Ry
“Yes?”? .
“Was there anybody you cared about
—any girl—when you left home?”
“I was not in love with anyone, if
that’s what you mean.”
“You knew Max before, didn’t you?”
“Yes. You know that.”
“If you knew things about him that 1
should have known, why didn’t you
tell me?”
“I couldn’t do that, could I? Any-
how—"
“Yes?”
“I thought everything would be all
right. It seemed to me that the mere
fact of your caring for him—” That
was shaky ground ; he got off it quickly.
K. was suddenly aware that Sidney
was crying. She sat with her head
turned away, using her handkerchief
stealthily. He drew the car up beside
the road, and in a masterful fashion
turned her shoulders about until she
faced him.
“Now, tell me about it,” he said.
“It’s just silliness. I'm—I'm a little
bit lonely. Aunt Harriett’s in Paris,
and with Joe gone and everybody—"
“Aunt Harriet!”
He was properly dazed, for sure.
“And with you going away and never
coming back—"
“I'll come back, of course. How’s
this? I'll promise to come back when
you graduate, and send you flowers.”
“You won’t, K. You'll be back with
your old friends. Girls who have been
everywhere, and have lovely clothes,
and who won't know a T bandage from
a figure eight!”
“There will never be anybody in the
world like you to me, dear.” His voice
was husky.
“You are saying that to comfort me.”
“To comfort you! I—who have
wanted you so long that it hurts even
to think about it! Ever since the night
I came up the Street, and you were sit
ting there on the steps—oh, my dear.
my dear, if you only cared a little!”
Because he was afraid that he would
get out of hand and take her in his
arms—which would be idiotic, since, ot
course, she did not care for him that
way—he gripped the steering-wheel, It
gave him a curious appearance of mak-
ing a pathetic appeal to the wind-
shield.
“I have been trying to make you say
that all evening!” said Sidney. “I love
you so much that— K., won’t you take
me in your arms?”
Take her in his arms! He almost
crushed her. He held her to him and
muttered incoherencies until she
gasped. It was as if he must make up
for long arrears of hopelessness. He
held her off a bit to look at her, as if
to be sure it was she and no change-
ling, and as if he wanted her eyes to
corroborate her lips. There was no
lack of confession in her eyes; they
showed him a new heaven and a new
earth.
“It was you always, K.,” she con-
fessed. “I just didn’t realize it. But
now, when you look back, don’t you see
it was?”
He Iiooked back over the months
when she had seemed as unattainable
as the stars, and he did not see it. He
shook his head. .
“I never had even a hope.”
“Not when I came to you with every-
thing? I brought you all my troubles,
and vou always helped.”
Her eyes filled. She bent down and
kissed one of his hands. He was sc
happy that the foolish little caress |
made his heart hammer in his ears.
“I think, K., that is how one can al-
ways tell when it is the right one, and
will be the right one forever and ever,
.
EVERYTHING
HAS NOT GONE UP
IN PRICE
All the goods we advertise here are selling at prices prevailing
this time last seascu.
selling at the usual prices.
market in the near future.
you good service.
MINCE MEAT.
We are now making our MINCE MEAT and keeping it fully up to our
usual high standard; nothing cut out or cut short and are selling it at our
former price of 15 Cents Per Pound.
Fine Celery, Oranges, Grape Fruit, Apricots, Peaches, Prunes, Spices,
Breakfast Foods, Extracts, Baking Powders, Soda, Cornstarch. The whole
line of Washing Powders, Starches, Blueing and many other articles are
COFFEES, TEAS AND RICE.
On our Fine Coffees at 25¢, 28c, 30¢, 35¢ and 40c, there has been no change
in price on quality of goods and no change in the price of TEAS. Rice has
not advanced in price and can be used largely as a substitute for potatoes.
All of these goods are costing us more than formerly but we'are doing our
best to Hold Down the Lid on high prices, hoping for a more favorable
LET US HAVE YOUR ORDER
and we will give you FINE GROCERIES at reasonable prices and give
SECHLER & COMPANY,
| Bush House Block, - 57-1 . : -
Bellefonte, Pa.
“Come to the “Watchman” office for High C lass Job work.
Shoes.
Shoes.
YEAGERS SHOE STORE
Prices on Ladies’
Low Shoes Reduced
has been very backward.
$7.00 Low Shoes.
this price in other stores.
on approval.
By reason of the lateness of spring and cold weath-
er, also the very high prices, the sale of Low Shoes
I have on hand a very
large stock that must be sold and sold quick.
BEGINNING AT ONCE
I will reduce the price on all Ladies’ $6.00 and
The price will be $4.40. :
Your choice of any pair of $6 and $7 Low Shoes for
$4.
I will give you my personal guarantee that not one
pair of these shoes offered for sale, are more than
two months old, all New Spring Styles, also guar-
antee that these shoes are all $6.00 and $7.00
shoes, to be sold at $4.40.
40
If you have not purchased your needs in Low
Shoes, you cannot afford to even look at the shoes
sold at other stores, as the prices on these shoes are
less than you can purchase cheap shoddy shoes at
This Sale is Absolutely For Cash.
All shoes must be fitted at the store, none sent out
Sale going on now and will continue
until the shoes are sold.
Bush Arcade Bldg.
YEAGER'S,
The Shoe Store for the Poor Man.
58-27
BELLEFONTE, PA.
It protects you in time of need.
It strengthens you.
(Continued on page 7, column 1.)
6-8
A Bank Account
Is the Gibraltar of the Home!
If you are a man of family you must have a bank account. A BANR
ACCOUNT IS THE BULWARK, THE GIBRALTAR, OF YOUR HOME
It gives you a feeling of independence.
It Is a Consolation to Your Wife,
to Your Children
THE CENTRE COUNTY BANK,
BELLEFONTE
Sd