THE CENTRE REPORTER, CENTRE HALL, PA.
SE
———
Author of
“THE MAN HIGHER UP.” “HIS RISE
TO POWER," Etc.
#he nodded, not $rusting herself to
speak, and turned her face from the
moonlight, She seemed to be strug-
gling again with a rising sob.
Simon found himself peering, closely
and unintentionally, into her eyes. He
stepped hastily back and heard him-
self speaking with a boldness he did
not recognize,
“Mebby it was fur him ye were
But I hadn't oughter ask that, Mebby
it's fur ye he's be'n grievin'?”
“It couldn't be that.”
“I've wondered. Often I've come on
| him when he thought he was alone,
1
: CHAPTER XXIX~—Continued,
Piotr did not move from his corner,
“Ah!” It was almost a sob. “They're
still for you against everybody, against
me, It was always so. Everybody was
for you, You had everything. It came
easy to you. It came hard to me, so
hard I could never do anything or get
anything. It—"
“Yes, yes, Piotr, I know. But we're
going to change that now. Come along
~—the rain’s stopped and I must hurry.”
“To get back to her, I suppose?
Piotr sighed.
“lI must get back to her. Come on.”
“lI don’t think I—" Plotr's words
came between gasps. Something
seemed to be choking him. “In a
minute. I-—I must get-—some things.”
Mark looked quickly back over his
shoulder, caught by an odd change In
the plaintive voice. Dusk was gather-
ing rapidly, deepening the shadows in
the shed, and he could barely see the
figure fumbling about in his corner.
There was a pause—Plotr's search
seemed to have been successful--then
a metallic click, Mark whirled sharply
on him.
“Plotr—1"
“Ah!” It was not a sob now, but a
low gutteral growl, throbbing with
hate and triumph,
Piotr, too, whirled. From his cor-
ner a point of flame leaped out toward
Mark, another-——another—until six
From Piotr's Corner a Point of Flame
Leaped Out Toward Mark.
shota had rung out. At the last Mark's
head drooped forward, his body swayed
slowly and fell in a crumpled heap
across the doorway. ...
When he awoke he was being
dragged by his wounded shoulder in
such fashion that his head scraped
along the floor, He did not realize
80 much, merely that his pain had
increased a hundredfold. He tried to
cry out, but could only lle imp and
silent. Then he felt a hand passing
over his face and a voice that seemed
very far away muttering fretfully.
“1 wonder if you're dying or sham-
ming. It would be like you to sham.
I didn't mean to shoot then. 1 didn’t
want you to die until you knew the
mills were gone. But I had to—when
you looked at me that way, I had to.”
Mark heard, but the words meant
nothing to him. The voice muttered
on; detached sentences came to him.
“It isn't so easy as I thought. . ..
I'd better go now, while I can. . ..
I'm afraid. I never drove a horse. , , .
Twice, coming here, I fell. I thought
I was dead, but it didn't go off—I
don't know why. ... I'd like to tell
you about Kazia’'s doctor. | saw them
one night and followed them. You
wouldn't believe it of her, would you?
It nearly killed me. . . . It was your
fault. You ran away from her. .. .
It would be easy to drive off the road
and fall in the dark... . I'm tired,
and I tremble, Seeing you makes it
worse. . . . I keep wondering what
they'll do to me. . . . When the mills
are gone, I'm coming back to you. 1
guess you'll stay. . . Maybe I'd better
finish you now-—you're so lucky al
ways.”
Mark felt the hand again, now at
als throat, pressing hard, He tried to
protest: “That is quite superfluous,”
but the pressure would not let him.
When blackness was closing in on him
once more, the grip relaxed.
But he did not quite lose conscious
aess this time. He heard the other
move about, still muttering, then pass
out. The sound of wheele and the
horse's tramping through the tall
weeds dled away In the distance.
At first Mark lay inert. A mortal
weakness held him, He could realize
only the pain, He wanted nothing but
0 lle prone and motionless. . . . A
disturbing thought began to tug at his
brain. He ought not to be thare.
There was a thing he must do, some
ape he must see. What was it?
“Kazia!” The name gave him a
thrilling shock that sharpened the pain
but cleared his mind a little,
And the mills! The mills! Kaszila
and the mills! The two thoughts were
inextricably mingled. Ny
With a rush came realization of his
plight 1 .oir, the punv whimpering
madman who cringed before a squall,
had shot him and was on his way to
blow up the mills, Plotr must be fore-
eétalled. With an effort he forced his
eyes open and held them so until the
first giddiness passed, He raised his
head; it fell back with a thud.
“1 can't do it,” he groaned,
But the mills—and Kazia!
“I've got to do it. I must stop him.
I must get to her.”
Then began a fight to sit up, to
stand, to beat off the invisible hands
trying to drag him back into the black-
ness,
not know;
jamb, His brain was reeling, he
sell desperately with the cane, recov-
ered In the struggle to stand, he man-
aged to hold what he had won.
His brain cleared again, a little
steadiness came to the trembling
limbs, Summoning all his will, he
passed with uncertain dragging steps
out of the shed.
breathed refreshingly upon him. He
gripped his cane more tightly and
started slowly down the weedy road.
He reached the foot of the hill and
pantingly and laved his hot face a few
minutes, then staggered to his feet
and Hmped on until weakness
came him once more and he fell, . . .
More than an hour later he was still
the road. Kazia and
he
were being taken from him; must
So he beat hie
stretches
darkened ravi
found a
curve,
way slowly along
rough road,
nes where only
of
through
instinct p , until at
rounding a he saw the furna
looming huge before
hours passed
not return, 8 sense of
crigis, of a danger, «
squall died away,
the train she was to have
Plotr rolled to a
and out again, and sti
turned. The
sive walting
slop @
sense
unbearable
went to the
in the
as a
ram-
first
mories
had once
But she quickly
old village, seen
yet holding so many 1
thought of
left the
# .
Lor ne
pa
cottages, Many of the cottages were
dark and untenanted as yet, but she
toiled without exhaustion or fear, with
kindness in their hearts one for ane
other.
She left the cluster of homes-to-be
and retraced her steps over the street
that led past the mills to the bridge,
started to cross. But at the entrance
she stopped. Everywhere it was the
same, a redolence of him. After all,
to her Bethel, the haven, was just
Mark Truitt
All her fine resolutions and philoso
phy had become insufficient. The sight
of the river, the woods in their au-
tumnal glory, the song of the rapids
had revivified the scenes of her one
happiness,
be some to see. She was weeping,
head bowed on the bridge rail. ’
“Oh, 1 shouldn't have come.
him-—him.
have him. It would be the cruelest
thing I could do to him-—even if he
cared. 1 was wrong to come.”
Thus she told hope--the immortal!
--it must not live. , . .
Old Simon had no skill for it and
hence no part in the building of the
mills. But he spent his days watching
them grow, Often at night, when
Bethel was sleeping, he would slip
across the river to realize again that
after so many years his dreams were
coming magnificently true.
That night he left his seat on the
stoop, where he had been wonderingly
but patiently awaiting the absent
Mark, and trudged down to the river
and across the bridge. He saw the
figure leaning on the rail at the farther
end, but not until he was close did he
see it was that cf a weeping woman.
He would have turned aside, but he
perceived that she had heard him and
lifted her head.
He stopped short, staring in aston
ishment at the woman, a sort that had
never before come within his ken.
After a moment's hesitation he went
to her,
“Is anything wrong, ma'am?”
She shook her head.
“Is there anything I kin do fur ye?”
Again the silent gesture,
“If there is,” he persisted:
to do it fur ye.”
She found her volce. "It is noth
ing.” Bhe tried to smile. “Sometimes
women cry for nothing, about little
things.”
“Some women do,” Simon answered
gravely. “lI guess yo're a stranger
here, ain't ye? I'm Simon Truitt,”
She started. “You're his father?”
Simon noted the unconscious use of
the pronoun, “Mark's, ye mean? Yes,
ma'am. Did ye know him, back there
in the city?”
“I'd like
grievin', 1 know.” B8Simon's face, too,
sought the shadow, “I know."
“It might be because of me but not—
not for me.”
“Not because he wants ye, ye mean?
But it could be that. 'Tain’t likely
he'd find two such women as ye, even
in the city. An’ ’tain’t likely he'd
trouble so much, if there wasn't a
woman in it. I wish ye could give him
what he needs.”
“What he needs is to have his life
made over from the beginning. He
can't have that.”
“If he's jest wantin’ eome
i there's a way he could have it.”
“You don't understand,” she sald
wearily.
“No, 1 don't understand. That's the
trouble, I'd like to help him, to give
him what he needs,
how,
one,
He turned his face away from her,
| looking up at the furnace, big and
| menacing, outlined against the sky.
| There was silence among the mills,
{ From the old village behind them came
| faint vague sounds of Jife—a distant
i tinkle of laughter, a crying child, a
neighing horse. From the new town
that had
land. The song was finished.
and Simon stirred, as though they had
| been waiting for its close to
| thelr strange encounter to an end
“What's that?”
Both started
them had come a sudden
“Sounds 's if from the fur
There hadn't oughter
und here. But I guess
in the p«
sound like that
it come
nace, 3
body ‘re it's just
i wichman wer house
Wn
HEDL makes jt
« he spoke
nan craw
He scra
it and saw the
| He
na frantic gesture
Go back-—go back!”
she
What are ypu doing ?™
Go back!’ screamed
be killed It's dynamite!”
Instantly the others guessed
impended. Kazia heard a low moan
| beside her, saw Simon run, as fast as
his age-stiffened limbs allowed, toward
he
| the imminent destruction.
“You mustn't!” she
back!"
If the old man heard,
obey. Bhe fled after him. in instinctive
purpose to draz him back
danger.
cried. “Come
with a low whimpering cry, he, too,
joined in that moonlight race. He
could not have overtaken her, had she
! shudderingly.
“Kazia, 1 didn’t want to hurt you.”
Simon sped on.
i
f ing where he had last fallen, saw just
| before the explosion came.
| a hoarse deafening roar,
| furnace sefMmned to reel, then toppled
and fell
They found him weakly trying to
remove the debris from a place near
the edge of the ruin. They drew him
i aside and a hundred strong hands took
up his task. Soon they found the dead
Piotr and under bln Kazia still
breathing.
that they came to Simon,
Kazia was carried to the village and
laid in Doctor Hedges’ own house. All
through the night and in the morning,
until the great surgeon from the city
came, he fought off death. Then the
surgeon took up the fight with a
knowledge and skill the old doctor did
not possess, For two days they did
not sleep but watched and battled.
In the adjoining room a man, him-
self the object of the doctor's care,
passed through his Gethsemane, The
dead, his own pain and weakness, all
else, were forgotten in his agony for
the one who, it seemed, could not lve,
Sometimes he would rise from the
couch where they had lald him and
creep into the other room to join the
watchers there until the sight of the
still, bandaged form became more than
he could bear, Then he would let
them lead him back to his couch. His
lips moved constantly, in what words
he did not know. Thelr burden was
the ery of all Gethsemanes,
“Let this cup pass from me.”
So the miracle was made perfect,
Toward the last of that watch his
weakness began to overcome him. The
doctors supposed he slept and sald:
“It is best.” He did not sleep. He
had lost sense of his surroundinge but
his brain was alive, He was fighting,
struggling supremely, to hold her back
from the precipice over which she was
slowly talilng, Once she seemed to be
elipping from his clasp. He heard her
piteous ery to him.
He rose with a start and tottered
into her room.
“She called me,” he whispered.
Hedges thought it was delirium and
would have led him back to his couch,
But Mark resisted.
“1 tell you, she called me.
see her.”
“Let him,” sald the surgeon. “Prob
ably it's his last chance.”
Hedges released him and Mark went
over to her, He dropped to his knees
by the bedside and kissed, very gently,
the arm outlined under the sheet.
“Kazia,” he whispered. “My wife,
my love, don't leave me! Can't you!
hear, dear? the miracle hag come!”
He thought that she sighed, as does
a tired child when it sinks to sleep,
and that a little smile touched the pale
lips,
The others did not see,
they had not heard her call,
I must
but then
CHAPTER XXX.
The Ultimate Purpose.
It was an Indian summer day, when
the sun paused to smile genially back
overghis shoulder at the earth he was
leaving to winter's cold mercy, and a
warm wind blew softly, Toward noon
Kazia, leaning on the doctor and his
buxom wife, was helped to the front |
porch, where the Matke was waiting |
with cushions and shawls In a big |
rocking chair the convalescent was |
made comfortable, with cushions at |
head and feet and the shawls tucked |
carefully around her, |
“You're sure you're warm enough?” |
queried Mrs. Hedges, with needless |
anxiety,
"Quite sure.
kindness."
Mrs. Hedges gave a last pat to the!
cushion behind Kazia's head “You |
take a deal of spoiling, I think, dearie.” |
Kazia sighed. “I'll hate to leave |
you." Tears, for some reason, were |
treacherously ready that morning
“Then,” drawled the doctor, “you re |
thinking of leaving us!”
“I must-—soon.” But under the doe- |
tor's twinkling gaze a girlish flush |
perhaps to keep the |
You all spoil me with |
tears company.
“Too much color,” chuckled the doc
tor. “Let me feel your pulse.”
The crimson
stantly vanished
ad i in-
deepened and as
“I've a cake in the
Hedges suddenly
oven
remembered
tor, I'll need
“Noed
laid a thin knotted hand
the scarf enshrouding Kazia's hair
K
she
azia ignored that, “You will hate
won't you?
The Matka nodded. "There is peace
Even the old smile and
and they old easily,
child grows into youth,
is here” Her eves sought
make
josls grow CY
a distant
hiliside, where white stones gleamed |
in the sunshine
“But we must go. 1 don't
here. What would these
belong |
kind people
the voice broke
a little—"what you know."
“They would think as I do. And I— |
I know nothing, except that you love !
Such love | have never |
geen. It is not the love your mother |
and her lover had. All here know and |
“This ls the First Time Since the Ac
cident That I've Seen You Alone”
1 do not think you can
And the
are glad of it,
go and leave him unhappy.”
Matka stole away.
“It came too late.”
Kazia's lips sald that and the walt.
ing tears overflowed, lingering gem:
like on the fringe of closed lashes. A
thousand times she had repeated the
words to herself since the first hour
of consciousness when she had seen
him bending over her. B8he thought
she belleved it. But her fast-beating
heart, as she awaited her lover's com:
ing, sounded another answer,
The heavy throbbing ceased, began
again, keeping time with a trampling
of hoofs from down the street, Her
closed eyes did not open even when
the trampling ceased and she heard
his step, pupetuated by the ring of
cane on gravel, until his step, too,
coased and she felt him near her, his
gaze upon her. She dreaded to meet
that gase, :
Slowly the reluctant lids opened
+ + + and dread took wings, like a night
bird that had seen the first light. And
the light in his eyes, transfiguring him
for her, thrilling her with its summons,
was not to be mistaken for the fire
that had flamed there at other times,
or for the pity of one seeing his cruel
ties working out,
“It is not too late,” her heart was
crying, and she tried in vain to stifle
its song,
But he did not press her then with
impetuous wooing. .
“Do you realize,” he sald gravely,
“this fe the first time since the accel
dent I've seen you alone?”
“Yes, I" she began stammeringly.
“The others have just gone in, If you
call them, they will come.”
“Then,” he smiled reassuringly, “I
will call them at once, for I have many
things to show you today, and the doe
tor sets an absurd Hmit to our drive.”
Heo rapped on the door and the doc
tor appeared, and behind him the
Matka. Then, while the Matka piled
the cushions in the seat, Mark and
the doctor helped Kazia over the little
walk and into the buggy.
“And mind you,” the doctor adjured
them, as Mark got in and the horse
started, “two hours at the most—Iif you
can keep track of the time!”
Then he gently led the Matka back
into the house, For
gotten how to weep
weeping nr
Kazla,
First Mark very and
carefully, through the old village and
across the bridge until he came to its
There he stopped.
no longer lifeless
A row of glant stacks
spouted clouds of heavy black smoke
that uttered lazily away in the breeze
in long wavering pennons
the power house windows
ers caught a glimpse great fly.
whirling and bright
From the rolling mills
she, who had for-
for sorrow, was
now f« the joy awaiting
drove, slowly
The mille
and silent,
were
the watch
of
plunging i
r rumble of
engines stirring tentatiy
their sinews as they wait
upon and torture
re ther
nace, alive
vocal with its §
Ne
many
village, They
that little
ord. Kazia
her eyes fol-
pointed
talked little, and perhaps
worthy of a rec
her cushions
hand as he
new beauty to her
“How could you leave 17”
mured, as often had
she had heard of it
adventuring youth,
“But if I hadn't , 1 shouldn’
have found you. So—I'm glad I went.”
She made no answer to that
Farther on they came (oo a branch
road that once he had known. He fol
lowed it a while until there came to
them a delicious spring-like fragrance.
He stopped the horse again,
“1 thought I could find it
He pointed to an old tree that stood,
a mass of green leaves and
snowy blossoms, a little away from the
roadside,
“What is it?”
“A pear tree”
“But it's autumn
She glanced up at him wonderingly.
“Every fall that tree puts out a new
set of leaves and blossoms
lay back in
lowing his
SOI
she
the
he _—
iON
left it
See!”
fresh
gone.”
She looked long and earnestly at the
blossoming tree. “But winter
come and the blossoms will wither—
fruitless.”
No longer could he refuse words to
his longing
“Ah! my dear,” he cried,
forget signs and symbols. There is
such a thing as new birth. And it's
always spring where there is love. You
will forgive me,” he laughed unstead-
fly, “if I talk like a very young poet,
for I am very, very happy today.”
A touch of the old ready color was
glowing faintly in her wan cheeks,
“Have you looked enough? he
smiled. “For, if you have, we must
go. It will be getting chilly soon. And
besides, they are waiting for us.”
“Waiting
“Yes, Didn't you know? Doctor
Courtney Is to marry us tonight.”
The color vanished and she shrank
pack from him, lifting piteous pleading
eyes to his,
“Oh, Mark, don’t ask me that |
can't—1 can't. Couldn't you let me
have this day"
“Did you think I'd let you go again?
Did you think you could? Only one
thing in the world could make me let
you go-- if you can say you don't love
me. And you can’t say that.”
“No, 1 can’t—say that. But don't
ask me. Don't you see, It would be
You forget now--but some day
Ah!
me,
you would remember-that I-
don't force me to say it!"
Her thin wasted hands went to her
face, but he drew them away that she
might see he had not flinched,
“Kazia, just this once we'll speak
of the past, and then we'll put It for
ever away where the past belongs.
One sin is much lke another. And
for every sear you have | can show
many. | ask you to forgive, you have
forgiven much. Can’t you trust me to
forget a little? And, dear, all that—
all the sins and shadows—were part
of a man and woman we have left be
hind.”
Bhe seemed so weak and fragile,
lying there, this wraith of the old
Kazia, torn by love and fear! A sud-
den mist shut her from his sight. An
unspeakable tenderness welled up
within him, lending to his husky
broken phrases a supreme elojuence
she needed to hear.
“But this love--the Kazia that called
it to life—are part of the new life. It
began those days when we thought
you couldn't live and [| learned what
love is and what it would mean to lose
Sat very
ing
For the silen
ended forever. Throughout
they had seen
destiny
| as the irc
vanced
Creature
the new
into the valley
Ree
n had received the life-
until n all the huge
mechanism was in motion, driving,
whirling, pounding at top speed. The
earth quivered in answer to its pulsa
tion. Crunching metal raging blasts,
fires euch as served at the creation,
lifted their voices in chorus—an ode
of the elements to man the master, the
song of steel. A terrible song whose
beauty only the understanding might
discern—singing madly of power and
| passion and purpose, of struggle and
| death, of bimh ana life, of triumph
| and steadfast strength
| To the lovers, rich in the knowledge
| that comes only after gin and payment
and release, the song came not in vain,
“Ought you to be there? she whis
| pered
“Not tonight, dear.”
“Could we see it from here?”
He helped her to a chair by the
| south window and stood at her side
while she saw,
The night sketched the drama of
| steel for her. Again the great fur
| nace was setting free its lambent
flood. Under open sheds were gleam
| ing the sun-bright mouths of other
| furnaces where the iron bolled and
| bolled and became steel
“Ah!” Wonderment and adoration
were in her cry. “And it Is yours—it
is you!”
“Not I, not mine! I don't know how
many generations of men gave them
selves that we might have that |
know it was not for.me, for any man.
For all who suffer and toil”
His face was set sternly toward the
mills. For a long time he was silent,
“What is It? And she broke the
silence with a whisper. “What do you
see out there?
Sternness melted into tenderness
“A parable,” he smiled down on her,
“of our lives—of life. Desire and dis
{llusionment, battle and toll, conguest
and fallure, evil and shame-—the fires
and pressures that burn us and shape
us.” His hand rested on her hair.
“And the purpose in which the real
life begins.”
“Ah! I wouldn't have you different.
But to me-—to me life isn't a parable
it Is you. . . . This peace, this content
-] can’t belleve yet that they are
true, that they always will be trua
Ah! Teach me, teach me!” , *~
THE END.
ite
toward
that had come
awakening to full
tion after sect
| giving power,
| had been life
yw
Winthrop's Toast.
Our Country-—whether bounded by
the St. John's and the Sabine, or how
ever otherwise bounded or described
and be the measures more or less
still, Our Country, to be cherished