HE WAS
ONLY A
CLERK
By H. M. EGBERT
(Copyright by W. G. Chapman.)
IL
€C CAN'T stand this any longer,
Dick. I'm going to leave you."
I Edith Kane faced her hus-
band of eight months defiant-
ty. The setting for the tragic out-
break was commonplace; a city flat.
In the tiny living room the two
clashed In that age-long confiict.
“Because I am poor?’ inquired
Kane quietly. He had long expected
the culmination; now that it had
come he felt cooler than he had
thought would be possible.
His wife looked with contempt
upon the little figure in the shabby
clothes,
“Because you are a clerk,” she an-
swered. ‘Because you are content to
be a clerk. You have a clerk's soul,
and 1—I was born for something bet-
ter than to be a clerk's wife.”
“You knew my occupation
you married me,” sald Kane,
“I did,” she answered. “And I
thought I'd make something of you,
But you're satisfied to work for Jer-
rold "day after day, on thirty a week,
while he piles up his millions, Oh,
I'm tired of it all”
She sank into a chalr, put her face
in her hands, and burst into hysteri-
cal weeping. Kane stood for a mo-
ment watching her. Then he walked
to her and raised her head from her
hands, flinging it back almost bru-
tally.
“How
me!”
“Never mind that. I want to ask
you a question. Are you leaving me
. for Jerrold?”
“What if I am? Have you any
right to ask, you who have made me
slave for you, slave for a clerk?”
Her breath came and went quickly,
ghe rose to her feet and looked at him
with all the disdain she felt.
“I Insist on knowing”
Kane.
“You Insist? Well—yes. For a bet-
ter man. For your employer, Mr, Jer-
rold. The man thousands
where you have pennies,
“Thank you,” sald Kane,
He left her and went into his room.
Immediately, before the deflant anger
had left began hurriedly to
pack a suitcase. She cast
the few
when
dare you use violence to
answered
who has
»
her, she
Away
her hus
for her.
temptuously things
band had
and went Kane, in
heard the door of the hall
hind her.
been able to buy
out, his
IT.
Harvey Jerrold, the millionaire bro-
ker, was quite willing to see his un-
derpaid his
apartment on
why Kane had not been
for three days. Edith had telephoned
him from her hotel the next morning,
him quarrel. He
employee In bachelor
the drive, He
telling about the
refused to see him till he had his
quarrel out
with Kane,
together,
but
worldliness,
the man and his employee's
Edith Kane, despite her
was prudent and, In a
honorable, She had held Jerrold
length, and, when he
talk her she
had refused to let him embrace her
Jesides, as every woman knows, if
you really mean a man to marry you,
with discretion.
eared nothing for
liane was resolved to
spending of his millions,
had been on
needles because Kane did
He had even meditated
therefore,
wife,
way,
at arm's
began to
even
about divorce
yon must go about It
And, though
Jerrold, Edith
have the
Jerrold
she
pins and
not appear,
going to him;
when Kane was announced
by the Japanese butler, he feit his
heart triumphantly. He had
squared all accounts with money, and
be had fio doubt that he could square
Kanne in the same way.
He stood In his room waiting for
fit with an uneasy but yet confident
smile. And Kane wasted no time In
eoming to the point.
“You know what 1 have come
about,” he cried, an absurd little fig-
ure confronting the six-foot college
athlete,
“About Mrs,
rold blandly.
“T'tl have
leap
Kane?" inquired Jer
it from your own lips.”
cried Kane, “S8he has left me be-
cause she loves you-—you or your
money. What are you going to do
about 1t?”
“I can't cateh her and drag her
back to you, ean I, Mr. Kane?
drawled the other,
“Are you going to marry her?’
“That depensls largely on the de-
cision of the Reno court,” sald the
millionaire.
“1 guess there won't be any diffi
culty about that,” sald Kane. “Your
money will get anything. - Are you go-
ing to marry her when the court has
decided 7”
“1 hope 80.” answered Jerrold. “See
here, Kane, I'm-—I'm sorry. But in
this life the riches and the women go
to the strong. You've lost her. But
I'I make good to you. I'll give you"—
he hesitated—"thirty thousand dol-
lars for your wife. What do you
say?”
“You scoundrel!” shouted Kane,
shaking his fist at the other's face,
“You contemptible blackguard!™
“It's more than any court would
give. Take it or leave it, Kane,” sald
derrold quietly,
“JI accept,” sald Kane suddenly,
IL.
Three years lator he saw his wife
again,
Was over,
|
pearance. Jerrold could not have
been as kind a companion as she had
expected, to judge from the sadness
of her expression,
haunted look upon her face,
across the alsle,
next station, but, when he
the platform, she had followed him.
“I want to tell you, Dick, that I—I
am sorry,” she sald In a low voice,
old longing over
longed to
he only bowed and stood aside,
sweep
case—" she began,
mortification,
his
selves into his brain like fire,
knew he could never forget that place,
in Wall street.
with
rold’s office, he had
wealthy. But she could not know that
the one purpose for which he lived
wag nearing accomplishment.
He had pursued
the secrets of his pgvate speculations
and made good usé of them. The
month of wild speculation that had
just ended had been a hard one for
Jerrold.
millionaire,
IV.
Jerrold sat in his office, ntterly bro.
ken.
of the man who had ruined him.
He had learned too late, His own
place of power had fallen to the
clerk. He had lost seven million dol-
lars, and Kane must have made three
imes that sum. A sense of Irony was
“A gent, sir, wants to see you—"
“Ph
“I think you'll see me, Mr
gee nobody ”
Jerrold,”
“It's five
years since you saw me before” he
added, quietly
Jerrold sprang up with a snarl
flinch; he
transformed, and it was he who pos-
sessed the ease, the confidence
“Yes, I have your money, Jerrold™
he said. “In this life, Jerrold, the
and the go to the
You blackguard,” he hurst out
But
seemed
women
strong.
Now
tell her
wedding
millions,
wife and
husband's
millions,
take
that's
your dirty
them to your
her first
present to her second.”
And he flung a check upon the other
man's desk.
Jerrold stared at It,
man
already
stared at the
him, who
Shddenly he felt him
choking: he realized that the
had eaten into Kane's soul,
had branded it indelibly with shame
“Kane!” he muttered huskily, "See
here! Didn't you know?”
“Know what?" cried Kane.
“Why that she didn’t
I haven't seen her since that day.
She went West and-—and thought bet.
ter of it, Kane, Lord,
didn’t know! The money-—"
*D—n the money!” yelled Kane
rushing from the office.
And In the heavens, dancing In
lurid red on thelr blue background, he
saw the number of the house on Mor
timer street,
who had bested
was
Relics of Past Ages
in Western Ireland
Near Quintin castle, on the Ards
peninsula, In western Ireland, in the
grounds of Rock cottage stands a
cally as a “gallaun.”
Local legend has it that this was an
execution stone of the chiefs of Tarn,
who had their dun, or lis-—for it
seems to be a combination of both
on the summit of Tara hill
The stone is In view of the hill
is sald, could see the executions at
or on it from this hilitop fort, If he
did not want to be present at the
stone itself.
The Ards peninsula has many anti-
quaries of various classes and ages,
from the dolmen at Mountstewart to
priory and cross of Newtownards,
There are also Elizabethan-age
keeps, often, though
called De Courcy castles—he died
three hundred years or so before they
were bullt,
Not far from the execution stone
there is a nice little cromlech, or
rain near the graveyard, with others
may be mentioned flint and other
stone Implements of prehistoric times.
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must be pruned, do it any
cept In the spring, when the tree is
making new growth,
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