Short Story

Lake County Press, Issue 2737, 6 June 1918, Page 7

Short Story

* U BUSHED BY SPECIAI ARRANGEMENT. THE SOLUTION. By ALICE HEGAN RICE. \ Continued.

hisV, l i : r ,llu ! as slll> »•««*. »he WW the, , T /lru i lv an 'l his oyes narrow, a d svl UnU i d towaitls her abruptly '"':) *>oke with sudden vehemence. ' ilßr „. t ,?° U deViSe SO,UW "'"J' ()i l!lkioon 1° ',"- v " w ' n hands this after- '• i don t think lever needed any. &now^ UCh m "* We as l need >" u /Thei colour sprang to her face. It X "ht ♦ i rst tl , mo 110 had mad « i nsi,,', llc /! l,a '! d "Pon her time or at--5 "■' Ji °. H me * JlCl ' advances, alJen in with her plans, watched for r.p,f COm iu ß> a »d followed her mow-

mts with unmistakable eagerness, but U.VW by word or act had he taken the "iitutive in their friendship. bhall it be cards, or books, oi sic. she asked. "I am entirely at \oiu disposal until 5 o'clock." He shook his head. "No, we must r .ct out of doors. This room is a hori Hue cage to me." . ."Would you like to have a sleigh 'lde.' suggested Hilda. He met the suggestion with euthu- , siasm. "Will you come with me? l*opd. He will .strike right down the ! l; illey as hard as the horses can go. j . *ul be good to remember the cold wind m my face, and the living motion, I and you bes.de me, and the freedom oi j "Shall I speak for a sleigh?" asked t a voice so close behind them that thev J both started. .. lt was the übiquitous Potts, and be- I tore Hilda could question the advis- i ability of the phut, he had received instructions and hurried away to carry i them out. ' J The day was cold and brilliant, the air full of that sparkling exhilaration that conies from sunshine on unmelting snow Fennerton, impatiently refusing tlie cushions that were pressed upon him, settled back in the sleigh ! with a long breath of satisfaction "I don't want to be asked if I'm tired, or cold, or uncomfortable," he said almost gaily as he tucked a rug snugly about Hilda and refused to share the hot bricks that had been provided for their comfort. "I propose ♦or the next few hours to be a well man. Miss Grantham is going to help me put away a happy memory for a rainy day, aren't vou, Miss" Grantham?" Potts, who had insisted upon dismissing the driver, gathered up the reins, and with evident pride in his skill, set the horses off at a lively pace through the main street of the village, and out on the long level road that led into the valley. It was an afternoon never to be forgotten by at least two of the party. For miles on every side the wheatfields glittered in their mantle of dazxlading snow; the trees along the road were covered from base to highest twig with an armour of shining ice; the wire fences were transformed into fairy garlands of sparkling tinsel; the air scin-

filiated with a thousand dancing crystals that caught and held the sunshine. Fonnerton's spirits rose as the miles lengthened behind them. Worries, anxieties, reserves were dropped from him like ballast from an ascending balloon. Hilda scarcely recognised her strange, tragic friend in the hilarious, almost boyish person, beside her. He sang and joked and rallied Hilda on her seriousness. He kept up such a running comment of gaiety that before she knew it she was responding to his mood. And through it all she felt a great surge of happiness that this was the real Fennerton, the Fennerton freed from pain, and that nameless something that had been dogging his footsteps. "Give them their heads, Potts!" he cried, when at last they turned their faces homeward; "they want to go, and so do we. But look out to the right there! Something's turning into the road!" His warning came too late. A sleigh emerging from a lane at a lively pace swung out straight in their path. There was a cry, a crash, three terrorstricken horses struggling to free themselves from entangling harness, and Potts lying crumpled up on the roadside Fennerton seized .the reins and brought his horses to a stand before the other man could get out of his sleigh. Then he jumped to the ground .and bent anxiously over Potts. "Is he killed?" asked Hilda fearfully. "No," said Fennerton, slipping mi arm under his head. "He's coming to now. Potts, old man, wht'i'e are you hurt? Anything broken?"

Potts stirred, moved his limbs in vigorous denial, opened his eyes for ;i bewildered moment, then, evidently changing his mind about coming to, anil lapsed again into unconsciousness. "We must get him back to town," said Fennerton decisively to the othei man. "Will you help me to lift him into the sleigh?" Hilda was in instant protest. "You mustn't try to lift him, Mr. Fennerton, and you must not think of driving. Can't this man drive us back?"

"lour sieign is too ousted to depend on," said the farmer, examining a twisted runner, and mine ain't big enough for you all. Better let me take the party back to mv house, and yet a doctor for him, and then come back for you folks." After some hurried argument. Ken nerton agreed to this, and heedless oi Hilda's protest, helped to lift the unconscious Potts into the sleigh and prop him up with rugs and cushions. The farmer's horse, still trembling with fear, was started on his way, and the small sleigh was soon a diminishing speck on the white road. Fennerton turned solicitiously to his companion. "How about you. my dear? Much frightened?" "Yes," said Hilda, "I am frightened about you. How long will you have to wait here in the cold?" "Depends on where the doctor lives. Wo may be her 1 fifteen minutes and we may be here a couple of liouiCould you stand me that long?" "I've got lot; of endurance," said Hilda, trying to smile, but noticing with increasing anxiety the exhausted look on the face of her companion. The short winter day was drawing to j, close, and with the setting sun an aspect of almost bleak desolation fell upon the landscape. The broken sleigh ; ,t the side of the road, the dejected horses hitched to a tree, the piercing wind whistling through the treetops. were anything but cheerful.

"We must have a fire," said Fonnor- ' ton : "our sleigh will furnish the kiud- | ling wood. Vou sit here on this ' cushion, and Til have one started in three minutes." i Hut she would not have it so. Together they rolWted the broken pieces of the dashboard, and together they built a pyramid, and coaxed the reluctant Maze to do its duty. When at last the wood was crackling and sharp tongues of flame \vo-( shooting up, tliev wrapped thenisclvU in their remaining rug, and settled down to wait, i In spite of her sympathy for Potts ~ and her much more urgent anxiety fot J her companion, Hilda was tasting the .' ecstasy of life as she had never tasted it before. To be alone thus with Feni nerton, the object of his tender solicij tude, to know that as she sat thus J silently watching the fire, that he was i watching her with a look in bis eyes that was unmistakable, filled her with tremulous joy. During those minutes the right of being with him through his coming ordeal, of nursing him back to life and happiness, seemed the greatest to which a woman could aspire.

"Fate is -i curious thing," be said as he stooped forward to hold his cigar to the blaze. "Why couldn't she have left poor old Potts alone and taken another whack at me? I've gotten rather used to her licks by now." "Have they been so many?" "Enough,'' he answered grimly. "Bui J forgive her since she lent you to me during these past weeks. I wonder if vou have anv idea what vou have meant to me?"

I "I know what you have meant to | me," said Hilda simply. ! Fennerton impulsively put out his i hand, then as quickly withdrew it. "Well, now that it's over, you want to forget me," he said almost roughly. She shrank, almost as if from a blow, then glancing at his face and seeing the deep unhappiness and suffering written on it, she said with a flush:— "Hut it's not over. It's just beginning—our friendship, I mean." "There can never be any friendship between us," he said vehemently. ''Vou don't know what you are offering. I'vp accepted too much already. I've taken advantage of your heavenly goodness. I've no right to speak to you, to be near you." "Why?" Hilda demanded. "Why?" he repeated, "because you are the clearest, purest creature God ever made, and in the eyes of the world at least I am a criminal." Her eyes clung to his in terrified disbelief. "Vou said from the first that you knew my face the moment .you saw; me," he went on passionately. "Of course you did. It was blazoned in every newspaper in the land—'President of big Chicago bank arrested on charge of felony.' 1 can see the headlines now. I've been held without bond since October, waiting my trial. 1 wouldn't be out now if they had not thought I was going to die on their hands. And if 1 don't die, I am to go back and be convicted. Even my own lawyers hold out little hope for me."^ "But—but you are not guilty?" Hilda scarcely breathed the words. Fennerton had dropped his head into his hands. "I don't know," he said hopelessly. "I did what men have been doing for years without question. The bank was in trouble; a run on it would have meant the ruin of hundreds of small creditors. I saw a way to meet the situation, but it had to be met at once. There was no time to call a directors' meeting. 1 acted without instructions, and the Federal Authorities had been waiting for just such a violation of the law to make a test case of it. My directors and friends fought for me,' are still fighting for me. Everything that money and influence can do is being done, but there's no chance for me. 1 shall be convicted." Hilda's eyes had never left his face during this'recital. "Mr. Potts?" she said. "What of him?" "He's my guard. He's under instructions not to allow me out of his sight. Poor old Potts!" Hilda's bright tense eyes swept the road, and then came back to his face. In the seconds of silence that had passed between them her quick resourceful mind had covered much ground. "Listen," .he said, laying an imperative hand on his arm. "Vou must go away to-night. Now. Vou must help me to plan it ; there isn't a minute to lose." "No, no. I can't do that. I'll stick to my guns." "Hut think what it means," she pleaded breathlessly. "This is yotti one chance. It isn't as if you had done something wrong. Vou did right to save till that money for those poor people. I'd have done it. Any good person would. They have no right to disgrace you and punish you like this. It's cruel, it's wrong. You must go away." He put his hand over hers, and his touch thrilled tlr.ough her. "You don't understand," he said. "A man can't think only of himself." "1 don't want you to," site cried passionately. "I want you to think of me." He turned sharply upon her and searched her face with almost a look of terror in his own. "I've no right to think of you," he said hoarsely. "I've been telling myself so every hour, every minute, since 1 met you. And yet I've been able to think of little else. Disgrace, death itself couldn't poison the sweetness oi ! you. Hilda, whatever comes to us, ! know that vou have been the one light j in the blackness of my night." J "Hut you are coining away," she cried. "We must catch the first train for New York, and from there get a steamer for some foreign port. We will find a good hospital where you can | be treated, and 1 will nurse you well again. Come, there' isn't a minute to lose."

''And you would go with me, Hilda? You love me like that?" He stretched forth his arms and d ew her to him tenderly. "God! W'h i it would mean to be out of it all with you!" Hut she freed herself almost impatiently. "We must plan. You iruisi help me. 1 have money enough to get us to New York. Have you friends there who would help us?" "There's Nelson, but--—" She swept over his coming objection. ''Of course, he would do anything for you. If only Mr. Potts is still unconscious we can get away. There'.-, a light down the road now. It's the sleigh coming back. You leave it all to me; I'll think of a way. I must think of a way." The two figures standing there with clasped hands waited tensely. To Hilda it seemed hours before a voice called on of the dark: "lie's all right. Doc says there ain't no harm done." "Has--has he regained consciousness?" she asked wjth stiff lips. "Yes. but he ain't talked much. Jus' sets around kind of dazed. He'll be all right bv morning. I'll take you folks where you are going to. and then I'll come hack for them bosses." "\Vc want to go back to the railroad junction," said Hilda in a low, firm tone. "Can you get us there in time to catch the New York expr9ss?"

The man looked dubiously from on to the other, then a slow smile sprea< over his wrinkled face. "By jugs! Hit's a runaway, ain' it?" '"No," said Fennerton. stepping for ward with sudden decision, "it's no { a runaway. This young lady is tryinj. J to send me olf to where I don't belong • 1 am going back to town with her; sin j will be glad of it tomorrow. To tin i Dobson Sanatorium as last as you can get Us there." With a sinking In-art Hilda found herself being put into the sleigh. Sin l knew that further pleading and protest were in vain, and thai the fight was lost. Hut as long as he was there close beside her. clasping her hand and whispering words of reassurance and hope, she could not altogether despair.

As the twinkling lights of the town began to flash out of the dusk a silence fell upon them both. Only once did he speak, and then to murmur, as if to himself:—■

What if we still ride on. we two. With life forever old, yet new. Changed not in kind, but in dogrc The instant made eternitv —"

Then she felt his strong frame shudder convulsively, and saw a strangepallor spread over his face. The false strength lent hint by the excitement of the afternoon, and the stimulus that sometimes comes with fighting intense pain, life him suddenly. He leaned forward with his head on his arms and groaned in agony. Hilda scarcely knew what happened after that until he was lifted from her arms by the Sanatorium attendants, and borne through the wide noiseless floors, and up the silent corridors. The operation was performed the next morning, hut Fennerton never regained consciousness after the anesthetic. The heart had been weakened by the strain of the day before, and he died just after ho was removed from the operating room.

During the dav that, followed, while the necessary arrangements were bene made to take the body back to Chicago the two strangely contrasting friend? of the dead man kept silent vigil beside him. Hilda's white, sensitive face was lii up with an almost mystic esctasy. In her eyes burned the tapers for her dead. Like most quick natures, shn had lived through the crisis in bitter anticipation. During those poignant moments in the sleigh when she had held Fennerton in her arms, she had resolutely faced all the possibilities of the future, and she knew that for him at least, there was but one merciful outcome Now as she sat beside him. a peace possessed her such as she had never known before. She" was wedded through eternity to her ideal, safe-from disillusion or severance. And as she sat thus with eyes that saw nothing earth ly, and a soul that kept, tryst with that other soul as it fared forth into the infinite the common, freckle-faced little man at the other side of the bed gave a sudden sob. and dropped his closecropped red head on the rigid hand that lay outside the sheet:— "I wish to God he'd a went!" he cried passionately. "I give him the chance, but 1 knew beforehand lie wouldn't go. He was too square for this world, too square."