Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1912 — The FLYING MERCURY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The FLYING MERCURY

By Eleanor M. Ingram

Author of “The Game and the Candle" □lustrations ByRJIY WALTERS

(OopyritfU. mo. lor Bobte-MurtU Co.) 8 SYNOPSIS. The story opens on Long Island, near New York city, where Miss Emily Ffrench, a relative of Ethan Ffrench, manufacturer of the celebrated “Mercury" automobile, loses her way. The car has stopped and her cousin, Dick Ffrench, is too muddled with drink to direct it aright. They meet another car which Is run by a professional racer named Lestrange. The latter fixes up the Ffrench car ahd directs Miss Ffrench how to proceed homeward. Ethan Ffrench has disinherited his son. who has disappeared. He Informs Emily plainly that he would like to have her marry Dick, Who is a good-natured but Irresponsible fellow. It appears that a partner of Ethan Ffrench wanting an expert to race with the "Mercury” at auto events, has engeged Lestrange, and at the Ffrench factory Emily encounters the young man. They refer pleasantly to their meeting when DJck comes along and recognises the young racer. Dick likes the way Lestrange Ignores their first meeting when he appeared to a disadvantage. Lestrange tells Emily that he will try to educate her indifferent cousin as an automobile expert. Dick undertakes his business schooling under the tutelage of Lestrange. Dick is sheer grit, and in making a test race meets with an accident. Lestrange meets Emily in the moonlit garden of the Ffrench home. CHAPTER Vl.—(Continued). Lestrange hesitated, himself troubled. Her soft loveliness in the delicate light that left her eyes unreadable depths of shadow, her timidity and anxiety for his safety, were from their very unconsciousness most dangerous. And while he grasped at selfcontrol, she came still nearer to the head of the steps and held out her small fair hand, mistaking his silence for leave-taking. “Good night; and I thank you for coming. I am not used to so much consideration.** Her accents were unsure when she would have made them most certain, with her movement the handkerchief fell from her girdle to his feet Mechanically Lestrange recovered the bit of linen, and felt it lie wet in his fingers. Wot — “Emily!” he cried abruptly, and sprang the brief step between them. Her white, terrified face turned to him in the moonlight but he saw her eyes. And seeing, he kissed her.The moment left no time for speech. Some one was coming down the drawing-room toward the long windows. Dick’s impatient whistle sounded shrilly from the park. Panting, Quivering, Emily drew from the embrace and fled within. She had no doubt of Lestrange, no question of his serious meaning—he had that force of sincerity which made his silence more convincing than the protestations of others. But alone in her room she laid her cheek against the hand his had touched. “I wish I had died in the convent,” she cried to her heart “I wish I had died before I made him unhappy too.”

CHAPTER VII. Morning found a pale and languid Emily across the breakfast table, from Mr. Ffrench. Yet, by a contradiction of the heart, her pride in loving and being loved so overbore the knowledge that only sorrow could result to herself and Lestrange, that her eyes shone wide and lustrous and her lips curved softly. Mr. Ffrench was almost In high spirits. "The boy was merely developing,” he stated, over his grape-fruit "I have been unjust to Richard. For two months Bailey has been talking of "his interest in the business and attendance at the factory, but I was in credulous. Although I fancied I observed a change—have you observed a change In him, Emily?” "Yes,” Emily confirmed, "a very great change. He has grown up. at last” 3 “Ah? 1 cannot express to you how it gratifies me to have a Ffrench representing me in public; have you seen £ the morning journals?" * “I have just come down-stairs.” He picked up the newspaper beside him and passed across the folded page. “AH in readiness for Beach Contest,” the head-lines ran. "Last big driver to arrive, Lestrange is in Mercury camp with R. Ffrench, representtatlve of Company." - And there was a blurred picture of a speeding car with driver and mechanician masked to goblinesque nonidentity, with the legend underneath: “‘Darling’ Lestrange, in his Mercury on the Georgia course,” “Next year I shall make him part owner. It was always my poor brother's desire to have the future name still Ffrench and Ffrench. He was not thinking of Richard then; he had hope of - "” “ - break.

"Of?” she echoed vaguely. “Of one who is unworthy thought Richard has redeemed our family from extinction; that is at rest." He paused for an instant “My dear child, when you gre married and established, I shall be content.’* Her breathing quickened, her courage rose to the call of the moment “If Dick ishere, if he is instead of a substitute,” she said, carefully quiet In manner, “would it matter, since I am only a girl, whom I married. Uncle Ethan T' The recollection of that evening when Emily had given her promise of aid, stlrrbd under Mr. Ffrench’s celfabsorbition. He looked across the table at her colorless, eager face with perhaps his first thought of what that promise might have cost her. “No,” he replied kindly. “It is part of my satisfaction that you are set Lee to .allow your own choice, without thought of utility or fortune. Of course, I need not say provided the man is of your own class and associations. We will fear no more Tow marriages.” She had known it before, but it was hard to hear the sentence embodiedjn words. Emily folded her hands over the paper in her lap and the pleasant breakfast room darkened before her. Mr. Ffrench continued speaking of Dick, unheard. When the long meal was ended aid her uncle withdrew to meet Bailey in the -library, Emily escaped outdoors. There was a quaint cummer house part way down the park, an ancient white pavilion standing beside the brook that gurgled by on its way to the Hudson, where the young girl often passed her hours. She went there now, carrying her little workbasket and the newspaper containing the picture of Lestrange. “I will save It,” was her thought. “Perhaps I may find better ones —this does not show his sac I will have this now. It may be a long time before I see him.”

' But she sat with the embroidery scissors in her hand, nevertheless, without cutting the reprint Lestrange would return to the factory, she never doubted, and all would continue as before, except that she must not see him. He would understand that it was not possible for anything else to happen, at least for many years. Perhaps,’ after Dick was married — The green and gold beauty of the morning hurt her with the memory of that other sunny morning, when he had so easily taken from her the task she hated and strove to bear. And he had succeeded, how he had succeeded! Who else in the world 1 could have so transformed Dick? Leaning on the table, her round chin in her palm as she gazed down at the paper in her lap, her fancy slipped back to that night on the Long Island road, when she had first seen his serene genius for setting all things right. How like him that elimination of Dick, instead of a romantic and impracticable attempt to escort her himself. A bush crackled stiffly at some one's passage; a shadow fell across hen "Caught!" laughed Lestrange’s glad, exultant voice. "Since you look at the portrait, how shall the original fear to present himself? See, I can match.” He held out a card burned at the corners and streaked with dull red, “The first time I saw your writing, and found my own name there." Amazed, Emily sat up, and met in his glowing face all Incarnate joy of life and youth. “Oh!” she gasped piteously. “You are surprised that I am here? My dear, my dear, after last night did you think I could be anywhere else?"

"The race—” “I know that track too well to need much practice, and I had the machine out at dawn. My partner is busy practicing this morning, and I’ll be back In a couple of hours. I was afraid,” the gray eyes were so gentle in their brilliancy, “I was afraid you might worry, Emily.” . y Serenely he assumed possession .of her, and the assumption was very sweet He had not touched her, yet

Emily had the sensation of brutaljg thrusting him away when she spoke: "How could I do anything else,” she asked with desolation, “since we must never meet each other any more? Only, you will not go far away —you will stay where I can sometimes see you as we pass? I —l think 1 could not bear it to have you go away." *. \ “Emily!" The scissors clinked sharply to the floor as she held out her white hands in deprecation of bls cry; the tears rushed to her eyes. “You know, you know! f am not free; I am Emily Ffrench. I cannot fail'n«y uncle sad grieve him as his son did. Oh, I will dstw marry any

one else, and we will hear of each other; I Can read in the papers and Dick will tell me of you. It will be something to be so close, down there and up here." - - - —-- “You are not angry? You will not be angry? You know I can do nothing else; please say you know,** He came nearer and took both cold little hands In his clasp, bending, to her the shining gravity of his regard. "Do you think me such a selfish animal, my dear, that I would have kissed you when I could not claim you?” he asked. "Did you think I could forget you were Emily Ffrench, even by moonlight?" Her fair head fell back, her dark eyes questioned his. " Y ou—mean—”

*‘l mean that even your uncle cannot deny my inherited quality of gentleman. lam no millionaire Incognito. I have driven racing cars and managed this factory to earn my living, having no other dependence than upon myself, but my blood is as old as yours, little girl, if that means anything.” “Not to me," she cried, looking up into Jhls eyes. “Not to me, but to him. I cared for you—” He drew her toward him, unresisting, their gaze still on each other. As

from the first, there was no shyness between them, but the strange, exquisite understanding now made perfect

“I was right to come to you.” he declared, after a time. “Right to fear that you were troubled, conscientious lady. But I must go back, or there will be a fine disturbance at the Beach. And I have shattered my other plans to Insignificant fragments, or you have. If I did not forget by moonlight that you were Emily Ffrench, 1 certainly forgot everything else." She looked up at him, her softlytinted face bright as bis own, her yellow hair rumpled into flossy tendrils under the black ribbon binding it “Everything else?” she echoed. “Is there anything else but this?" “Nothing that counts, to me. You for my. own, and this good world to live in—l stand bareheaded before it all. But yet, I told you once that I had a purpose to accomplish; a purpose now very near completion. In a few months I meant to leave Ffrenchwood." Emily rave a faint cry. “Yes, for my work would have been done. Then I fell to love and upset When I tell Mr. Ffrench that I want you, I will have to leave at once." •

"Why? You said—” “How brave are you, Emily?”, he asked. “I said your uncle could not question my name or birth, but I did not say he would want to give you to me. Nor. will he; unless I am mistaken. Are you going to be brave enough to come to me, knowing he has no right to complain, -since you and I together have given him Dick?” "He does not know you; how can you tell he does not like you?” she urged. "Do you think he likes ‘Darling’ Lestrange of the race course?” The sudden keen demand disconcerted her. “I hear a little down there,” he added. "I have not been fortunate with your kinsman. No, it is for you to say whether Ethan Ffrench’s unjust caprice is a bar between ns. To me it is none." . (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Her Accents Were Unsure When She Would Have Made Them Most Certain.

“Dick Will Tell Me of You.”