Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1914 — JOHN RAWN PROMINENT CITIZEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JOHN RAWN PROMINENT CITIZEN

by EMERSON HOUGH

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SYNOPSIS. John Rawn. a dark In a St. .Louis railway office, hears his daughter Grace’s gver, a young engineer named Charles Halsey, speak of a scheme to utilise the lost current of electricity. He appropriates the idea as his own _ and induces Halsey tO perfect an experimental machine. He forms a company, with himself as president, at a salary of SWO,OuO a year, and Halsey as superintendent of the works, at. * Bal sry of $5,000. Rawn takes charge of the office In Chicago. Virginia Delaware is assigned as his stenographer. She aspicking the furniture and decoration for the princely mansion Rawn has erected. Mrs. Rawn feels out of place In the new surroundings. Halsey goes to New York with Rawn and Miss Delaware to explain delays in perfecting the new motor to the impatient directors. He gets a message that A deformed daughter has been born to his wife. Grace Rawn. Rawn bargains with Miss Delaware to wear his Jewelry and appear in public with him, as a means to help him in a business way, Rawnjs fortunate in market speculations, piles* up wealth and attains prominence. He gives his Wife a million dollars to leave him. He asks his daughter, Mrs. Halsey, to take charge of hw household. Grace moves to Graystone hall, and Halsey continues to live alone in. the oottage near the works. Halsey s machine proyes a success, but he keeps the fact a secret. Virginia Delaware becomes more and more indispensable to Rawn. He takes her to New York on a business, trip. Idle talC prompts him to offer her marriage. They are married. Halsey threatens To get a divorce because his wife refuses to return to him. He tells Rawn that he has broken up all the machines after proving the success of the Invention. Rawn, in a great rage, threatens to kill him. Halsey declares he ■ will never build another machlne for Rawn and Blank his face, Vi*-. ginia Rawn implores Halsey to reconslder, because his decision will ruin them Halsey tells Virginia that he has abandoned Ms Invention because It would put a great power In the hands of a few to the detriment of the many. At Rawn’s Instigation Virginia agrees to try to bring Ha'sey to terms, no matter what It costs. The directors plan to get . the control of the company away from Rawn. They hold a conference In Chicago. Rawn goes to New York to attempt to avert impending disaster. Halsey takes up hi* residence at Graystone hall, where his wife ana daughter are seriously ill. Rawn Is ruined financially. Halsey and Virginia confess their love for each other. The butler overhears and tells Halsey’s wife.

1 CHAPTER XX. * '«-< __ What Cheer of the Harvest? The blood of youth la hot He followed her, In spite of all, forgetting all. They had advanced across the hall toward the gold room, of library. "Oh, Charley, Charley! Don’t begin, wait a little,” she walled. “At least till to-night, till afternoon. I don’t know what to say yet. I don’t know what so do! Let na see him first, and tell him.” I “Look about you,” he commented grimly. “You're going io lose ail thi# —these splendid, beautiful things.” “I don't mind losing them. I want to be poor. Oh, my God! Just to be loved, and clean! Charley, can we?" "But why choose me? There are so many othyTV^ "All like Mr. Rawn "himself—men crazed of money, power, selfishness. I wanted something different. Do you think it could haye been my father’s old ideas coming out in me, so late? He came of a family of revolutionists —independents; ’Progressives,’ , they call them now. Something of his beliefs—l don’t know what It was—” "But you’ll have to leave him in any case. Divorce is simple enough. You know what I would have done, and done, also, in any case. Grace and I—” w “Yes, I know all about everything. Everything’s past,” she said despairingly. "We’re dead. It’s all over!" "I ought to go?” he asked vaguely. "Yes, pretty soon. But I suppose you'll have to see Grace, and—to-night I’ll have to see — M He bowed his head. “Yes, we’ve got tq pay that part first The best we ean do and all we can give ought to be enough for him." She turned, left him, passing through the great doors to the central rooms within. Following he/ still, he found bier at the stair and joined her. There approached them now, with hasty tread and face somewhat excited,’ the. medical man who had been for so many days now in attendance upon Grace Rawn and her child. He - had come on his morning visit unnoticed by them. "Ah," he began, “I’m glad to find you, Mrs. Rawn—and you, Mr. Halsey —l’ve been-looking for you—Come! Come quickly!” His face showed plainly hiß agitation. "Is there anything wrong?” demanded Halsey sharply. "What’B the trouble?” “It is my duty to tell you the truth," began the doctor. “Your wife is a very- sick woman, indeed.” "I know that, yes.” "But not the worst until this morning, until Just now. Something—” "I’ve been here in the house waiting—why did you not call me?” began Halsey clumsily. “You must not wait!" the doctor Interrupted him. taking him by the arm and hastening toward the stairway. They followed him up the stair, down the upper hall, to the rooms which had been set apart of late days for Grace and her child, quarters all too unfamiliar to Halsey himself. They found Grace !Oty. faint and gasping, half Bitting in her bed. clasping the child In his arms, herself too weak now longer to hold it up. Halsey, stricken with sudden horror, ran to take the child in bis own arms. The truth was obvious. Even as he lifted the poor crippled form in his arms, the head fell back, helpless. The eyes glased, turned back uncovered.

Halsey cried out aloud. He turned about, dazed; horror and helplessness were on his face. It was to Virginia Rawn he turned, jas to the other part of himself. It was Virginia Rawn wh6 took from him the feeble, misshapen body, gathering it Into his own arms. She gazed intently, frowning, grieving a woman’s grief over suffering, bending over Its' face; her own-face held back over it when she saw the Truth. Then she passed him and placed the body of the child upon its eot near-by, covering,, it gently. ♦ • ___

"Grace, Grace!” sobbed Halsey. He fell upon his knees at his wife’s bedside. She dijl not see him, did not recognize him, although she turned a questioning face toward, him. "Me, too!” he cried, 'i want to go! 1 want to die and end It! Everything’s wrong ...” “Come,” said the doctor presently; “it’s too late now. 11l call for you after a time.” He took Halsey by the arm and led him from the room. Returning, he signed for Virginia Rawn also to leave thesick chamber. Left alone, the medical man turned to the professional nurse in attendance. “Keep It quiet,” he said. “It would hurt my practice—do you hear?” . He kicked beneath the bed a small broken vial, and wiped away the stain from the lips of the dying woman. The doctor, as course, had his guess, the public its guess, the dally papers theirs. The truth was, Grace Halsey, by butler route, had learned of the tete-a-tete of her husband and her stepmother a half hour before this time.

Grace Halsey, dead, her crippled child dead beside her, never knew the contents of the letter which had been received for her that morning. It

still lay on the hall table unnoticed. There was almost none to pay attention to the many duties of the household. The last servants had begun to pass, scenting disaster even as had others. The magic which had builded thiß mansion bouse now lacked strength to hold its tenantry. There remained now only one man—the butler, lingering for his pay. Only two persons might still be Bald to be actuated by any sense of loyalty or duty to Graystone Hill and its owner—Halsey and Virginia Rawn. Of duty—to what and to whom? They dared not ask, dared not think. They waited, they knew not Jor what The master of this mansion house was forth upon his business. Somewhere, be was hastening toward his home. When he might be expected they did not know. Nor did the master know what news awaited him upon his coming.

The evening dallies came out upon the streets, reeling and reeking with the last accumulating sensationa of the Rawn disasters. The business world continued to rub its eyes, the social world continued to erult. Many and many a woman smiled that evening aB she contemplated proofs of the downfall of one whom_once she had envied. The Rawns, it now seemed, had all along been known, by everybody who was anybody, to have been nobody at all. They who had sown the wind, had the whirlwind for their reaping. This was the genera) day of harvest for Graystone Hall. But the day passed on. Shadows lengthened beyond the tail towers and softened as they fell toward the east The soft firs of evening, turning, came in across the open gallery front Night came, flight unbroken by more than a few nights in all the myriad windows of this stately monument which John Rawn had builded as proof of his personal success. Vehicles, passing slowly, held occupants staring In curiosity at this vast, vacant pile. Human sympathy lacked, human aid there was not

Thus It chanced easily that there passed up the long driveway of Graystone Hall, almost unnoticed, a vehicle carrying one who seemed a stranger there; an elderly, rather tall woman of gray hair-and unfashionable garb, who made such insistence with the servant at the door that at length she wpmber way through. Her errand seemed not one of curiosity, nor did she lack in decision.

1 1 .• *, —— L + i ;-y ■ —; She left upon the table an old-fash-ioned reticule, and following the advice given her, in reply to her question, passed up the stair and (town 1 the upper hall, to the room where lay Grace Halsey and her child. There, unknown by any of the household and accepted by those Whose professional duties took them thither, she remained for many hours. Halsey and Virginia Rawn did not know of her coming. It was a cold home-coming, also, which awaited John Rawn. But he came at last, to meet that which waa for: himHte iMeounter. It night. The lights were few and dim. Nyne greeted him at his own gate, none even at his own door, which was left unguarded. At length he found the solitary footman-butler, asleep In a chair, the worse for wine. “Where , is she?" he demanded. “Where is Mrs. Rawn?” He turned before he could be coherently answered, and passed down the hall toward the library, through whose closed doors be saw a faint .light gleaming. Something impelled John Rawn to hesitate. He stood, himself the very picture of despair, his face drawn, haggard, unshaven, his hair disordered, his hands twitching. He must find his wife, he said to himself; he must ask her what success she had had with their Jqst hope. Yes, yes, it must be true! With Halsey’s aid he would yet win! If she had won—j Halsey would yet be on his side—Halsey would tell him—s Halsey would go back to the factory— . * But John Rawn hesitated at this door. He felt, rather than knew, believed rather than was advised, that his wife was beyond that door. He waited, apprehensive, but kept up with himself the pitifut pretense of selfdeception. Ah, power, control, command!—those were the great things of the world, he reasoned True, he knew his daughter lay dead in her room on the floor above—the paper he held in his hand told him that; for at last the doctor had prepared his statement regarding Mrs. Halsey’s death by “heart failure” —the rich and all akin to them always die respectably, in a house so large as Graystone Hall. But it was too late to save her. Rawn reasoned. Let the dead bury the dead. The larger things must outweigh the small. He first must know what his wife had done with Halsey. To the tense, strained nerves of John Rawn the truth was now as apparent as it had been to the sensibilities of all these others, late friends, servants, sycophants. Ruin was here, in his citadel, his castle of pride. Only one thing could save him. ... He hesitated at the door, held back from that which he knew he was about to face. . . . But no, he reasoned, she was there alone, he must see her! He fluna open the folding doors and stodti holding them apart. * Yes, she was there! John Rawn’s face drew into a ghastly smile. Yes, she had won! She, the wonderful woman, had triumphed aa he bad planned for her to triumph. She had won! . . . • They stood before, him, those two, silent, face to face, embraced; their

arms about each other even as be flung wide the door. They turned to him now, stupefied, so weary, so overstrained, that their arms still hung, embraced. The face of each was white, desolate, unhappy; more hopeless and desperate than terrified, but horrible. They were lovers. They loved, but what could love do for them, so late? They bad paid—but what right had they to love, so late? John Rawn, the man who had wrought all this, stood and gazed, ghastly, smiling distortedly, at his wife’s face. "Why, then, should the be unhappy? What was to be lost save that which he, John Rawn, was losing—or had been about to lose? But he was startled, stupefied, himself, for one moment He turned back, hesitating; and so tiptoed away, leaving them, although the joint knowledge of all was obvious. They had not spoken a .word, had not* started apart, had only gazed at him like dead persons, white, silent, motionless—not lovers; no, not lovers. For one-half instant, alone in the wide and darkened ball, Jtawn straightened himself up, threw his chest out. Yes, she had won—she had done her task! She held Charles Halsey fast — there —in her embrace. He, John Rawn, multimillionaire, collector of rare objects, one of God’s anointed rich, had the shrewdest wife the world •had ever seen, the most beautiful, the most successful! Had he not seen—was It not there before his eyes? She had his one en-

emy netted, in her power—there—bad he not seen ? She bound hand and foot, to-him, John Rawn! Could a man doubt his eyes? They had hunted well in couple, be and his wife, and now she had pulled down their latest victim! . . . What mattered the means?—there, wad but one great thing. And the great things must outweigh the email. He was a man of power. He had been born for success. He was— He stood, half in the shadow, hesitant.*' Then he heard other feet approaching Tiim slowly. Hia wire. Virginia, came and took him by the arm and had him within the door; closed it back of him; and, leaving him, advanced to where Halsey stood. She took Halsey by the hand. . . . It seemed a singular thtng to Rawn. this performance; In fact, almost improper, if the truth were known. . . . So ,it seemed to John Rawn’s mind, a trifle, clpuded with distress and drink. “Well,” said she apologetically; and held her peace as he frowned and and looked at her dumbly. “Well!” be broke out at last; “I’m back again! —You’re here, I see.” This last to Halley. They two stood and regarded him without comment. Halsey kept his eye on Rawn’s hand, expecting some sudden movement for a weapon. He was incredulous that »nv man could sustain Rawn’B attitude toward him. War, and nothing but war, seemed inevitable between himself and Rawn, the man whom he had wronged, the man who had wronged him. “I suppose—l see—” began Rawn' clumsily, after a while. “Of course, you have probably been here all the time, Charley. I came back as Soon as I could. I’ve been having aU kinds of trouble in St. Louis and New York. Everything's all gone to pieces.” They did not answer him, and he shuffled. “Have you anything to say?” he demanded of his wife; “has Mr. Halsey—Charley—agreed?—Have you persuaded him to —” “You wish to know whether I have done what I was told to do —is that it?” she demanded of him coldly. “Yes; have you?” “I have. Here is Mr. Halsey. I have kept my word. You have seen. I told you I could bring him in, bound hand and foot Kiss me, Charley,” she cried. “Oh, kiss mb!” And he did kjss her. Cold, white, hand in hand, dead, they then faced him again. “Is it true?” began Rawn. His eyes lighted up suddenly. “He has agreed?” Halsey broke in now. “It is true, Mr. Rawn," said he. “I love her. 1 love your wife: I can’t help it. I have told her so. You see.” “You love her!” John Rawn burst out into a great, croaking laugh. “Yon love her? I say, that’s good! That’S food news to tell me, isn’t it? Why— I sent her —I used her, to make you love her! You see reason now at last do you?—every man does at last—every man has bis price. You'll go back to work to-morrow? There’s a lot to do, but we can save it all yet We can whip them, I tell you—we’ll get everything back in our own hands before to-morrow night!”

" —But, Mr. Rawn! Listen! You do not know! Surely you do not understand —’’ "Understand? What is there left to understand? Didn’t I see you both just now? Didn’t you—right now—haven’t you got to come across now? Hasn’t she done What I told her to do; what she said she’d do? I told her to bring you back to us again, and she’s done it, hasn’t she? “But come on, now,” he resumed, as though reluctantly—“l suppose we’ve got to go up there—Grace—? Too had: - . . Y But I wanted to see Jennie Jlrst.” "My God!” whispered Virginia Rawn, shuddering. “Oh, my God!” “Rawn.” said Halsey directly, abandoning even any pretense at courtesy; “the end of the world has come for you, for us all. My wife is dead—she’s lucky ! My child is dead, too, and that’s lucky. It had no life to live, crippled as it was. Sbe killed herself and the baby. I don’t seem to care as I ought to care. And now your wife has told me that she loves me.' It’s true! She doesn’t love you; she never has. She has not taken me a prisoner any more than I have her. We’re both in this to-night We’re both to blame. But, at the bottom, you are to blame—for all of this.” “Of course! Of course!” smiled John Rawn sardonically. "What would you expect? lam sorry But I’ll never tell any one about it, you can depend oy that!" (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Keep It Quiet.”