Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 114, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1920 — The MAN NOBODY KNEW [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The MAN NOBODY KNEW

by HOLWORTHY HALL

-ANGELA KISSED MEI-

Synopsis.—Dick Morg-an of Syracuse. N. Y., * failure In life, enlisted la the Foreign Legion of the French army under the name of Henry Hilliard, la disfigured by shrapnel. ' The French surgeons ask for a photograph to guide them In restoring his face. In his rage against life ho offers In derision a picture postcard bearing the radiant face of Christ The surgeons do a good job. On his way gack to America he meets Martin Harmon. a New York broker. The result la that Morgan, under the name of Hilliard and unrecognized as Morgan, goes back to Syracuse to selling a mining stock. He is determined to make good. He tells people of the death of Morgan. He finds in Angela Cullen a loyal defender of Dick Morgan. He meets Carol Durant, who had refused to marry him. She does not hesitate to tell him that she had loved Morgan. Hilliard finds he still loves her and is tempted to confesa Hilliard tempts Cullen, his former employer, with his mining schema

CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. "A good principle, too, but —” Mr. Cullen glanced at hla watch. “It’s dlntime, and more too. We'd better <et along up to the house, or the first yhtng you know, we’ll have servant troubles In our midst And you didn’t bring up that subject anyway—l .brought it up.” He took Angela’s arm paternally. "Just as a matter of fact” he said, clearing his throat “As a matter of fact Mr. Hilliard—whereabouts did you say this property is located 7" Shortly after dinner Angela, who bad fled to the telephone in answer to a peremptory summons, came back complacent "Dinner at the Durant’s on Sunday,” she announced. “All three of us. Very quiet Carol said. So I accepted —and that means you’ve got to stay •with us two days more anyway, Mr. Hilliard. Do you mind very much?” "Mind r Hilliard had risen half ©nt of his chair. His tremendous yearning to see Carol again, and his violent reaction at the prospect, had greatly Influenced his voice, which was strident explosive. The Cullens were laughing aloud at his confusion. “Ha’s blushing!" crowed Angela. •Look at him I Look at him I” Indeed, he was crimson to the tem—jdas. Sunday—forty-eight hours! How be had spurned her! —end how he had suffered froJh that moment until now 1 To see her again . . . merely to see her! Business was business, and the farce must go on; no matter what else happened, he must hew out his success; he had ceased to love her, and he had come prepared for guerilla warfare .. . but to see her again I To bear her voice! To watch that smile of hers, and remember the tears she had shed for Dicky Morgan! Sunday—forty-eight hours! The Cullens were still laughing at him, and In Angela’s soprano there was a note of feminine resentment, but Hilliard’s ears were suddenly stone deaf.

CHAPTER VII. Since Friday night, Hilliard had lived only for Sunday; his whole existence had been turned to Sunday, and when at last the morning dawned, his greatest fear was th%t he might not live until dinner-time. On~ reaching Carol’s side, he was both -awkwardand incoherent; and he failed to derive encouragement from the realization which gradually stole over him, that the Durants had asked a number of other guests to dinner. Aimstrong was waiting patiently in the aisle, and keeping closer to Carol than Hilliard liked, and there was also a bright-faced boy of nineteen or twenty who had promptly attached himself to Angela—his name was Waring, and be was the grandson of the patriarchal clergyman, with the head of Moses and the spirit of youth, who presently mme down to join the little group, and complete it So that altogether there were n|pe people who finally sat down to table ; and Hilliard’s dream of quiet progress and harbored conversation was shattered in a twinkling. It' was all very homelike, and all very friendly, but to Hilliard, sitting there between Carol and her mother, the occasion was peculiarly acute. He had long since discarded any residue of his active fears; he was confident In hii disguise to the gi*nt of recklessness, for he had covered the windings of the trail by an tnfinfte variety of methods; and yet bavin* any tangible facts to grasp, he was subtly warned to remain on sentry duty over his poise. He was gratified that the conversation, after one natural enough eddy, was whirled away from file vicissitudes Of Dicky Morgan, for be had talked Ids flfi on that particular subject For

a time, he amused himself by watching Angela and Waring playing their world-old game across the table; after that, he paid a little polite attention to Mrs. Durant, and to the clergyman; and then snatching an opportunity unlooked for, he gave his kindest smile to Carol, and for an Instant took the monopoly from Armstrong. And he had hardly looked down once into her October-brown eyes before the mystery of his restlessness was as clear as crystal, and Hilllard was thoroughly dumfounded. and confusedL It had come upon him, a quarter of an hour ago, as they exchanged their first superficial sentences, that he was lonelier than he had ever imagined, but he hadn’t realized, until this Immediate contingency, that, this sensation had carried over until now. He was prevented, by the very limits of the project which had brought him here, from releasing any of his sincere thoughts; he hadn’t comprehended, until he had learned the truth Just now by actual experience, that loneliness is nothing but an aggravated state of self-repression. Never in all his life, not even when he had lain for months in hospital in France, had he been as lonely as today, and at this moment, when he was surrounded by people he knew intimately, and when he was enjoined from sharing in their community of mind. Carol, looking up at him with what wasn’t exactly a smile, but was at least a cousin to it—that well-remem-bered flash of sympathetic interest — Carol spoke to him under cover of the general conversation. “A penny for your thoughts!” she proffered. ■ ■ “They aren’t worth it,” said Hllllard. *T was thinking about myself." He continued to regard her steadily, and he was alarmed to discover that he was losing one of the abilities which had made him so sure of himself. He continued to hold that she had treated him shabbily, mercilessly; but notwithstanding that, as he gazed at her, and perceived the sweet naturalness which was developing out of last week’s shock, he was secretly perturbed. In spite of himself, he began to see, as though by camera obscura, dim visions of the past; he was righteously annoyed that they should rise to torment him, and still the visions came.

“But after all that you’ve been through.” she said, “I should think your thoughts about yourself would be extremely interesting!” “I’m afraid they’re rather gloomy, Miss Durant, whenever they touch on what Tve been through. And when anything like this gathering here today builds up_a Comparison. . . . I’m sorry, but I can’t always master it” “You mean the difference between a family over here and a family over there?” “Exactly,” he said. “Down to the last detail —what we eat, and where we live, and what we talk about, and what we think about —everything.” “I’ve thought of that, too,” she said soberly. “But I’ll have to confess that it wasn’t until you came —it wasn’t until after that first night at Angela’s —that the great difference came home to me. It’s made me feel that it’s al-

most wrong—almost unendurable—that we should be so warm and comfortable, and well-fed. when over on the continent , . . well, I wonder whether we won’t have to pay for this some time?” It was at this juncture that Mrs. Durant rose; add Hilliard, with keen foresight, cannily guided Carol after her mother into the living room, made for a familiar piece of furniture and pre-empted it; it would seat two peo-

pie, and no more—there wasn't me slightest us? In Armstrong’s loitering disconsolately In the neighborhood; it had a maximum capacity of two. Furthermore, it was removed by several feet from the nearest listening post. He was so close to her that their sleeves touched; he looked into the beautiful eyes which were so clear, so unsuspecting; and his will swayed perilously. Had he prepared so long and savagely for his requital, only to lose his impetus at almost the first glance of those brown eyes? He refleeted that there was nothing to prevent him from being a good salesman, and from renewing his predilection for Carol at the same time. The Idea of courting her again. In his false character, was highly dramatic. . . . “I know you won’t misunderstand me," Jie said, his heart shaking, "and I hope that you won’t consider It as too presumptuous —but—the other day you spoke of Dicky Morgan as a very dear friend of yours. Miss Durant, I want to do everything In the world I can for you, and he was my dear friend as well as yours. I’m not disloyal to him, or to you, or to myself—but I should like more than I can ever tell you to feel that I had done my utmost to .take his place. No one can do that literally—l am not so vain—but I feel, and I have felt from the time we met each other, Dicky would have wanted us to be friends.” “That’s—that's wonderfully thoughtful of you,” said Carol, softly. “And . . . and I think he would have wanted that ... If he’d known. . . ." Her eyes were suspiciously dim and Hilllard’s loneliness dissolved into a great spasm of longing which held him and shook him and left him weak with impotence “Then I’ll stay in Syracuse,” he said abruptly. “Provided—provided gou won’t be offended if I do have to want to know you for yourself—just a little selfishly. I’m afraid that isn’t very clear—it’s dlfllcult to separate it—but you see—•” “Don't try to explain,” she said, subdued. “I know how hard all this must be for you—and I think perhapsyou need my friendship as much as I need yours.” Before he could reply, there was a flutter of Indescribable gracefulness before them. Angela was courtesylng In mock obeisance to the floor. Behind Waring was watching her possessively. “If your majesties will wake up half a second,” she said, “everybody’s going to walk up around the Sedgwick farm tract to get some fresh air. Coming?” As they stood together, drenched with regret for the confidences that might forever remain unsaid,’ a maid appeared in the doorway. “Please, ma’am,” she said breathlessly, “it’s the Western Union —for Mr. Hilliard.” “Right in my study,” called the doctor, hurrying. “Just across the hall. There you are!” and ushered him into the sanctum and considerately closed the door. - ; —-—-

Despite the urgent summons which the average* person feels under such circumstances Hilliard was astonishingly tardy in sitting down to the receiver. For one thing he was still vibrating from his recent stress of passion; for another he knew pretty certainly what the message was going to be, and for a third, he was somewhat emotionally under the spell of the doctor’s room. Hilliard had spent a hundred hours in it—pleasant hours, so that involuntarily yielding to % its kindly atmosphere, and all that the atmosphere implied, he took time to survey alt four walls before he took up the receiver. And after he had listened to the telegram, and ordered a copy mailed to him in care of Mr. Cullen, he took time to survey those walls again, more closely; and this was partly for their intrinsic significance, and partly because his feelings were so fresh and tender that he dreaded to return at once to the gathering which, as a whole, couldn’t be expected to defer to them. His eyes fell upon the doctor’s desk, wandered and suddenly focussed hard and piercingly. He went over to the desk and slowly put out his hand and lifted up a small photograph in a metal frame. “Well, I’ll be darned!” said Hilliard, just above a whisper. The turning of the doorknob roused him; he wheeled with the photograph still in his hand.

“Hello!” said Doctor Durant, cheerfully. “Get your message all right? What’s thdt you’ve found? Oh, yes— Dick’s picture.” Hilliard swallowed hard, and found that his voice was queerly out of control. “It’s —it’s the same one—” “Yes —it’s the same as the one you brought back. I’ve had it there ever since.he gave it to me.” He took it gently from Hilliard’s hand.; replaced it on the desk. “How that boy would have made good if he had lived!” said the doctor, in ah undertone. “Well—they’re waiting for us.”

Hilliard, following him outside, encountered the two Cullens in the hall, and at sight of his florid host, he collected his wits, and resumed his part in theplay. “Oh!” he said. “L—l—that was from one —that was a telegram from the manager of the syndicate, Mr. Cullen; he said it’s decided not to try to resyndicate any stock, but to hold it ourselves for the long pull—everything's put off for .three or four weeks anyway. • I’m having a copy mailed to the house—there's some news in it I thought you might like to see.” “Good! That leaves you free, doesn’t It? You’ll stay on with us then? Don’t say no. I insist on it I” “No, I couldn’t do that I It’s awful kind of you, but —” " “Ton talk to him, Angela I” laughed Mr- Cullen. “You make him stay.

You’ve got more Influence over him than I have, anyhow. And don’t you dare to let him get away without a promise—understand?” He passed on, and left them together. "You walk along with me, str I” said Angela, Imperially. “And you’d better behave yourself—l’m fierce!” At the same moment that he looked yearningly toward Carol, who up ahead by the doorway was already captive to the wily Armstrong, young Rufus Waring was glaring belligerently toward Hilliard. The masquerader smiled In defeat, then smiled with sudden realization of the woman-child clinging to him. He squeezed her arm out of sheer affection. “Your gallant cavalier’ll cover me with horrid welts and bruises for this!” he said warnlngly. “Don’t* make him Jealous, now I” ’ They were now bringing up the rear of the procession In the hallway. “I’ll make ’em’well again," spld Angela. “I am a good nurse, aren’t I?” He was convulsed by her air of conquest. “By the old-fashioned method?” He could hardly believe that this was the girl he had taught to climb trees, and make slingshots. “I’ll —» she stopped and blushed. The others were on the steps; these two were In the dusky vestibule. Waring was fretting impatiently outside. "Would you?” asked Hilliard. He Intended only to tease her; but all at once her head came up, and he could

see that her eyes were big- and soft and frightened. She was hardly seventeen, and to Hilliard she had never ceased to be the child of two years ago. He bent and kissed her; her lips were trembling, expressive. “Now we’ve got to hurry," he “Corte. dear!” It was the tone he would naturally use to a child, but he had an uneasy feeling that he had used it to a woman. Children’s lips aren’t expressive.’ And he had another intuition —still more upsetting to him —which was that he had been observed. For on the threshold of the outer door Carol and Armstrong and' Rufus Waring, as though turned back to inquire into the cause of Hilliard’s and Angela’s delay, Were landing. . . . He could not tell, of course, whether they had actually seen him. It was possible that in the dusk of the hallway he had escaped; certainly there was nothing in the manner of any one of the three, when Hilliard joined them, to convince him one way or the other. But he .knew that he was in a critical situation; he knew that to any reasonable person who' had seen him at that spontaneous little outburst of sentiment, his motives wouldn’t appear to be very opaque.

No, the manner of those three who had stood on the threshold was astonishingly casual. Perhaps too casual. Hilliard frowned, and tried to glimpse their various expressions. Ah! Waring, striding stiltedly ahead, had thunderclouds on his forehead, and as for Carol . . * She turned to speak to Armstrong, and Hilliard knew. —For the remainder of the first stage of that walk, he spoke not a word to Angela, who trudged along by his side with God knows what tumults in her bosom. He thought not of Angela, nor concerned himself with the storm he had stirred within hen He was absorbed solely with the puzzle which lay before him, which was to detach Carol -as soon as possible, and to explain himself. Otherwise, his reputation was ashes even now.

And, to his unbounded joy, the opportunity came soon—at the end of the road, where the party halted for a moment, to take a referendum as to the'route. Armstrong strayed a yard or two too far, and on the instant Hilliard was at Carol’s elbow. She said nothing, nor did he; but when the march was resumed, he was beside her —and beating his brains for an introductory remark- He had to .convince her he had been trifling with neither herself nor Angela, and he walked a good furlodg before he could devise so much as an opening sentence. At length he cleared his throat. *Tve just decided,** he said, “that Fm growing old.” ■, “Yes’?” She was immeasurably sweet and distant, and Hilliard’s courage faltered. “I have indeed, Tve made a most touching discovery. ”7 \ . Do I look grandfatherly. Miss Durantr •Ifo; rd hardly say that” He made a gesture of gratitude.

“You’ve earned my permanent thanks. But lam growing old. How do I know? Didn’t you aver read Leigh Hunt?” “Just a little.” There was a trace of warmth creeping into her voice. Hilliard held his breath: Say I’m weary, say I’m sad; Say that health and wealth have missea me; Say I’m growing old, but add— Angela kissed me! z He had spoken the lines magnificently, with the precise huxpor and pathos to make them immortal. “I’m glad she fits into the meter,” he said thoughtfully, “because I can understand just how Leigh Hunt, felt about Jennie.” »«And—how do you think that was?” “Very sensitive,” said Hilliard, “and perhaps a little repressed and —decrepit.” He smiled reminiscently. “I suppose there are very few things in life that make a man feel more mindful of his own crudity and general worthlessness than to have a child’s spontaneous affection.” It was the testing venture. She looked at him sidewise. , “More than if—if it weren’t a child?” “I think so.” His tone was faultless. “A woman can make a man feel like Romeo, but it takes a very young girl to make hlm feel like Launcelot—at myuge.” “She is adorable, isn’t she?” His heart jumped at her cordial acceptance of his statement. “Only—she’s seventeen, Mr. Hilliard.” “I know,” he said gravely. “And that’s why I’m so conscious of my own senility. Because all that beautiful Innocence and ignorance is doomed, Miss Durant —who knows that I’m not the very last person to see it? Today. rm dhly a much older man- aome one she likes; tomorrow, I may be a man without the ‘only,’ and the more she liked me, the less she’d show it. But there’s been mighty little of that sort of thing for me in the last few years from anybody, and I do appreciate it, and I’m not ashamed of it, either.” “No,” she said, “you couldn’t be. You’re too human.” She smiled at him, and he was transported at the proof of her sympathy. “If I were in your place, I’d want to feel the same way about it” He thanked 'her in his heart He had saved both Angela and himself, and held his pristine advantage. But there was no disputing the fact that he had made an active enemy of Waring, and an alert rival out of Armstrong. He smiled grimly as he looked at the man ahead. “Mr. Armstrong seems to be very nervous,” he said. “Not that I can blame mm for wanting to be In my place. On the contrary, I’m sorry for him.” “That shows a very good disposition,” she said demurely.

‘‘Perhaps it does, and perhaps it doesn’t. I believe every man owes it to himself to get what he wants. If he does, he’s a success; if he doesn’t—it’s his own fault.” As he said this, they came abreast of the others, and Armstrong, who had heard the final sentence, whirled toward Hilliard. “Regardless of methods?” he demanded.——-—— —* —-— “Why—to some extent” laughed Hilliard. “Why not?” Armstrong delayed, so that the two men were a few paces behind the rest of the group. “Is that regular creed, Mr. Hilliard?” “My creed isn’t composed of words, Mr. Armstrong, but of actions.” They had spoken so quietly that no one perceiving them would have remotely suspected that a challenge had been offered and accepted. “Actions do speak louder, of course." “Mine,” said Hilliard, “will give yon no offense. But—l generally get what I want.” . “So do I Shall we shake hands on it?” Armstrong was very affable, but tremendously in earnest. “With pleasure. . I can count on your generosity, I see.” “And I on'your courtesy.” “Thank you.” He went complacently forward; but Inwardly he was steeped in perturbation. The man was so deadly sure of himself. Could it be that he was tacitly engaged to Carol, in spite of what Angela had surmised, orsonearly on the road to an understanding with her that Hilliard was only making a fool of himself? Armstrong laughed gently. It was like a dagger thrust in Hilliard’s heart.

•“One chance in a thousand!”

' (TO BE CONTINUED.)

He Was So Close to Her That Their Sleeves Touched.

He Had Been Observed.