Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 130, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1920 — The Man Nobody Knew [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Man Nobody Knew

(Copyright by Bodd. Mead * Co.. Inc )

By HOLWORTHY HALL

CHAPTER Xll—Continued. •Oh, he’s going to take a look at it ca his way West,” said Hilliard, diffidently, and added, with more generosllty than Waring had anticipated. •Rufus and I both asked him to- Lot Rufus— and Jack —handle it together. Between them, they’ll make rather an exhaustive study, don’t you think? And they might turn up something that all of us would want to know." “That’s right! It’s a thought. Well —" Cullen looked at his watch. “I cant waste any more time on this tomfool business. I ought to have been In the office an hour ago. Anybody gotag downtown?” “I am—but m walk," said Waring sullenly. “Can I stay?" asked Hilliard of Angela, in k «n undertone. “I Want you to,” she said. Her eyes followed Waring to the doorway. After they had been alone for a full minute, and neither of them had uttered a syllable, it came to Hilliard that the chief difficulty in being evil is .to make an end of It, but that the chief difficulty in being virtuous is to begin. .His brain was active and his emotions were placid; but to his mild perplexity he had no compelling desire to make a start. There was no restraining impediment working against him. as on the occasion of his interview with Carol; his Impulses were merely lazy. Indeed, he was rather highly gratified at the course of things this morning; he argued that Waring’s zeal and Armstrong’s itinerary had relieved him from any necessity of an out-and-out avowal of his innocent fraud; it was much more satisfactory, since all the Issues were •o confused, to turn his affairs over to Cullen, and to await the inevitable verdict on an impersonal basis. In the meantime, he was deeply touched by Cullen’s confidence in him; Cullen and Carol Durant alike had refused to believe the obvious truth; he wondered stolidly what it would have meant to him to have had such a reputation from his youth onward; the gratification now would have been superlative -—provided only that he had been entitled to his pride. “He’s jealous of you," said Angela abruptly. “That’s all —he’s jealous. Simply wild with it You know that — don’t you?"

Hilliard started; for It wasn’t an emboldening beginning. Not the least •o; it implied exactly the sort of rivalry which he had feared, and which he had. come to relinquish. “Whois? Oh! Rufus Waring?" “Terribly jealous. Perfectly crazy with It That’s what all this whole mess is about." She tossed her bead willfully. “I don’t care; do you?” The unreserved bluntness of it nearly took him off his f^et; renewing the devastating suspicion that Angela had grown to care too much for him —too much for her own good. •Why, Angela!" he said lamely. “Of course I do. It hurts me." She hammered a gold-embroidered sofa-cushion with one tiny fist. "Oh, he’s jealous of everything and everybody. That doesn’t count any mere. —Only it made me perfectly furious. ... I wanted to scratch him ... the very idea of bls daring to say anything like that about you! Even if you do like me a lot I” She sighed heavily. “And yet if you stop to think about it, it was sort of brave, too — standing up to all of us when It was three to one, and he was wrong—poor dear!” Hilliard looked down at her with deep Affection and troubled relief. long as I’ve a defender like you I wouldn’t worry,” he said, “but I’m afraid it won’t be for so very long, Angela, that you’ll feel like defending me."

“Why not?” she asked. “Just a notion of mine. It strikes ne that you’re fonder of Rufus than yeu let yourself think. And he needs a champion worse than I do; Fm more used to taking care of myself." The corners of her mouth were peculiarly sensitive. “Such a queer notion I” she said. “Where’d you ever get it?" “Oh, it came of its own accord. < a . ’V- — « .. “It’s been such a funny day," she aid, musing. “Rufus was funny, and Dad was funny, and rou’re so funny, and Carol was funny this morning, and Fm funny now, and-—" “Carol r be echoed involuntarily. She laughed at him, enjoying his discomfiture with the sweet Insolence of a naughty juvenile; and it was noteworthy that her arraignment of Waring stopped short at this point. “I know something about you I” she taunted wickedly. “What do you know, bright child?” he demanded, red to the temples. “I know!" Her tone was singing. "So do you! Look at the man blush! Why, you guilty thing! Why, you red geranium!” He sat down beside her, staring at “Angela, you little demon, stop laughing at me!” ftwasfreah incentive;she only bubI towTou'rd laugh at you smne

time,” she reminded him triumphantly, "and this is the time I” "Think so?” “I know so!" All at once she became demurely sober. “I’m awfully glad, honestly . . . It Isn’t out yet, of course, but everybody knows about you and Carol, especially since Jack Armstrong lost out, and went West just the way they do in novels. I’m just as glad as I can be. Only you might have given me a wee little hint —Just to me, you know, mightn't you?” “Angela!” He caught at her hand. “Oh! That wakes you up, doesn’t It?" Her manner changed to the maternal; if Hilliard had been in a differnt frame* of mind it would have convulsed him. “Now, just be calm and tell me all about it” she instructed him indulgently. “Tell me everything—l won't repeat it to a single soul! Tm awfully excited about it Please tell me.” "Angela ! Where did you—” She pouted instantly. “Not just plain ‘Angela’—put some trimming on it.” • “Well—Angela, dear . . . what’s that about Jack Armstrong? Say that again—and tell me everything you know about it. Be serious for once. That's a good girl 1” Her eyes were mischievously tender; somehow she reminded Hilliard of that moment In the hallway of the Durants’ house —the most precious' of all his recent memories. “Will you tell me if I tell you?" “Yes. I guess so.” Her finger was upraised in warning. “Say ‘Yes. dear.’" “Yes, dear,” said Hilliard, writhing. She settled herself with a little flounce of excitemnt. “Well . . . Jack asked her, and she refused him. . . . Flat as a pancake. That’s gospel truth! She told me she’d refused him, and he told me the pancake part. And everybody’s glad of It —he’s a nice boy; awfully nice—but nowhere near as nice as you are. And he’s just naturally gone away to get over It. And you’re the only one left. So—that’s finished.” \

He stared at her unbllnklngly. Had he really been at such cross-purposes with Armstrong at the station, then? The conception was Illuminating. “Everybody?” he repeated, red and white by turns, and mightily hushed. “What does that mean?” “Just that Everybody. That Is —” Her accent was deliciously superior. “That is, all the people one knows.” "They think . . . they think Pm the ... the one?” “Silly!” She patted his head. “I didn’t believe you’d try to camouflage me. No—honestly—isn’t it true?” He studied her a moment “What would you say If it were?” he asked soberly. She returned his gaze with engaging frankness. “Oh, I want it to be —I want it to be!” she said. “Carol’s the sweetest thing in town, and as for you . . . well, sometimes I almost wish I could marry you myself!" His heart leaped dangerously. One complication the less ! Oh, the respite of it ! Angela removed from the prob-

lem and —he sank back wearily—Carol coming into it again, and irrevocably. “ ‘Almost r" he queried mechanically. She looked at the floor; when she raised her eyes he saw the well remembered depths in them. She was half-child, half-woman —and the woman was speaking with the child’s tongue. Her hand covered his; the warm, timid pressure was very assuaging. “Yes, •almost’ . - I suppose .1 win really talk to you. cant I? I always thought I could • . . well, when you first came here I was perfectly crasy about you . - . . lam yet, in a way, only sort of boiled down ... you, know. Not like a sister at all, but '. . not the other sort, either. I thought ft was

going to be—once —but ... I I like you better than anybody else In the world—Sil but two. ... I liked to be kissed by people I like . . . and . . . you know It’s sort of like sunlight; I need lots of It People have always fussed over me. . . .” Here she gave a poignant sigh for her lost youth. “Only . . . it’s funny, too . . but one of the two people I do like better than Ido you ... In a different way . . . Is . . . is Rufe Waring. He's jealous as a ... a tom cat . . . but somehow I don’t mind It from him; I always like it , , , He was so frightfully jealous about you, and I ... I teased him about that. It was just because he thought you weren’t (suite good enough for me, I guess. And you’ve got to give him credit for that, now, haven’t you? . . . And ... I hope you and Carol ’ll be awfully happy together." “Dear girl!” said Hilliard gently. “Do you understand?” Her eyes were very pleading, very misty. “Understand?—yes. Can I wish you happiness, too?” "Not yet,” she said, adorably prim. "He hasn’t . . . oh, we both know about it but he’s got to graduate from law school first, and —after that . . . maybe I can . •/ . travel a little." She blushed shamefully. “You needn’t grin like a Cheshire cat —I guess I’ll see Niagara Falls, anyway!” “I wasn’t grinning,” he_jald. “I was smiling at you right out of my heart. . . . But I do wish happiness to you—always and always. And I'm happier mySelf than I’ve been for ages . . . dear . . . ." He stopped, swamped by the recollection that it was Waring who was to share In the demonstration of his perfidy. To wish happiness to an executioner —and not be a hypocrite? Incredible— yet true. Hilliard wished him happiness. "What is it?” she demanded, alert to his altered expression. “Nothing, ... I’m just sorry Tm not a Mormon!” “You’re fibbing! Still ..." Hilliard rose hastily.

“Wait!" she said. “You can’t go until you’ve told me one more thing . . . you don’t honestly think Rufe’s underhanded, now, do you?” «yo—oh, no, Angela. A man can be so upset that he can —X “You know we were just shocked and surprised—and Dad’s awfully quick tempered. And It was so sudden! We didn’t stop to talk it over, we sailed right into him, and all of us got excited, and then you came In. We didn’t know how frightfully jealous Rufe could be —he’s been bad enough before, but this time was the limit —and it’s only because he’s a boy. It’s . . . port of primeval You know.” “Yes, dear —yes!” "And . . . he did know us long before he ever knew you. He thought he was protecting us. It was i just an obsession —” _ 1 “It’s all right—quite all right. Please!” He touched her hair lightly., “I wish I were as sure you’d always defend me as I am that you’ll stick to him, Angela?’ “That’s twice you’ve said that . . . and you know-What I think! Tye told you. And . . . are you going off without telling me anything at all?” Her voice betrayed the irreparable injury in i.t Hilliard moistened his lips. “Angela, dear, next to one other person I love you better than any one else, on earth.” “That’s nice,” she said, with a sigh of perfect content He bent to her, but she eluded him. “Oh, no!" she gasped in fluttering protest "Even if you . . . but I’ve told you about Rufe now —you haven’t told me about Carol, but it’s plain as day—it wouldn’t be right!” “Angela!” She relented swiftly; his voice was something to rely on. “Well—just my cheek, then. Honestly, I . . .” “No, dear,” said Hilliard. He compelled her chin upward, and smiled down into her lovely, startled eyes, and stooped and kissed her forehead . . . then her lips. “That’s for good-by," he said, “to the dearest little girt I ever knew. . . . We’re both growing up, aren’t we?" .

CHAPTER Xi!l.

In the colorless days that followed, Hilliard listlessly set about the ordering of. his final plans. Fortunately, there were few of them; his mind would never have been equal to intricate detail. It was a slight consolation to him to realise that the city had a habit of judging men by personal rather than by financial standards; for all its pride and wealth. It would censure him more for his wrecked personality than for'whatever money losses he had caused. He was prepared to- endure that censure; and because he understood the provocation behind it, he was all the more eager to aid in the salvage. There would be more saved

from the underwriting project, he thought, than from his character. He had deposited with Cullen all he owned, except for his private belongings, his runabout, and a trivial sum for current expenses. .The runabout he would offer for sale; it meant a few hundred dollars more to be divided amdng his contributors. Beyond that, there was nothing else he could restore to them. ’? ■ ——~ He didn’t believe that Harmon would ever carry out his promised betrayal ; not that he had faith in Harmon’s code of ethics, but because he trusted Harmon’s horse sense. If Hilliard were alone to be accused, Harmon would gain nothing and might, if he offered any adverse testimony, even implicate himself. Indeed, if Harmon should say enough to establish the proof in the dangerous status of an accessory before the fact. No , . • this was the same procedure; to let

the memory of Dicky Morgan rest to peace, and to let the brunt of anger fall on Henry Hilliard, who was a nobody from nowhere, with a lying face, a lying tongue, and no claque to mourn at his exit. But then there was Angela’s startling allegation . . . She had declared that “everybody” In town knew all about Hilliard and Carol. “Everybody” would have a different opinion. He had tried to explain himself to Carol, and he had failed; and In the light of Angela’s revelation, it was difficult to decide whether Carol herself, In protesting that she wanted to retain him as a friend, had meant that and nothing more, or that and a great deal more. But no matter what she had Intended to convey, he dared not go to her again, he dared not see her and Speak to her, for If he lied to her . . . but he couldn’t He to her now, and every word of truth would prove a boomerang. He was trapped; and although his heart was breaking for the love he had almostwonasecond time, he remained steadfast to the Ideals he had created. If .Carol were to lose him as a suitor, she should never know that her first and foremost suitor had gone to the devil. He told himself fiercely there was one definite and permanent way out of It. . . . Nobody would then have cause to gossip about Dicky Morgan; no one —after the first natural flood of excitement and denunciation —would remember very much about Henry Hilliard. It would save such a deal of needless trouble; it would save such a wearisome amount of shame.

But against the pitiless background of the war, self-destruction as a means of avoiding personal difficulties, selfcaused, seemed curiously repellent—curiously cheap. - No . . . it was a part of his own grievance that Carol and the others must grieve, too; he had a dual responsibility to He had no right to leave these matters clouded by any uncertainty of motive. Syracuse had a right to know the facts; and if the facts brought pain to those he loved, why, that was something he should have thought about in June, and not in November. As he clung comfortless to the last slipping hours of the reputation he had so carefully bullded, he knew that it wasn’t the punishment of the law that he dreaded, was the ostracism which would accompany it. It wasn’t his own shame which gripped him, it was the consciousness of the shame which would attach to his friends. And so, for a day or two, all his faculties were strung upon the attitude of the public toward him; he was watching frantically for the first signs of adverse demeanor, and bracing himself for the shock which was unavoidably to come. For secrets will out, and although he had no reason to expect Waring to break his pledge, he knew that when rumor smolders among as many as four people, there comes—there always comes—a moment in which it bursts forth in spontaneous combustion.

Presently he sensed a subtle supercharging of the atmosphere whenever he met a male acquaintance; be couldn’t deny that the greeting of his bankers was suddenly less informal, more impersonal; he perceived, with a sinking spasm of foreboding, that fewer people stopped to chat with him on the street and that those who still were willing to halt and time of day were uncommonly restive about it. ./Syracuse hadn’t yet arrayed Itself officially against him, arid a part of Syracuse was outwardly as pleasant as ever, but there wasn’t-the slightest question that the story had leaked out, and that it had got itself adherents. The end was plainly in sight; Armstrong’s report was due. Only the Cullens and the Durants and one or two other of the James street families were quite as cordially attentive as formerly ; and to Hilliard’s vast chagrin, they rather overdid it . . . -he seemed to feel in the steady warmth of their friendship a sort of blindly unseasonable resolution to support him, whether or no. This, infinitely more than the cooling manner of the majority, galled him incessantly. It was as though they rallied to his defense before the nfeed of it . . .it was as though they conceded in advance the necessity of such a defense. So Hilliard waited, waited . . . smiling upon the world his hollow smile, carrying through the city the body of a knave and the face of a martyr, and the soul of a gentleman . . . and in the watches of the night, he was perplexed to find that his eyes were sometimes wet, but never when he was thinking of himself —always when he was thinking of Angela, or Carol, or —unexplainably—of a com-mon-enough representative of the French bourgeoisie named Pierre DutouL -

On the eighth day, he chanced to meet Dr. Durant by accident in front of the Physicians’ building at nigh noon. “Hello, there! You’re just in time,” said the Doctor, cheerfully. ‘Tm going over to the University club for lunch. Won’t yotf join me? I want your advice. I’m the worst busihess man in the world —you probably know that by this time. And I trust my friends for friendship; but when I want advice, I go to an expert. So you qualify on both counts. Como along over.” Hilliard was flattered, but not deceived. “I’m not sure that my advice is worth anything half as expensive as a luncheon. Doctor.” The older man took him by the arm, and impelled him across the street “That depends on your appetite,” he laughed. “Come along, and help me out on a decision I’ve got to make. About an investment” Hilliard hung back for a moment, while suspicion dawned on him. “What sort of investment Doctor?" he queried. “You come and sit down,” urged the Doctor, seductively. “And we’ll talk it over later. But first of all —•” He patted his waistcoat “Let’s eat” Hilliard was almost too grateful to speak; the Doctor’s strategem was patent but in all chivalry the invitation couldn’t be declined. Once inside the doors of the club, however, he became panicky; for his first sweeping reconnoissance included half a dozen men whose late behavior had indicated that they knew. The Doctor drew Hilliard under the mantle.of his own unassailable position, and plowed ahead with the utmost serenity. He nodded here and there, he spoke to members right and left; he bowed across the room; always hie personality, rather than .his person, seemed to be escorting and guarding Hilliard; and Syracuse couldn’t decline to acknowledge a man who was under the Doctor’s adequate protection. Those who spoke to the Doctor also spoke to Hilliard; there was no way out of it, and they spoke as casually as they could. They also nodded to him, and bowed, but when his back was turned, they became low-voiced and communicative, and he knew it. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

That Wakes You Up, Doesn’t It?"

“That’s for Good-by."