Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 39, Number 115, 25 March 1914 — Page 12

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I LOUNGED in the corridor of th express, staring at the country we were thundering through, because and It will seem incredible to many I couldn't afford a ha'penny paper. We clattered Into a tunnel. The window became a mirror. I had been looking through it diagonally. It now reflected the brilliantly lit interior of the next compartment. I saw a girl such a pretty one that I was glad to stare and yet be unseen. She was gazing out into the corridor from the corner. But for herself the carriage was empty. Sh rose, bent over a bag which stood on the opposite seat about midway. She unlocked it I saw her withdraw the key. Her hand disappea.-ed in its jaws and brought out. a bundle of papers. She glanced through them, discarded some, chose others, thrust the former back into the ba?, closed it, slipped the latter into the pocket of the heavy fur coat she wore, and sat down once more in the far corner. 'Tardon me, sir." A man stood behind me. He emelled of whiskey and strong cigar smoke. lie had evidently come from the dining car. "Sorry," I said, and stood aside. The incident was trivial. He went Into the compartment where the girl sat, and settled down into his corner. The express roared out into the daylight. The window became a moving panorama of Devonshire scenery once more. Had I not left the train at Teignmouth I should undoubtedly have forgotten both girl and bag and man. But this accident I was travelling down to see Lord Ruscombe by appointment. My friend, Frank Clewer, to whose sister Rachel I had long been engaged had put in a good word for me to Ruscombe, who wanted a secretary the accident of my getting out, I say, at the same station as girl and bag and man put a very different complexion on affairs For the man carried the bag, and he bowed distantly to the girl as she stood by her trunk on the platform, ai:d said: "Good evening. Miss Langley." "Hood-bye," she said. I glanced at the label it was white, with a red star, and very conspicuous on her box. "Miss Ida Langley, The Lymes, Shallow Road," I read. I hesitated. So the bag was his. They were acquaintances. What was she doing among his papers? I knew her name and address. His I didnt know. I followed him out of the station. "I beg your pardon, sir," I said at his elbow. "Could you direct me to Ruscombe Hall?" "I'll drive you there," he roared, turning to me and laughing. "You've come to the right man, my frend, whoever you are. "As t happens, I am Ruscombe." He was scarcely sober. Frank had not prepared me for anythng of the sort. From the look of him I guessed the occasion was not an isolated one. But beggars cannot be choosers. When one's a pauper, and the girl to whom one's engaged is both extravagant and ambitious, one can't be a stickler as to one's employer. "I'm Littleton Rodney Littleton." "Forgotten all about you very glad to see you," he bawled, wringing my hand. "Where in the name of Hades is my car?" A nervous footman came forward and bowed. "He doesn't look like a fool, doe3 he? So nice and cleaa but, oh, such a fool'." declared Ruscombe. "Jli! Jump in!" We drove off at a furious speed, nuscombe Hall stands about two miles from the station. On our arrival Ruscombe, who had been ques

A HEROINE OF

HT2R sabots went clattering over the pavement as she hurri-rt alon? to bring Mmc. Durieu the dress she had just finished. She did not understand how these fir.o ladles could think of dresses, with the Prussian guns thundering on thi other side of the river and the rattle of musketry coming from the barricades night and day. She did not look at the soldiers, who threw admiring glances at her, as she hurried past them, but ran straight ahead to the big white house, for Mme. Durieux waa always angry ll a gown came even a moment later than promised. Lisette was shown into Madamo's dressing room and watted patiently while Mme. Durieux finished a letter. She stared at the patterns in the carpet and thought of Pierre Wermot How well she remembered the night when he tumbled Into her father's house with a bullet In his shoulder and a smile on his lips. She had loved him from that very moment and Pierre loved her. too.

STOLEN

tioning me on the way, led me Into his untidy study. "Well, you've had a rotten time. I remember your father's name wellIn financial circles. Never thought he'd die a pauper. Eton, Oxford, a training for the diplomatic service, and then beggardom. You've had a facer. Say when?" He held a decanter of spirits In his trembling hand, and the liquor 6plashed on his table. "You were engaged to Rachel before the smash, eh?" he queried. "I thought so. Rachel knows the value of money. It was she who pestered me to take you. I like he. Do you?". "I'm engaged to her." "I'd forgotten. You'll do. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. Take a' cigar and another drink when that's finished. Read this week's Punch funny drivel. I've some business to attend to." He sank into his huge chair, drew his bag the fatal bag on to his knees, unlocked it, and, plunging in both hands, drew out a pile of letters, bill), documents, and receipts, which he flung on to his table, whistling noisily yet very much out ot tune h- began to read them, flnging them one by one into the waste-paper basket. Suddenly he bellowed literally bellowed. He lifted the bag, peered into it, turned it upside down, shook ii, banging the bottom with his fist, then tossed it with a crash into the grate, and began to run through the remainder of the scattered papers. "Gone! Scum of Hades! One of those infernal clerks!" he roared. "Gone! I'll roast the thief! The " He broke into a stream of expletives so obscene, so filthy as to be unprintable. I glanced at him over the top of Punch. "You've lost something?" I queried gently. He looked at me, his eyes bloodsnot and bulging. Then suddenly he laughed set every ornament in the room ringing and hiccoughed: "You're a wag r. wit; I like you I like you, I say. What d'you think I've done? Found a pearl? Lost scmething lost something " His laughter ceased. He kept repeating the last two words, his fingers fumbling among the papers. "Stolen!" he said, and began to scb. Presently his hand groped for the whiskey. Quietly I removed it. "I'm going to bed," he muttered after awhile. "Goo night." He departed. For an hour or so I sat where he had left me; then I rang the bell. A butler appeared and advised me to wait. '"is lordship '11 be down soon," he declared. "An hour or so's sleep does wonders for 'im when 'e's seedy." About eight o'clock that evening Ruscombe, in perfect-fitting evening clothes, shaved, tubbed, and eminently respectable, put in an appearance. "I must apologize. I've been ill very ill," he said, looking at me frankly in the eyes. "You'll excuse me, my dear Littleton, I know. Raging pain agony, in fact a little spirits the only antidote. Let me show you your room. You'll sta7 the night, of course?" Not until after dinner did he refer to the missing paper; and the bag. "Littleton," he began, furiouo'y puffing at a cigar and drinking rather flinging dow.i his throat -- glass after glass of priceless 47 port, "I'm in trouble seriou:? trout 'i. I carried with me to-day, from London, in my bag, some papers connected with a very a very daring criminal: a criminal, my dear Littleton, whom every decent member cf society should pray to be brought to justice. I paid a price for the let ters incriminating letters which I carried. 1 visited a shady, drsreput able Terrace. I paid a price in gold. I saw I iltoughl I saw I was in pain, in agony, then, Littleton, Pierre was a fratie-tirour. a spy sf you will, and his pockets were always full of money. Sometimes he drank more than was good for him and gambled away hts money and got into fight, but his gray eyes always grew gentle when he looked at Lisette, and he was so big and brave and str-mg that her heart always found excuses for his bad habits. Just now she had not heard from him for several weeks and her heart almost "topped beating when she heard the tales of cruelty of the Prussians toward the spies they caught. "So you have brought my dress." said Mme. Durieux at last, sealing her letter. Lisette tore away from her dreams and began to open the parcel. "You are the sweetheart of Pierre Wermot. I hear." said Mme. Durieux kindly. LISETTE BLUSHES. Lisette blushed and looked down on her little feet peeping out below the hem of her skirt. "Yes, madanae." Madame's stern features grew more

remember a clerk put the papers. Into my bag. I locked it. It has a Brahma lock. The lock has not been tampered with. But the papers are not within it. Mr. Littleton. I'd give my soul if I've got one, and if ii mine to give, and if I've not given it already to get those letters back again." . "Your soul," I observed, "would not be of much value as a reward, perhaps. One would hardly know what to do with it." He laughed the feeblest effort

made him laugh. "One could sole one's boots' with It it's hard enough, and black enough," he retorted. "But I'm serious serious. Hades in purgatory, is there no stronger word? It's life or death, Littleton. It means more than I can say. Littleton, are you a man of the world?" "I can't say. Try me." "A coward?" 1 "I hope not." "Then I've an errand for you. Go up to-morrow and see these scoundrelly solicitors. Get those papers by hook or by crook. You don't drink, Littleton not to excess, I hope? I can't have a secretary God, the man's dawdling over his first glass now! Get those papers. Say you want the Ruscombe papers four letters. Bring 'em to me; threaten 'cm, bully 'em. the thieves! The day you put 'em into my hands. Littleton, t make you my secretary at five hundred a year; and I I'm offering a reward besides of a thousand guineas for the letters. Follow me?" "I do," I said slowly.. "The letters are connected with the prosecution c. some criminal?" "Exactly. A fiend, Littleton, whom no man can pity." The door opened. The footman the one he had called a fool entered. "Mr. and Miss Langley are in the d; awing room, my lord," he said. "What?" "You asked them in to bridge, my lord. Mr. Langley says," murmured the footman. "Forgetful fool!" roared Ruscombe. "Come, Littleton. Leave your wine, man. God, would you keep the lady waiting for a drop of port? What're young men thinking about eh, John?" He stopped in front of the footman and glared at him. "I can't say, my lord." "Xo! You're a fool but you're nice and clean," said Ruscombe, and led the way to the drawing room. "Ida had a headache. It was with the greatest difficulty I induced her f come," declared Langley a little, bullet-headed, gray-haired man trotting to Ruscombe as he came noisily in. "Infernally kind of Miss Langley," blustered Ruscombe. "Langley, this is Littleton. He may become my new stcretary. Littleton Langley. Langley's my estate agent. Not very brilliant had swine-fever last year not himself the pigs. And how's Miss Ida beautiul as ever? Cut the cards!" He bellowed the command, and subsided into a chair. Half-way through the second game Ruscombe began to tell Langley of his loss. "The Ruscombe letters. You know what I mean, man." Langley stuttered "Yes." and added that he wa3 very sorry. "I think." I said slowly, "that I can lay my hands- or. the letters." Ruscombe roared some astonished comment. But i was watching Miss Langley s face. She glanced at me. Our eyes me. A pallor spread over her faco and her Hps shook. "The day ycri hand 'em mp. there's a thousand guineas in your pocket and a fat job here ai five hundred a year," said Ituscomb". "What makes you so confident, Mr. Littleton?" "Miss Langley has revoked," I observed. "Oh, I don't know " The Langleys were going. Uusccme and old Langley were drink

THE WAR Am Excittimig Short Story CompBelle

gentle as she looked at the blushing girl. Her own husband was fighting bravely for his country, and her only eon had fallen in a battle with the Pr-.ssians. She knew what sorrow means, but she also knew how to hide her feelings. "I have just had a letter from my husband." she said. "Pierre Wermot was caught by the Prussians four days ago. He hopes he will be able to escape. He has done so before, but" "But what, madame?" Lisette had dropped the parcel on the floor. Her cheeks were pale, and she had to lean against the table not to fall. "Is he wounded?" Mme. Durieux nodded. Lisette did not wait to hear any more, but rushed downstairs and out Into the street. The sky was dark and clouded, and enow began falling. Soldiers wrapped In long cloaks were hurrying along everywhere toward the barricades, and from all sides came the roar of guns and incessant rifle fire. "Poor little Lisette!" sighed Mme. Turieux. Then she called her maid

ETTERS

ing a last stirrup-cup It had been "one last drink," "a good-bye glass," for the last hour. I had helped Miss Langley on with her cloak, the butler helping me into mine. "I've left my handkerchief," Miss Langley said. "I'll get It," said I. But she followed me into the drawing-room. There was no handkerchief to be seen. She lifted her white face, her eyes glowing, almost glittering with fear or excitement. "Mr. Littleton, what do you know?" "I don't understand." "About those papers? "I saw them stolen.' - She cried out at my blunt answer, and a great tremor ran through her. She gulped. "You saw- " "I saw you steal them," I added. "I I " She tried to He. She could not. Her mouth quivered and her head drooped. "You will betray me?" she breathed. "Isn't it my duty?" "No!" she cried, and then sudden1" drew back, listening. "Can you see me to-night? I'll creep back into the park. Let me explain. Oh. please, hear me. Will you will you?" Both her hands palms upwards were extended towards me. Her little face, with a look of stricken grief, of terror, of such boundless appeal, was turned up to mine. "Ida," called Langley. "Yes," I said suddenly. "Where how?" Ruscombe came to the door, saw us, winked broadly and said: "Little birds must part." "Not at all," I said, laughing. "If you don't mind, Lord Ruscombe, I'm go'.ng to beg Mr. Langley to give me a lift back in his car. I'm longing for a breath of fresh air. Then I'll stroll back." "Certainly certainly; was young myself once," he chuckled, and later on, just as we were starting off, held up his hand, ran to the back of the car, where Ida and I were sitting, and said in a hoarse whisper: "Don't forget Rachel, old boy. Danger! Mind the rocks! Skip the gutter. Goo'-night." Langley sat in front with the chauffeur, but kept turning round ar.d flinging slightly incoherent remarks at us. It was no time for confidences. At The Lymes I said "Good-bye." "Wait under the firs," she whispered as she gave me her hand. I pressed it in answer. In fifteen minutes she slipped out from the house, a dark cloak making her almost invisible. "You've found out, somehow, my secret," she said abruptly. "You 9 "There need be no mystery,' I broke in, and told her exactly what I had seen. "A thousand guineas and five hundred a year," she muttered. "Give me the letters," I suggested. "I swear I'll not tell Ruscombe how I recovered them. I'll not produce them till I've been to London." She shook her head "You've destroyed them?" Again she shook her head. To some it may seem extraordinary that I should wish to accept money from or service with such a man as Ruscombe. To some to be penniless, homeless, propectless, to be hungry, to be cold, are merely phrases meaning nothing. I knew their meaning. A drunken master was a small price; besides, I knew I could keep Ruscombe in his freedom from worry, it meant ease, it meant warmth, food, clothes all tin concomitants of life that I'd been u?ed to and missed most desperately. "Miss Langley," I said bluntly, "either von give me those letters, or I must tell Ruscombe what I and began putting on her new gown. Nobody paid any attention to Lisette as she hurried along, but people who knew the pretty little seamstress shook their heads in rlty, for the news of Pierre's capture had already become known. She hardly knew what she was doing; her only thought was of htm who was now a prisoner in the hands of the bru:. 1 enemy. A man on horseback came trotting toward her. She raised her head and called: "Jean! Jean!" HIS BUST K It I EM). The. man stopped his horse, but was about to ride on again when he recognized her. She caught hold of the rein. "Where Is Pierre?" she cried. "Surely you, his best friend, must know where he is!" "I did what I could, little Lisette." he said. "We got him safely out of the hands of the Prussians yesterday. Hon Dieu! How we rode! At last we reached the river and found that every man must look out for himself, for the Prussians were all around us as thick as bees."

Ey Priscilla Cleradeiiiiikg

know. The man who sees a theft committed and says nothing is as bad as the thief." "Can't you trust me?" she burst out. "I can't explain." "I don't know you," I said brutally. "Why should I trust a stranger?" She winced. "The secret's my own, or I would tell you bo gladly, so freely. I'm pledged to secrecy." "Are you protecting yourself?" She drew back and looked at me, her head held high. "Would I ask favors of you beg you, implore you you, a stranger" "Whom do you protect?" "I can't tell you I mustn't tell you," she said with a hopeless sob. "Then why have you brought me here?" I asked sternly. "To beg you to to forget what you saw." "I can't do that." "Would you strike some one down kill a woman's soul, drive a wretched woman into purgatory for for a thousand guineas?" "I propose to do what Is right and proper my duty, in fact and accept the offered reward," I told hei. "I've money a little. I could get more. I swear I would pay." I held up my hand. "That decides it. The letters, please." "No, no! Oh, listen!" "I'm not a blackmailer. I'm not to be bribed," I broke in. "Am I to have the letters, or go to Ruscombe with my story?" "I didn't mean to offend you I" "You thought I deserved to be insulted?" I said grimly. "Ah, don't be hard!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. Very suddenly she sank, amid the billowing folds of her dress, on to her knees, and caught at my coat, clinging to it. "I'm begging you begging you!" she sobbed. A cloud passed from the face of the moon. A silver light fell on her working, upturned face, with its trembling, ashen lips and its quivering, white flesh. "Get up get up!" I said harshly. "Great heavens, to kneel to me!" "Say you forget." I caught her wrists and tried to lift her. "You don't remember what you saw!" she wailed. "Please please." "You do your case no good," I said. "Neither bribes nor tears nor entreaties alter circumstances. I saw you. I've my duty to do." She dragged her hands free, stood up, her face averted, her hands clenched. I watched her shoulders heave. "I've degraded myself," she whispered at laht, turning her head with a little piteous smile. "And I've done no good, only harm. You can't believe me. Why should you?" "Why, indeed?" I echoed, steeling my heart, for her beauty made its own, its huge appeal. "Yet if you knew me, I swear solemnly, faithfully, by by the memory of my mother, Mr. Littleton if you knew me, if I could tell you the story, you'd believe." ' Tell it to me," I said. "Would you believe me, then?" "Yes." I knew I should believe. I knew she could not lie. I knew it somehow, instinctively knew it very certainly. "Then believe me now," she said slowly. "Tell your story and you abet a crime, a huge injustice. That is the literal truth." Something seemed to egg me on some mad, reckless folly. I took her right hand. "You swear it?" "You have my word," she answered, and drew back, a look of uncertainty, almost of fear in her eyes. I groped for and held her other hand. The moon's ghostly radiance fell on her little face. It was more beautiful by f;ir than any face that "An! you left him?" she screamed. "You left a wounded comrade behind?" "We could do nothing, and he begged us to leave him. He Is hidden in the old mill, but the sentries are posted all around it so closely that a rat cculd not get through. I Intend to try to-morrow, though. Wipe your eyes, little one. It will be all right. It is only a broken arm, and you know the stuff Pierre is made of." "To-morrow !" She let go the rein and turned her back on him contemptuously. Jean wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his coat and rode on homeward, where his wife was waiting for him. The storm Increased and the roar of the guns ;,rew louder. Lisette was sitting at home, staring into the fire, thinking of Pierre hiding In the old mill, wounded, hungry and freezing. She knew the place well enough, but Jean had said that it was impossible to get through the lines. She clenched her little hands and bit her lips. Then, unable to sit inactive any longer, sbe got up and packed a basket with food and wine. She opened the door and passed un

I had ever seen. And the folly and

the recklessness and the devil In me grew stronger. "A sacrifice an offering," I said, with a short laugh. "Kiss me, and 111 forget." She drew a sharp, a noisy breath. "Kiss me. The letters are yours." I felt her hands grow chill in my hot and throbbing fingers. My heart hammered. "You mean it?" she muttered. "Yes." Her Hps parted and shivered. Her eyebrows arched a quivering arch; her eyes filled with tears a film of shame and disgust. "Can I trust you?" she said very low, and then, as though repenting, as though snatching at the one way l offered, bent forward till her breath fanned my face and her mouth was close to mine." "No!" I cried, so loudly that she started back and gazed apprehensively at the dim mass of the house behind her. "No woman could trust such a man! Go go back to the house. The letters are no business of mine." I turned on my heel. I walked quickly, nor once looked round. A cloud passed before the mooa. a d I blundered into some bushes before I reached the road. But with the light the fires burned out in me. It was the acrid ashes of shame and rf-.morse that settled down. The lights of the station caught my eye. I turned from the road that led to Ruscombe and followed that to the railway. Lord Ruscombe waited up for me till three, I heard afterwards, and was then carried, weeping maudlin tears, to bed by John, the fool and footman, and his valet. "He said you knew where the letters were," said Rachel insistently. "My dear Rodney, why all this mystery?" "He's a drunken lout," I retorted. "I don't want his money. Nor will I help him." "But you do know where the letters" "Yes." "And he offers a thousand guineas and five" "Yes." "And you've refused?" "Yes." "Why?" she asked, breathing heavily. "Because I believed the thief's side of the story," I answered. "I believe Kuacombe to be a villain. I believe the letters were merely instruments of torture to wreck a woman's life" "?Ly dear Rodney," she broke In, "they wore letters written by Lady Ruscombe, who's been judicially separated from her husband for five years, and has the custody of the one child of the marriage little John Henry to a man called Yately, a captain lately in the Indian Army love-letters, Rodney. Ru scorn te wants to have the custody of the child. By holding those letters over his wife's head he hoped to" "A child at Ruscombe Hall!" I said slowly. "Thank Heaven I refused." "It's no business of yours," Rachel retorted angrily. "We made you this opening gave .you this chanco and Fate flings a goldaa opportunity of making Ruscombe your friend into your lap. You're poor. Beggars can't be choosers. It's all very well, Rodney. We've been engaged three years" "I'll find honest, decent work," I said. "You really mean to refuse?" "I do." "Then that settles it!" cried Rachel shrilly. I needn't repeat all she said. Enough that she tossed the engagement ring on to the Moor, that she stamped, that she made it pretty clear that she had become engaged to me while I was rich for my money, and had been longing for a noticed through the northern outskirts of th town, where the Prussians had not yet crossed the river. When she reached the stream she cautiously climbed down the steep bank and looked about SKXTH1KS EVERYWHERE. It appeared that Jean's words had been only too true, for sentries were posted everywhere "and occasional shots showed that they were awake and alert. Nobody could pass tho white, frozen river without being seen. Her courage sank, but again she saw before her the image of Pierre starving and feverish, and she hurried forward until tne sound of voices made her stop to listen. The French sentries were not more than thirty yards away. On hands and knees she crawled forward across the Ice. a bullet whistled past her ears, but sho soon was able to make out the outlines of the hill and th line of outposts on both sides of It Lisette shuddered and prayed, not for herself but for Pierre. Shots rang out and bullets screamed through the air. Her hands and feet were numb with cold and an Irresistible drowsi

pretext to be free ever since my

father's bankruptcy and sudden death. "You always were a quixotic fooV said Frank bitterly, and grunted "Good-by" at the door. A month afterward I read of her engagement to young Horton, ona of the pickle people, fabulously1 wealthy. ( "Will the gentleman who has for gotten what he saw in a corridor carriage on the Plymouth express kindly communicate with Box 941?" "A mystery behind that," laughed a seedy-looking fellow in the public library at my elbow, where we were both searching the "Wanted" columns ot the advertisements. I could, I think, have cleared It up. la two days I had an appointment at Willey, Eversley & Sons, solicitors, of Eastcheap. There I met Lady Ruscombe, haggard eyed, very pale, very nervous. "I was alone a foolish, lonely v oman," she confessed. "George Captain Yately was in trouble. I wrote four foolish, unwise letters to him in Ir Ha. Bitterly I repented. Somehow they were stolen. 1 was offered them by a firm having offices in Lincoln's Inn Terrace, at a very high figure. My little friend, my very faithful friend for the thre long, terrible, sorrowful years that I spent at Ruscombe Hall, went with me to see these people. We saw my husband come out. He carried a bag part of my wedding present to him, Mr. Littleton. Of it I had a duplicate key. We guessed what was inside. While I went back to my hotel for the key, Ida Miss Langley, the friend I Epeak of interviewed the villains in their office. They had sold the letters to Ruscombe. Ida went to his. club. He was not there. On chance she went tj I'addington. There she saw him. She occupied a carriage next to hi3. When he went to the dining-car she slipped in. Before she could make her escape he came back. But he did not suspect her. He did not think of the key. A word from you" She bit her lips; then went on hurriedly: "I don't ask you to condone what I did. I deserve censure. I deserve unhappiness. But if I forgot my duty as a wife and. oh. God, how he has forgotten hi3 duty as a husband! I don't forget my duty as a mother. My little boy's all in all to me. Mr. Littleton. If I lost him. I I" She broke down and wept most miserably. "I'm glad Miss Langley's strength of character made me behave decently." I said stiffly. "I deserve no thanks. I I think I deserve kicking." "Ida's below waiting in the carriage," she said. "Kicking, Mr. Littleton! She wants to see you to thank you. She's come to live with me now. And if if you could put up with two women one old aud foolish, Mr. Littleton we werj wondering if I have a little estate; my agent is old; will shortly retire if you would learn with him and step into his shoes." "Lady Ruscombe, you know nettling of me!" I protested, thrilling. "Don't 1?" she said, holding out her hand. "I know enough that you're merciful, pitiful, generous, honorable. Ida told me that. And that you forgot something which" "Miss Langley has forgotten, too," I said. "I'm" "Let us go down to her," she broke in gently. But she stopped a moment to speak to one of the partners in the lower office, and so 1 went out alone to the carriage. "Can you forgive me?" I said, standing bareheaded at the carriage door. "I've forgotten." she answered, and held out her dear hand. "Ara yon to have the monopoly of forgetfulness? I remember only what jou did." ness threatened to overcome her. buddenly a strong arm caught hold of her and asked her to surrender. "Pierre." she groaned. "P.erre,'' " "Mon Dicu. Lisette." She threw herself to his bosom anl burst into tears. A bullet struck the frozen ground near them and coveed them with dirt, then another and again another. Come Lisette. dear." he whispered "I can easily carry you. We must run lor our lives." He lifted her up and carried her as easily on his wounded shoulder as If she had been a child. Thy made an excellent target against the white now and the bullets fell thick'y around them. The bank was too steen for him to climb with his burde-I. Lisette was helpless with cold and li rould only follow the shore toward the barricades. "Help!" he shouted. "Vive ja France!" His comrade heard him and noon silenced the Prussian tire and cheered like mad when Pierre, bareheaded, covered with blooa and his clothes In tatters rushed, into the French camp with little Lisette on his arm.

So - ' -V - - ' - r CO - , k

fl i iff.