Adventure Magazine, March 1916 — page 73: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 The Secret of Caprice completely. She flinched at his touch. Then the great eyes, so filled with fright, turned slowly to him. For a moment, she stared as though she did not knowhim. Gradually, however, some semblance of memory came into them and she clutched’ at his wrist convulsively, her feverish grip sinking into his flesh. “Uncle Stephen has lied to me,” she whis- pered hoarsely. ‘He has lied to me.” She turned again and stared at the re- mains of the camp about them. Then, with _a choking cry, as the full realization of it all rushed upon her, she sank into a huddled heap upon the ground at his feet, burying her face in her hands as great sobs racked her body. “Oh, oh!” she moaned. ‘What you said is true. He has killed my father!’ CHAPTER XIV THE TRAIL OF THE CAMPERS ENTON stood above her, too bewilder- ed for any immediate action. Her words kept repeating themselves over and over again in his brain and, each ‘time, he shuddered at the realization of what they meant. They were almost the words that he had said to himself so often in the last few days. The terrible accusation that they conveyed was not by any means new to him; it was a conclusion that he himself had reached. But to hear them thus, faltered in the heart- rending whisper of this girl whose spirit they had broken, seemed to drive them home to him with a clearer, more personal, more horrible meaning. He looked down at her fine head and shoulders, shaken by the violent sobbing that was becoming hysteria. She looked so childlike and helpless in her sudden weak- — ness that he forgot she was a woman, forgot that her very nearness had set him aflame with his desire for her, forgot that he was a man, and she a girl of supreme allurements. With low-spoken words of comfort, much as he would have crooned to a weeping child, he sank to the ground beside her and put a protecting arm about her shoulder, sooth- ing her with his hand. “No—no,” he said. ‘You must not say such things. Your father has not been kill- ed. Iknowit. You must not imagine such an awful thing.” 71 She leaned to him, her head almost on his shoulder, her whole attitude one of seeking the protection of his strong body. Somehow the incongruity of their positions was lost in the overpowering agony of the girl. He felt no hesitancy in pressing her to him comfortingly and she yielded as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to do. The flesh of her shoulder felt firm and rounded under his hand, with a suggestion of vital life and nearness that might have shattered his self-mastery had conditions been different. But he did not think of these things now. Her grief was too pitiful, too sacred for even a hint of his desire to obtrude, and he main- tained his attitude of comforter, crooning to her almost as a mother would to a babe. The violence of her sobs subsided under his ministrations. She still kept her face buried in her hands and her low moans of anguish wrung him to the heart, but he saw that she was regaining self-control, and in a few minutes more, her head lay quietly on his shoulder as if the agony of her grief had left her too exhausted to raise it. He waited patiently until he felt her stir. Then he gently released his arm and rose to his feet. “You must not say such things,” he re- peated reprovingly. “T tell you, I know that you are wrong. Your father has not been killed. We are going to find him and save him—but you must get hold of your- ic and not give ‘way again, if you are to e ee She raised her anguished eyes to his. “Do you think so?” she asked slowly. “Do you honestly think we can save him?” “T know it,” he lied emphatically. “Come now; you are all right again, aren’t you?” She smiled up at him wanly. “T will—will try to be,”’ she promised. “Come then!” ’ His tone was almost gay and he held out both hands to help her up. “Come then.. We must hurry. There’s much to be done!”’ She put her hands in his and he raised her to her feet. With a sorry little grimace, she brushed the dust from her skirt and put her hands to her disarranged hair. “T must look like a fright,’’ she said. “I never broke down so completely in my life before. But—”’ she faltered again—“‘t all seemed to rush upon me with such over- whelming force that it simply swept me away.’ _ (E@) comichbook