Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 135: what you’re looking at

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

LIBERATION. She didn’t reglize the agony of entreaty that rang in her low, quivering tones, and King extinguished the lamp suddenly as she ceased speaking, then made his way toward her. . “T’ll do my best, Mary.” He left the door ajar behind them and guided her down the porch steps with a carefully impersonal touch upon her arm. ‘“ He must have been beside himself to have gone off like this. There was a covered tray on the floor in the corner, so he must have had his supper; did you notice it? The lamp chimney was cold, though, when I touched it. It ‘Il be sheer luck if I do find him now, but [’l cruise around the roads until dawn, if neces- sary.” He talked on with a garrulity that be- tokened some inward excitement which was all at once borne in on Mary’s conscious- ness. Quick tempered and violent as he was, he seemed to be trying to mask some strong emotion that all but consumed him, and she wondered. He had never showed such an interest in George Lorrin before— any interest, in fact, save an antipathy that amounted to actual hatred, and what help he had given had been enforced by her com- mand. | Was he hiding something from her now? Had he seen something back there in the studio that had been hidden from her eyes —in the storeroom, perhaps? Mary halted abruptly at the belt of trees fringing the grove. “Go on alone, Wesley, we might be seen,” she whispered. ‘“‘ You know the way to the side gate and you mustn’t lose a minute. When I hear your car start I'll go to the pergola and wait.” “ Jt’s a slim chance that you’ll hear from me to-night,” he responded reluctantly. “ Even if I‘locate Lorrin he mayn’t be will- ing to return and I'll have to take him along with me. Don’t wait too late, and be sure you phone me in the morning.” Her renewed distrust had crystallized and she asked breathlessly: ‘You do mean to find him if you can, don’t you? You're not*deceiving me?” King laughed shortly, and when he spoke there was no tender reassurance for her in his tone, but rather a grim determination. 9A 769 “T’'ll find him, Mary. He won’t be taken if I can help it. Look here, you’re not to make a single move in this matter, nor in trying to locate Hill, either. You'll do more harm than good and only get all of us into trouble. I’ll attend to everything, and if you don’t believe me at last you’re not the little woman I thought you. I'l find George Lorrin.” He turned, diving behind a patch of. shrubbery, for the moon had risen, and Mary saw a moving shadow pass through the garden to the side gate. She stood quite still until faintly from down the road she heard the whir and hum of a motor, then slipped back through the grove to the studio. It had never appeared as desolate and forsaken to her before, and the night breeze in the tall trees mingled eerily with the tinkling rush of the brook in the glen and the mournful hoot of an owl up the hillside beyond. Shivering in spite of herself Mary crept in and, closing the door carefully, felt her way to the mantel and relighted the lamp with a stray match her fingers encountered there. Turning with her back to the fireplace she: stared about the studio more care- fully than before, but George Lorrin had evidently set it in order, for no trace re- mained of its late occupancy save the cov- ered tray in the corner. Mary advanced to it and lifted the white cloth; the food beneath it had been left untouched. Sighing, she took up the lamp and went hesitatingly to the storeroom door, half fearful of what she might find there, but it was as Wesley King had said: the lid of one packing case was open, the books scattered about within, but all else was as it had been for long years. There was no sign of a struggle; George Lorrin had gone of his own accord. Where was he now? Skulking about in the woods somewhere, tramping a lonely road, a fugi- tive forever from his kind? Why had he not waited at least for aid in order to get safely away? It did not seem like him to leave without a single word of farewell— But her note! The envelope which she had picked up frem the table without time to glance at the superscription, but know- oO CORMIC OO KS, CO)