The Argosy, Vol. 61, No. 4 — page 94: what you’re looking at

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

652 With beating heart, he watched her as she inserted her fingers in the chute. Its excited pounding changed, how- ever, from the throbbing of fear to the bounding of hope, as he saw that her hand, too, fell short. ‘You were right about my fingers not reaching,” the girl turned to tell him. “But my hairpin ought to do the trick.” Her hairpin! He had not thought that she would naturally use that con- venience with which lovely woman solves so many seeming difficulties. He watched her take one of her coif- fure-fasteners from her hair. All the sensations of a criminal doomed to die, looking on at the preparations for his execution, were his as his terrorized gaze followed the swift motions with which she bent the bit of wire straight. With that she would get out the letter. She would read it—there before him. Embarrassed as he should ordinarily have been at her discovery of the impas-= sioned words he had written, he realized now that her perusal of the note would mean a worse ordeal for him than the mere undergoing of her scornful arraign- ment at his boldness. He had lied to her. Pointblank— not once, but twice or more—he had de- nied that the letter was from him, that he knew anything of it. All hope of her ever loving him after this exposure of his deceit was gone. She would hate and despise him in a minute now—and he _ could never ‘square’ himself. Yet, realizing all this as certain to happen in the next few seconds, he could not go away—he must stay, rooted with fear to the tiles of the hotel corridor, wait and see it out. The horror of the situation fascinated him. Carefully she lowered the wire down the chute. His heart rose iff his mouth as he saw that it reached the letter— then sank with a shock of relief as all her efforts to pull out the envelope failed. Now, he thought as she drew forth the hairpin, if only something would happen —a fire break out, or something—before she had time to think of anything else. “T’]] just bend a hook in the end of this,’ Miss Carrol said calmly, turning her back to the mail-chute to.face him. “Then it will be easy to fish it out.” THE ARGOSY. He ran his tongue out on his dry lips and struggled to say something — any- thing, it mattered not what —to delay her, if only for a moment. But nothing came. His mind was a blank space, wiped clean of all connected thought. Only one thing was left for him to do —tell her the truth—now before she dis- covered his lie for herself, and thus throw himself on her mercy. “Miss Carrol—”’ he began. She did not hear his whispered ejac- ulation. With the bent wire in her hand, she again turned to the mail-chute. And then a startled gasp escaped her. At the sudden sound, his eyes followed her gaze to the chute, and he, too, gasped. The letter was gone! Vanished, as though into thin air. But how? _ “Tsn’t that provoking?’’ Miss Carrol exclaimed. “Just as I had my letter almost in my hands, somebody up-stairs drops one down and carries mine off, out of sight and reach!”’ To ‘be sure, that was what had hap- pened! The girl’s quick brain, untrou- bled, as was his, had grasped the situa- tion immediately. And now his brain, released by blind luck from its oppression, realized what this stroke of good fortune meant to him. With the letter gone down the drop into the mail-box below, she couldn’t get it till morning—hairpins or no hairpins! And he would not be at hand when she read it. But was that cause for congratula- tion? Was the delay, after all, some- thing to be wished for? ~ No! By George, he wanted her to know now that he loved her! He’d been fooling around long enough, he told him- ‘self excitedly, with his hopes and fears of whether she cared for him. If it hadn’t been for that idiot up- stairs, he would know vow whether there was a chance. ‘But, now, you won’t know till to- morrow morning,” he finished aloud un- consciously. “No, Jennie’s news will have to keep till then,’ the girl answered indiffer- ently. The minute the words left his lips he could have bitten out his tongue for its carelessness in letting slip the secret—or EO OO (©