The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 102: what you’re looking at

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804 significance to her question than the one he had attached to it. “About M. Geell, of course,” Sas talie answered quickly. Ted could have shouted. He knew what Sykes did not—that Natalie had discovered the absence of the invalid. He knew she had asked about him—and the proof of her concern filled him with exultant joy. “Gill said Radford ain’t got that deed!”” Sykes went on _ savagely. *Gill’s a fool! He'd oughter blowed off his head ’fore he let up on gittin’ itt: “Fef he has not the deed, how should eet help to blow hees head? ” Natalie asked tremulously, while Ted gratefully acknowledged his debt to the fate that had sent Gill instead of Sykes after the paper. “ He’s got it, all right! He’s out here to locate the other two, that’s whut he’s hyah fur. Them’s whut Bullen’s after, too. Mebby Bullen’s got Watson’s by this time—no one ain’t heerd uv Wat- son fur along time. Ef he has, nachully he’s more’n anxious fur the one that Radford’s got.” Ted began to see why Bullen had perpetrated himself upon him in New York. But he was too intent upon hearing what Sykes had _ evidently learned from Gill to think of anything else at the moment. “ Nick Bullen ees dead!” Natalie ex- claimed impatiently. ‘* Somebody’s bin stuffin’ ye!” Sykes instantly replied. “‘ Gill’s had a half a dozen letters from him sence this hyah Radford come into these hyah parts. An’ he’s had three wires in the last three days. Bullen ain’t no deader’n I am.” Natalie was gazing into Sykes’s face as if every word he uttered meant more to her than any sounds she had ever heard. She could not reconcile his statements with what she knew—but the relief, the ecstasy of listening to him declare positively that Bullen was not dead was such joy that her heart almost burst her breast. Love rioted in her and faith flew as high as heaven. THE ARGOSY. Suddenly, and in a voice that was the strangest blending of rapture and pain, she cried out. She seized and almost shook big ‘Tom Sykes as she did it. “Tell me again! Eet ees true? You are sure! Eet ees not true that M. Radford has keeled Neeck Bullen? ” Radford actually fell back against the rocks as if he had received a phys- ical blow. He had heard it plainly. There was no room for doubt. Her own dear voice, high and tense, had-said it. Natalie le Fevre believed him guilty of murder! CHAPTER XVIII. RADFORD IS MISSING. So that was why Natalie le Fevre would have nothing to do with him! She believed he had killed Nick Bullen! In the extremity of his discourage- ment and horror Ted forgot that Na- talie was trying to find corroboration of his innocence. He did not guess what she had suffered. He could not know the joy with which she listened to the declarations of Gill and Sykes that Bullen still lived. So wildly eager was she to believe that she put aside the urging of her own level little head and would not let her- self recall the fact that the proof of Bullen’s death was contained in Dr. Stratton’s letters to Alice Thorpe. But nothing seemed to count to Ted but the hideous fact that she suspected him of the blackest of all crimes. Why he was supposed to have killed Bullen was beyond him. He thought of rush- ing toward Natalie and asking her that. The cutting sting of her scorn had fallen on him too often for him to court it again. And somehow, though he heard Sykes declare that Bullen still lived, he heard in Natalie’s voice the doubt she felt much more clearly than he distinguished her wish to have him proven innocent. Proven innocent! The indignity of having to establish his freedom from the crime was almost more than he (e(0) .OO AMC S (E©)