The Argosy, Vol. 82 No. 2 — page 50: what you’re looking at

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

232 “One can’t very well tear up the facts,” he sighed. “You may need this again, for one reason or another. Til cut loose early in the morning, of course, Mrs. —ah—Miss Fayre, if you prefer that. Ill tell them something about a midnight mes- senger turning up with a telegram for me and—” “Yowre not going away?” Jane cried. Mr. Farnham’s teeth gritted queerly. “T can endure a lot, but I can’t endure looking at you and thinking that you be- long to another man—” “YT don’t,” his hostess choked out. “Ts there no Thompson?” Mr. Farnham asked quickly. “Of course there is, but—” “Then don’t tell me about it!” Farnham said quickly, and a strange little smile of pain crossed his lips, ‘‘I’d rather not hear it—honestly. I’ve seen so much of that sort of unhappiness that I can fill in the de- tails only too easily. I suppose he’s good- looking, and you were even a year younger then than you are now—and you’re a good deal of a kid yet. He drinks and—”’ “Wilbur!” Jane pleaded. “But he is your husband after all, and you’ve been lucky enough to keep the thing quiet—and for your sake, if you want to keep it quiet, I hope that it never becomes public property. “But I don’t want to hear about it, and especially from you, dear,” Farnham went on brokenly. “I want to go away and re- member to-night as you and I sat up there together, and I want to forget all the rest of it.” And then, being a good deal of a man, he held out his hand and said with a smile: “Goodby, Jane, and perhaps it isn’t as bad as you think. Marriage is a life business, after all; I’ve never been able to regard it as something to be undertaken and cast aside again at one’s pleasure. A girl like you never has more than one real love af- fair, and you must have loved this Thomp- son or you’d never have married him—and I honestly believe that sooner or later you'll patch up your troubles and be happy with him.” “T—” Jane began wildly. “Why not take him away somewhere to a new country, where nobody knows either of you, and try making aman of him? It may turn out that he—”’ “Wilbur,” said Jane, with great difficulty, as she caught at the young man’s coat THE ARGOSY. lapels and shook him, “‘do you want me to go stark, staring mad, right here?” “No,” the self-repressed one smiled im- perturbably, “‘but—”’ “Then stop!” gasped his lovely hostess. “T have been hoping—oh, I don’t know just why!—that you might never hear about Thompson. But if you’re going to think all those things I want you to know the truth as soon as possible and—Wilbur,” Jane pleaded, “take me up to the rock again, where the rest of them can’t hear!” Perhaps the most astonishing thing, as the moon hung high and the east grew very black, was that Mr. Farnham laughed! He did not smile cynically and glance incredulously at Jane Fayre, although he did growl queerly several times as the ex- traordinary recital came trembling from her lips. Neither did he leap to his feet and, wholly overcome by a sense of Jane’s wrongs, grow frenzied and vow to drink deeply of Mr. Thompson’s blood or die in the attempt. Instead, having drawn Jane close to him, Mr. Farnham vibrated silently for half a minute, until: “Well, does it seem funny?” Jane asked crisply. Mr. Farnham sobered suddenly. “TI wasn’t laughing at the thing itself— at least, I think I wasn’t,” he said. “I was laughing because I’m so_infernally happy, Jane. Down there, when I looked at that certificate, I honestly thought that my heart had broken.” Amazement replaced asperity in Jane’s tone. ‘Wherever did it come from?” “Are you perfectly sure you haven’t had it all the time?” “Of course.” “T give it up then, child,” Mr. Farnham said, without great concern. ‘I think it may have dropped straight from Heaven, to smooth out matters between you and me,” “Well, I don’t!” Jane averred. ‘And, Wilbur—there was a big car somewhere well behind us, you know. It tore along this road some time after that dreadful supper, and it hasn’t come back. It must have been Thompson and that certificate must have fluttered away from him as he passed. Or could he have known that we were here and deliberately thrown it out?” No fear shook Mr. Farnham; he pursed ECOMMICLOO® S (C@