Argosy, Vol. 117, No. 3 — page 96: what you’re looking at

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

406 venge himself—further revenge himself, I should say, against my father—my poor father who thinks I am dead—who would rather I had been drowned as he thinks me than to become the wife of a yellow man. Only one advantage came to me as the pro- spective bride of that horrible man’s son— I was shielded and taken care of so that I should be in every way worthy—” The girl paused and laughed a hard, bit- ter little laugh. But that last sentence had lifted a weight off Masters’s heart. At least her memories —which he was going to devote his life to making her forget—were not going to be so awful as he had at first conjectured. “Sit down,” he suggested gently. There was a far-away look in her eyes—a hollow note in her voice. She sank heavily into the chair again and babbled her strange story to the end. ““My’ fether was Police Commissioner Lang of New York. He raided Wun Sing’s place in Doyers Street where the old man sold opium, and where there were white girls. He sent old Wun Sing out of the country.. One day, not long after, I was shopping on Fifth Avenue. Chang Lee must have bribed my chauffeur to let him put on his livery. I came out of one of the shops and gave the order to drive me home. I did not even glance at the man on the front seat. Livery of course makes men leok more or less alike. The next thing I remember—they must have put some sort of stuff in the car the fumes of which stupified me—anyhow, the next thing I re- member, I was in a little trading vessel out at sea—a prisoner of old Wun Sing, who had thus revenged himself upon my father. I gathered that my parents, while keeping up a search for me, really thought I had been drowned, that I had wandered down to the river for some reason and had fallen in—we live on the Hudson some miles out —old Wun Sing told me that he had di- rected Chang Lee to place my hat and coat ~ on the bank. “He made me earn money by dancing, to compensate himself for the sum my father had made him lose. He was going to marry me to his son and then in some way let my father know where I was and what I was, _reached—all THE ARGOSY. and make him think that I had done it of my own fiee will—” The girl’s voice trailed off into silence; she had slipped into unconsciousness as she ended her extraordinary tale. ‘“ We'll bayonet the greasy old rat,” mut- tered Alec as he bent over her in feverish anxiety. Just then he heard the measured tramp of feet in the hall. The American soldiery had come! V. Evinor LANc’s frightful experience cul- minated in a serious illness. She had been taken that night to kind Mrs. Vining, the colonel’s wife, in their apartment in the Svetlandskaya. , But when the American soldiery raided the Chinese restaurant there was not a pig- tail to be found. They had vanished, va- mosed, every mother’s son of them. Which was, perhaps, just as well, as the Ameri- can soldiers had been primed with the story of the American girl detained against her will by old Wun Sing, and they were ripe for reprisal. Her father was cabled to and crossed as fast as steam would carry him. Gradually Elinor was coaxed into taking up life again. When she was able to travel they took her home. She and Masters stood beside the rail one night as the great ship was speeding under the starlight toward what we call West. The Golden Gate was nearly about them stretched the peaceful Pacific, dimpling and coquetting under the soft stare of the stars. Elinor gazed up at the tall figure beside her. “If that was the only way that we could have met,” she began softly, “‘ I cannot re- gret my terrible experiences! ”’ Alec smiled down at her in quick under- standing. “Fate has rather a curious way of gath- ering atoms from the furthermost corners of the earth and bringing them together at the psychological moment,”’ he answered. “But, dear, you are to forget the past and think only of the present, and perhaps just a little of the future.” He slipped his arm around her and she laid her cheek against his rough coat sleeve. CORMICLOOOKS (C@