Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

394 thought this would be just the place for me.”’ ‘‘ Vou have been here ever since you— since your wedding day?”’ Cecilie nodded. “Tt was an awful pity that we had to be separated so early in our married life,” she said with a sigh. ‘ We didn’t even have a honeymoon. But it could not be helped, and of course I am not complain- ing. I would be a poor sort of wife if I were not willing to make sacrifices—espe- cially for a man like Ethan.” “Vou are very fond of him?” A glow of tenderness shone in her eyes. “ What a question!” she exclaimed. ‘‘ He is the salt of the earth—-the dearest, truest fellow that ever lived. I hope you are going to find that out for yourself before very long, Mr. Hemment. I have made up my mind that you and Ethan are go- ing to ‘be friends.”” She paused and smiled. ‘“T have already told him all about you— how very kind you have been to me. [ have painted you to him in such glowing colors that if he were made of commoner clay I am afraid he would be mclined to be jealous.” They entered the house, and she ushered him into an old-fashioned but cozily fur- nished parlor, ‘“Now let me hear this startling story of yours,” she said a little anxiously, as soon as they were seated. ‘‘ I must con- fess that [ am very curious to know how you managed to find out about my mar- Tiage,”’ Her visitor hesitated. ‘“Perhaps I had better hear your ver- sion first,” he suggested. ‘It may make what I have to say easier to tell. You have twice assured me, Miss—Mrs. Underwood, that your husband had a perfectly justifi- able and worthy reason for persuading you to drop out of sight immediately after— er—what happened in the office of the Gotham Development Company. “You don’t know how anxious I am to believe that such is the case, how very hard I have tried to convince myself that Underwood—that certain conclusions I have arrived at might be unwarranted by the real facts, but—”’ He hesitated again. eo ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, ‘ Well,« suppose you let me have the ex- planation right away. I feel that I am entitled to it. And, no matter what your reasons for keeping me in the dark, I don’t intend to be put off any longer.” Cecilie’s lips had started to frame a re: fusal, but her resolution melted upder the sudden peremptoriness of his manner. Stronger wills than hers had been forced to bend when the Mercury’s star reporter saw fit to resort to this method of in- terviewing. ‘ Besides, she was really rather glad to be bullied into sharing her secret with him. She was quite confident that ‘he could be trusted, ‘“T promised Ethan that I would not tell anything until the danger to him was past,” she said, after a short interval of deliberation, “ but I suppose, now that you have succeeded in running me to earth, it won’t do any harm to take you into our confidence, Mr. Hemment. As you say, you deserve to be enlightened. Shall I ‘begin by telling you everything that hap- pened on—on that eventful afternoon?” “I wish you would,” Hemment respond- ed eagerly. ‘She proceeded to give him a detailed account of her experience in Wrigley’s private office on the last day of her em- ployment there, describing how the show- down had.come at last, and how she had made the startling discovery that one of the men whose lips her employer had wishedeher to read was the man to whom she had promised herself in marriage. “You can imagine how shocked I was by this entirely unforeseen development,” she went on. ‘‘ Of course I had known all along that Ethan’s office was in the build- ing opposite, but the thought that there might be anything in common between him and those men had never entered my mind. Not even when I put the field-glasses to my eyes, and started to look out through the little peep-holes cut in the shade, did I dream that it was his office window that Wrigley was interested in. ‘“ Naturally, as soon as I had succeedet in making my escape, my first act was to run over to Ethan and tell him what I. had just found out. I guessed that dt waa;