The Lookout Man

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  GRIEF, AND HOPE THAT DIED HARD

  During the months when she had hidden her shame in a sanitarium, Mrs.Singleton Corey first learned how it felt to be unsatisfied withherself. Had learned, too, what it meant to have her life emptied ofJack's roisterous personality. She had learned to doubt theinfallibility of her own judgments, the justice of her own viewpoints.She had attained a clarity of vision that enabled her to see herself afailure where she had taken it for granted that she was a success. Shehad failed as a mother. She had not taught her son to trust her, tolove her--and she had discovered how much she craved his love and histrust.

  Now she was learning other things. For the first time in her shelteredlife Mrs. Singleton Corey knew what it meant to be cold; bitterlycold--cold to the middle of her bones. As Murphy had predicted, a treehad fallen across the trail, so close to their passing that they hadheard the crash of it and had come up to see the branches stillquivering from the impact. Before then Mrs. Singleton Corey hadlearned the feel of biting cold, when she waited on a bald nose of thehill while three shovels lifted the snow out of the road so that theycould go on. Her unaccustomed ears had learned the sound ofable-bodied swearing because the horseman had taken a short-cut overthe hill and so had not broken the trail here for the team.

  Then, because the driver had not prepared for the emergency of fallentrees--rather, because the labor of removing a section would have beentoo long even if they had brought axes and a cross-cut saw--shelearned how it felt to be plodding through snow to her aristocraticknees. She had to walk a mile and a half to reach Toll-Gate cabin,which was the only shelter on the mountainside, save the cabin ofMurphy and Mike, which was out of the question. She had to walk, sinceshe declined to ride one of the horses bareback; so she was tired, forthe first time in her pampered life, and she knew that always beforethen she had merely played at being tired.

  The driver, being unable to go farther with the sleigh, and having amerciful regard for his four horses, turned back when the men hadlifted the sleigh around so that it faced townward. So Mrs. SingletonCorey had the novel experience of walking with the assistance ofMurphy, whose hands were eager to help the lady, whose tongue waseager to while away the wearisome journey with friendly converse,whose breath was odorous of bad whisky. The other two men went aheadwith the blankets and the gunny-sack of supplies, and broke trail forMurphy and the lady whose mission remained altogether a mystery, whosemanner was altogether discouraging to curiosity.

  Those of us who have never experienced hardships, never plumbed theblack depths of trouble, never suffered desperate anguish, are tooprone to belittle the suffering of others. Mrs. Singleton Corey hadalways secretly believed that suffering meant merely a certainbearable degree of discomfort. In exalted moments she had contemplatedsimple living as a desirable thing, good to purge one's soul oftrivialities. Life in the raw was picturesque.

  She changed her mind with a suddenness that was painful when shetottered thankfully into Toll-Gate cabin and found the main roomunswept and with the breakfast dishes cold and cluttered upon therough, homemade table. And Kate crying on a couch in the other room,close enough to the heating stove so that she could keep the fire upwithout putting her injured foot to the floor. She did not know thisdisheveled woman with swollen eyes and a soiled breakfast cap and anugly bathrobe and one foot bandaged like a caricature of a goutymember of plutocracy. The Kate Humphrey she hazily remembered had beena careful product of refinement, attired in a black lace evening gownand wearing very good imitation pearls.

  But Mrs. Singleton Corey gave no more than one glance at Kate, whohurriedly pulled her bathrobe together and made a half-hearted attemptto rise and greet her properly. The stove looked like a glimpse ofparadise, and Mrs. Singleton Corey pulled up a straight-backed chairand sat down with a groan of thankfulness, pulling her snow-soddenskirts up above her shoetops to let a little warmth reach herpatrician limbs. She fumbled at the buttons of her coat and threw itopen, laid a palm eloquently upon her aching side and groaned again.

  But the dauntless Mrs. Singleton Corey could not for long permit herspirit to be subdued, especially since she had not yet found Jack.

  "Well, can you get word to my son that I am here and should like tosee him?" she asked, as soon as the chill had left her a little. "Thisis a terrible storm," she added politely.

  Even when Kate had explained how impossible it was to get word to anyone just then, Mrs. Singleton Corey refused to yield one bit of hercomposure to the anxiety that filled her. She simply sat and looked atpoor Kate like the chairman of a ways-and-means committee who iswaiting to hear all the reports.

  "You think, then, that the young woman went to meet Jack?"

  "I know she did. She was furious because I had not concealed the factof his being here, but I felt that I owed it--"

  "Yes, to be sure. And where would she be most likely to meet him? Doyou know?"

  "I know where she did meet him," Kate retorted with an edge to hervoice. "She couldn't have gotten lost, though, if she had gone there.It is close to the road you traveled. Doug--Professor Harrison has leda party up where Marion said Jack had his cave. If they are there, weshall know it as soon as they come back."

  "Yes, certainly. And if they are not there?" Mrs. Singleton Corey heldher voice firm though the heart within her trembled at the terriblepossibility.

  "Well--she didn't take the train, we know that positively. She _must_be up there with Jack!"

  Mrs. Singleton Corey knew very well that Kate was merely propping herhope with the statement, but she was glad enough to accept the propfor her own hopes. So they talked desultorily and with thatarms-length amiability which is the small currency of politeconversation between two strange women, and Mrs. Singleton Corey laidaside her dignity with her fur-lined coat, and made tea forthem--since Kate could not walk.

  Late in the afternoon men began to straggle into the cabin, fagged andwith no news of Marion. The professor was brought back so exhaustedthat he could not walk without assistance, and talked incoherently ofbeing shot at, up near the peak, and of being unable to reach TaylorRock on account of the furious wind and the deep drifts.

  Hank Brown declared that he could make it in the morning, and one ortwo others volunteered to go with him. It began to seem more and morelikely that Marion was up there and compelled by the storm to stay, inwhatever poor refuge Jack might have. It seemed useless to make anyfurther attempt at hiding Jack's identity and whereabouts, althoughMrs. Singleton Corey, with a warning glance at Kate and a fewcarefully constructed sentences, managed to convey the impression thatJack had been hiding away from her, after a quarrel between them whichhad proved merely a misunderstanding. She was vastly relieved to seethat her explanation was accepted, and to know that if Quincy had everheard of the auto-bandit affair, it had forgotten all about it longago.

  Still, that was a small relief, and temporary. Until the next day theywere hopeful, and the physical discomfort of staying in that crudelittle cabin with a lot of ungrammatical, roughly clad men, and ofhaving no maid to serve her and not even the comfort of privacy,loomed large in the mind of Mrs. Singleton Corey. Never before in herlife had she drunk coffee with condensed cream in it, or eaten burnedbread with stale butter, and boiled beans and bacon. Never before hadshe shared the bed of another woman, or slept in a borrowed nightgownthat was too tight in the arms. To Mrs. Singleton Corey these thingsbore all the earmarks of tragedy.

  But the next day real tragedy pushed small discomforts back into theirproper perspective. It still stormed, though not so furiously, andwith fitful spells of sunlight breaking through the churning clouds.The men left the cabin at daylight, and Mrs. Singleton Corey foundherself practically compelled to wash the dishes and sweep the floorand wait on the distracted Kate who was crushed under the realizationof Mrs. Singleton Corey's disgust at her surroundings. Conversationlanguished that day. Mrs. Singleton Corey sat in a straight-backedchair and stared out of the window that faced the little basin, andwait
ed for Jack to come. She had suffered much, and she felt that fateowed her a speedy return of the prodigal.

  Instead of that they brought Hank Brown to the cabin, dead on amakeshift stretcher. When the shock of that had passed a little, sothat her mind could digest details, Mrs. Singleton Corey learned, witha terrible, vise-like contraction of the heart, that Hank had climbedahead of the others and had almost reached the place they calledTaylor Rock, where Jack was said to have his cave. Those below hadheard a rifle shot, and they had climbed up to find Hank stretcheddead in the snow. Two men had searched the vicinity as well as theycould, but they had found nothing at all. The snow, they said, wasdrifted twenty feet deep in some places.

  They did not tell her what they thought about it, but Mrs. SingletonCorey knew. And Kate knew. And the two women's eyes would not meet,after that, and their voices were constrained, their words formal whenthey found it necessary to have speech with each other.

  Mrs. Singleton Corey forgot the crudities and the discomforts ofToll-Gate cabin after that. She watched the trail, and her eyesquestioned dumbly every man that came in for rest and food beforegoing out again to the search. They always went again, fighting theirway through the storm that never quite cleared. They went forth, witha dogged persistence and a courage that made Mrs. Singleton Coreymarvel in spite of her absorption in her own anxiety.

  Men with fresh horses and fresh supplies came up from the valley, andthe search went on, settling to a loose system of signals, reliefshifts and the laying out of certain districts for certain men tocover, yard by yard. The body of Hank Brown was lashed upon a horseand taken down to Quincy, and in the evening the mystery of his deathwas discussed in the kitchen, where the men sat in a haze of tobaccosmoke. Mike had been reported absent from his cabin, the day thatMurphy came up from the valley, and he had not returned. So there wasmystery in plenty to keep the talk going. One man shot dead fromambush and three persons missing, were enough to stir the mostphlegmatic soul--and Mrs. Singleton Corey, however self-possessed hermanner, was not phlegmatic.

  Stormy day followed stormy day, and still they found no trace ofMarion, got no glimpse of Jack. There were days when the wind made itphysically impossible to climb the peak and search for the cave underTaylor Rock, dangerous to be abroad in the woods. Hank had said thathe knew about where the cave was--but Hank's lips were closed foreverupon garrulous conversation. Two or three others were more or lessfamiliar with that barren crest, having hunted bear in that locality.They led the parties that turned their faces toward the peak wheneverthe wind and the snow promised to hold back for a time.

  They began to whisper together, out in the kitchen where they thoughtthat Mrs. Singleton Corey could not hear. They whispered about thefight that had taken place up at the lookout station, last summer,when Hank had ridden into town sullen and with blackened eyes andswollen lips, and had cursed the lookout on Mt. Hough. It began toseem imperative that they locate that cave as soon as possible, andthe man who had shot Hank.

  Kate mourned because Fred was not there, and talked as though hispresence would right nearly everything. That, and the whispering andthe meaning glances among the men when she appeared in the room,exasperated Mrs. Singleton Corey almost beyond endurance. Why did theynot find Jack and the girl? What possible use could Fred be, more thanany other man? Why didn't somebody do something? She had never seen soinefficient a country, it seemed to her. Why, they had even let thetrains stop running, and the telegraph lines were all down! Nobodyseemed to know when communication with the outside world would bepossible. She might have to stay here a month, for all she could learnto the contrary. There was just one cheerful thought connected withthe whole thing, and that was the fact that this Fred, of whom Katetalked so much, could not be summoned. Mrs. Singleton Corey felt thatanother Humphrey in the house would drive her quite mad.

  Then one day Murphy came stumbling in to the cabin, just after threeor four disheartened searchers had arrived, and announced that he hadgot on the track of the man that shot Hank Brown.

  "An' it's Mike, the crazy fool thot did it, an' I'll bet money on it,"he declared, goggling around at his audience. "An' what's more, therest of ye had betther be travelin' wit' yer eyes open, fer he's crazyas a loon, an' he'll kill anny one that crosses his trail. An' didn'tI notice just this marnin' that his rifle was gone wit' him--me domeyes bein' so near blind thot I c'uldn't see in the corner where itwas, an' only fer wantin' a belt that hung on a nail there, I w'uldn'tav been feelin' around at all where the gun sh'uld be standin'. An'it's gone, an' I mind me now the talk he was makin' about sphies inthe woods, an' thot the gurrl had betther look out, an' the feller upon the peak had betther look out, an' me thinkin' he was talkin'becawse av the railroad tie thot hit 'im wanct, an' hushed 'im up whinI sh'uld 'a' been takin' 'im in to the crazy house, I dunno. An' ifhe's kilt the gurrl an' the missus' boy, like he kilt Hank Brown, it'slike he's found the cave the lad was livin' in, an' is sthayin' holedup there, I dunno--fer he ain't been near the cabin, an' unlest a treeer a fallin' limb kilt him, he'd have to be sthayin' somewheres. Ferhe's kilt the gurrl an' the boy, an' I'll bet money on it, I dunno."

  "Looks that way, Murphy--" began one, but he was stopped by a cry thatthrilled them with the terrible grief that was in the voice,--griefand hope that was dying hard.

  Mrs. Singleton Corey, having stood just within the other roomlistening, made two steps toward Murphy and fell fainting to thekitchen floor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  TROUBLE FINDS THE GOLD THAT WAS IN THEM

  After that nothing seemed to matter. The days slipped by and Mrs.Singleton Corey cared so little that she did not count them or callthem by name. She would sit by the one window that faced the Basin andwatch the trail beaten in the deep snow by the passing of many feet,and brood over the days when she might have won Jack and by the verycloseness of their love have saved him from this. Had she done herpart, Jack would not have lied to her about that trip to Venice; hewould not have dreamed of such a thing. It hurt terribly to think howclose she had been to happiness with Jack and how unthinkingly she hadlet it slip from her while she centered her interest upon other thingsthat held no comfort for her now--now when all she asked of life wasto give her back her son alive.

  Men came and went, and answered the heartbreaking question in her bigbrown eyes with cheerful words that did not, somehow, cheer. The stormwas over, they told her, and now they would have a better chance. Shemustn't think of what Murphy said--Murphy was an old fool. Shemustn't give up. And even while they talked she knew by their eyesthat they had given up long ago, and only kept up the pretense ofhopeful searching for her sake.

  Because the partition was only one thickness of boards she heard themcommenting one night on the grim fact that no smoke had been seen atTaylor Rock, though many eyes had watched anxiously for the sign. Shelistened, and she knew that they were going to give up--knew that theyshould have given up long ago but for her. With no fire in the cavenone could live for long in this weather, she heard them muttering.The cave was drifted full of snow, in the opinion of those who had themost experience with mountain snows. The lost couple might be in thecave, but they were not alive. One man said that they were probablyunder some fallen tree--and they were many--or buried deep in a gulchsomewhere. Certainly after ten days neither Jack nor Marion nor Mikecould by any possibility be alive in the hills.

  Kate was asleep and did not hear. The professor was out there with theothers--probably they thought that Mrs. Singleton Corey was asleepalso, for it was growing late. Her chapped knuckles pressed againsther trembling lips, she listened awhile, until she could bear nomore. How kind they were--these men of Quincy! How they had struggledto keep alive her courage! She got up, opened the door very quietly,and went out into the strong, bluish haze of tobacco smoke thatenveloped the men huddled there around the kitchen stove for a lastpipe before they turned in. She stood within the door, like "madampresident" risen to address the meeting. Like "madam president" shewaited for their full attention befo
re she spoke.

  "I wish to thank you gentlemen for the heroic efforts you have putforth during the past week," she said, and her low-pitched voice hadthe full resonance that was one of her charms as a leader among women."It would be impossible for me to express my grateful appreciation--"She stopped, pressed her lips together for a minute, and when she feltsure of her composure she made a fresh start. "I cannot speak of therisks you have taken in these forests, but I--I appreciate yourbravery. I know that you have been in danger from falling trees,nearly every day that you spent searching for--those who are lost. Ihave learned from your conversations among yourselves how useless youconsider the search. I--I am forced to agree with you. Miss Humphreyand Professor Harrison have long ago given up all hope--they saythat--that no one could possibly be alive.... I--I know that a mothercan be terribly selfish when her son...." Hard as she fought forsteadiness, she could not speak of it. She stood with the back of onehand pressed hard against her shaking lips, swallowing the sobs thatthreatened to balk her determination to speak a little of the humblegratitude that filled her. The men looked down in embarrassed silence,and in a minute she went on.

  "Gentlemen, I know that you have gone on searching because you feltthat I wanted you to do it, and you were too kind-hearted to tell methe truth. So I beg of you now to go back to your families. I--I mustnot let my trouble keep you away from them any longer. I--I--havegiven up."

  Some one drew a long breath, audible in that room, where tragedy heldthem in silence. It was as though those two lost ones lay stark andcold in their midst; as though this woman was looking down upon herson. But when the silence had tightened their nerves, she spoke againwith the quiet of utter hopelessness.

  "I must ask you to help me get down the mountain somehow. If therailroad is in operation I shall return home. I wish to say that whileI shall carry with me the bitterest sorrow of my life, I shall carryalso a deep sense of the goodness and the bravery--"

  Proud, yes. But proud as she was she could not go on. She turnedabruptly and went back into the room where Kate slept heavily. Alittle later the sound of stifled sobbing, infinitely sad, went out tothe men who sat with cooling pipes in their palms, constrained tosilence still by the infinite sadness of motherhood bereaved.

  "Tomorrow morning we better start in clearing the road," one mutteredat last. "Somebody can ride down and have a team come up after her."

  "It's no use to hunt any longer," another observed uneasily. "The snowwould cover up--"

  "Sh-sh-sh!" warned the professor, and nodded his head toward the roomdoor.

  In her own home, that had been closed for months, Mrs. Singleton Coreyfolded her black veil up over the crown of her black hat and picked upthe telephone. Her white hair was brushed up from her forehead in asmooth, cloudy fashion that had in it no more than a hint of marcellewaving. Her face was almost as white as her hair, and her eyes wereblack-shadowed and sunken. She sat down wearily upon the chair besidethe telephone stand, waited dull-eyed for Central to answer, and thencalled up her doctor. Her voice was calm--too calm. It was absolutelycolorless.

  Her doctor, on the other hand, became agitated to the point ofstuttering when he realized who was speaking to him. His disjointedquestions grated on Mrs. Singleton Corey, who was surfeited withemotion and who craved nothing so much as absolute peace.

  "Yes, certainly I am back," she drawled with a shade of impatience."Just now--from the depot.... No, I am feeling very well--No, I havenot read the papers, and I do not intend to.... Really, doctor, I cansee no necessity of your coming out here. I am perfectly all right, Iassure you. I shall call up the maids and let them know that I amhome, but first I have called you, just to ease your mind--providing,of course, that you have one. You seem to have lost it quitesuddenly...."

  She listened, and caught her breath. Her lips whitened, and hernostrils flared suddenly with what may have been anger. "No, doctor ... Idid not--find--Jack." She forced herself to say it. He wouldhave to know, she reflected.

  She was about to add something that would make her statement soundless bald, but the doctor had hung up, muttering something she did notcatch. She waited, holding the receiver to her ear until Central, inthat supercilious voice we all dislike so much, asked crisply, "Areyou waiting?" Then Mrs. Singleton Corey also hung up her receiver andsat there idly gazing at her folded hands.

  "I must have a manicure at once," she said to herself irrelevantly,though the heart of her was yearning toward Jack's room upstairs. Shewanted to go up and lie down on Jack's bed; and put her head on Jack'spillow. It seemed to her that it would bring her a little closer toJack. And then she had a swift vision of Taylor Rock, where Jack wassaid to have his cave. She closed her eyes and shuddered. She couldnot get close to Jack--she had never been close to him, since hepassed babyhood. Perhaps.... The girl, Marion--had Jack loved her? Shewas grown used to the jealousy that filled her when she thought ofMarion. She forced herself now to think pityingly of the girl, dead upthere in that awful snow.

  She went upstairs, forgetting to telephone to the maids as she hadintended. She moved slowly, apathetically, pausing long before theclosed door of Jack's room. She would not go in, after all. Why digdeeper into the grief that must be mastered somehow, if she would goon living? She remembered the maids, and when she had put on one ofher soft, silk house gowns that she used to like so well, she wentslowly down the stairs, forgetting that she had a telephone in herroom, her mind swinging automatically to the one in the hall that shehad used as she came in. She had just reached it when the doctor camehurrying up the steps and pressed the bell button. She saw him dimlythrough the curtained glass of the door, and frowned while she let himin. And then--

  She knew that the doctor was propelled violently to one side by someone coming behind him, and she knew that she was dreaming the rest ofit. The feel of Jack's arm around her shoulders, and Jack's warm,young lips on her cheeks and her lips and her eyelids, and the soundof Jack's voice calling her endearing pet names that she had neverheard him speak while she was awake and he was with her--It was adelicious dream, and Mrs. Singleton Corey smiled tremulously while thedream lasted.

  "Gee, I'd like to give you a _real_ old bear-hug, but I've got a bumwing and I can't. Gee, we musta passed each other on the roadsomewhere, because I was streaking it down here to see you--gee, butyou look good to me!--and you were streaking it up there to see me--"The adorable young voice hesitated and deepened to a yearninghalf-whisper. "Did you go away up there just because you--_wanted_ tosee me? Did you do that, mother? Honest?"

  Mrs. Singleton Corey snapped into wakefulness, but she still leanedheavily within her curve of Jack's good arm. Her eyes--brown, andvery much like Jack's--stared up with a shining, wonderful gladnessinto his face. But she was Mrs. Singleton Corey, and she would not actthe sentimental fool if she could help it!

  "Yes, I--thought I should have to dig you out of a snowdrift,you--young--scamp!"

  "She'd a done it, believe _me_! Only I wasn't in any snowdrift, so shecouldn't--God love her!" He was half crying all the while and tryingto hide it; and half laughing, too, and altogether engrossed in thejoy of being able to hold his own mother like that, just as he hadhungered to do up there on the mountain.

  It was the doctor who saw that emotion had reached the outer edge ofsafety for Mrs. Singleton Corey. Over her head he scowled and madewarning signs to Jack, who gave her a last exuberant squeeze and letthe doctor lead her to a chair.

  "I've got a wife out in the taxi, mother," he announced next. "Shewouldn't come in--she's afraid you won't like her. But you will, won'tyou? Can't I tell her--"

  "Bring her right in here to me, Jack," said Mrs. Singleton Corey,gasping a bit, but fighting still for composure to face this miracleof a pitying God.

  Bit by bit the miracle resolved itself into a series of events which,though surprising enough, could not by any stretch of the credulity becalled supernatural.

  Mrs. Singleton Corey learned that, with a bullet lodged somewhere inthe upper, northwest corner of J
ack's person, he had neverthelessmanaged to struggle down through the storm to Marston, with Marionhelping him along and doing wonders to keep his nerve up. They hadtaken the train without showing themselves at the depot, which wasperfectly easy, Jack informed her, but cold as the dickens.

  She managed to grasp the fact that Jack and Marion had been married inSacramento, immediately after Jack had his shoulder dressed, and thatthey had come straight on to Los Angeles, meaning to find her firstand face the music afterwards. She was made to understand how terriblyin earnest Jack had been, in going straight to the chief of police andletting the district attorney know who he was, and then telling thetruth about the whole thing in court. She could not quite see how thathad settled the matter, until Jack explained that Fred Humphrey was agood scout, if ever there was one. He had testified for the State, butfor all that he had told it so that Jack's story got over big with thejury and the judge and the whole cheese.

  Fred Humphrey had remembered what Jack had shouted at the boys whenthey fired. "--And mother, that was the luckiest call-down I everhanded the bunch. It proved, don't you see, that the hold-up was justa josh that turned out wrong. And it proved the boys weren't planningto shoot--oh, it just showed the whole thing up in a different light,you know, so a blind man had to see it. So they let me go--"

  "If you could have seen him, you wouldn't have wondered, Mrs. Corey!"Marion had been dumb for an hour, but she could not resist paintingJack into the scene with the warm hues of romance. "He went there whenhe ought to have gone to the hospital. Why, he had the highestfever!--and he was so thin and hollow-eyed he just looked simplypathetic! Why, they wouldn't have been human if they had sent him tojail! And he told the whole thing, and how it just started in fooling;and why, it was the grandest, noblest thing a boy could do, when theothers had been mean enough to lay all the blame on Jack. And he hadhis shoulder all bandaged and his arm in a sling, and he looked so--sobrave, Mrs. Corey, that--"

  Mrs. Singleton Corey reached out and patted Marion on the hand, andsmiled strangely. "Yes, my dear--I understand. But I think you mightcall me mother."

  If it cost her something to say that, she was amply repaid. Mariongave her one grateful look and fled, fearing that tears would bemisunderstood. And Jack made no move to follow her, but stayed andgathered his mother again into a one-armed imitation of a realbear-hug. I think Jack wiped the last jealous thought out of Mrs.Singleton Corey's mind when he did that. So they clung to each otherlike lovers, and Jack patted her white cloud of hair that he had nevermade bold to touch since he was a baby.

  "My own boy--that I lost from the cradle, and did not know--" Shereached up and drew her fingers caressingly down his weathered cheek,that was losing some of its hardness in the softer air of the South."Jack, your poor old mother has been cheating herself all these years.Cheating you too, dear--"

  "Not much! Your cub of a son has been cheating himself and you. Butyou watch him make it up. And--mother, don't you think maybe all thistrouble has been kind of a good thing after all? I mean--if it'sbrought the real stuff out to the surface of me, you know--"'

  "I know. The gold in us all is too often hidden away under so muchworthless--"

  "Why, forev--" In the doorway Marion checked herself abruptly, becauseshe had resolved to purify her vocabulary of slang and all frivolousexpressions. Her eyelids were pink, her lips were moist and tremulous,her face was all aglow. "I--may I please--mother--"

  Mrs. Singleton Corey did not loosen her hold of Jack, but she held outher free hand with a beckoning gesture. "Come. I'm going to be afoolishly fond old lady, I know. But I want to hold both my childrenclose, and see if I can realize the miracle."

  "Mother!" Jack murmured, as though the word held a wonderful, newmeaning. "Our own, for-keeps mother!"

  THE END

  NOVELS _By_ B.M. BOWER

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