Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 39: what you’re looking at

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

MUSTERED OUT. 381 hesitate she did, from a feeling she could but partly analyze. Of her fiancé she had already had disturbing secret doubts that had increased of late: doubts of his habits, his character, and the worthiness of his love; so. that it was with a little eddy of dis- satisfaction and shame that she admitted the relationship. More, she questioned her own love as an actual thing. In a startling way, too, this silent, force- ful man, so deadly in earnest and so earn- estly deadly, so terrible in some aspects, seemed at the instant to dwarf the other in stature and power as if the latter were a plump manikin. Perhaps at the last minute she had a shiver of dread at what might issue from the engineer’s lips in the way of facts if he took her at her word and told her what she had demanded to know. Did she want. to know? Suppose she let the affair rest where it-was and went forward to the future in the comfortable assurance of ignorance. In that case, that might be wooing revela- tions that then could not be escaped, like consuming lightnings. She would settle it now once for all. “It does concern my future and my hap- piness, vitally,” she declared, earnestly. “For this reason—” a <3 Yes?” “Tm engaged to marry Ed Sorenson, son of Mr. Sorenson.” Weir leaped to his feet. “Good God! That fellow!” he ex- claimed, astounded. Without another word he sprang down the steps and-strode away. Janet Hosmer, grasping the arms of her chair and staring after him, saw him once bring down his clenched fist on nothing. Then he passed rapidly along the street and out of sight. (To be continued NEXT WEEK.) ustered. by H. Bedford -Jones I ERGEANT ALOYSIUS LARRIGAN inspected the houses ahead—and hesitated. Before he found name and wealth and fame in California film fields, Aloysius Larrigan had been born and raised in New York. Hence, he-knew the metropolis. He knew that behind him on Fifth Avenue were the false jewels; and that here ahead of him was the real thing. Here, half a block off Fifth Avenue, was the house of Jim Bleeker, bunky of Ser- geant Aloysius Larrigan. But the sergeant hesitated, gripping the package a little harder in his hand. Then, mustering up courage, he approached the doorway and rang. The outer door opened, and a stolid but- ler gazed at him. ‘““T_l’ve come to see Mrs. Bleeker,” said the sergeant nervously. “It’s quite early, sir,” answered the but- ler, somehow stifling his first instinct of blank rejection. “1 hardly think, sir, that Mrs. Bleeker is—”’ “Look here!” snapped Larrigan, flush- ing. “I’ve just landed from France. My conmiclooolks.conn