Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 101: what you’re looking at

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

OUT OF THE WORLD FOR A WHILE. It had rained a little during the day, and it was a soft night with stars showing on a velvet background where white clouds were falling back to the western horizon. Seagrave had a sense of well-being. He seemed to have had a renewal of his youth. Physically he had never felt better. His mental and physical reaction seemed to be complete. There was content in his heart. He felt like a man freed from chains which had bound him for a Jong time. Even his situation with his wife did not depress him. Without any great stretch of the imagi- nation, he might have pictured himself going to call on her as he had done in his younger days. He was borrowing somehow from the sweet serenity of that old time. The amusement and the physical satis- faction which he had got out. of his en- counter with Radcliffe and Allison was still with him. He had chuckled over the gro- tesque outcome of their attempt to catch him in that trap which had held him for so long. He saw that he had been the child of a kindly fate. The fairies of good will must have laughed, too, at the dis- comfiture of his blundering enemies. He had made haste that morning to straighten out his debt to Radcliffe. Holmes had let him have the money to make up the sum he needed and a little more to go on and square himself with his tailor. He went round one square to lend color to his fiction that he was merely going for a stroll, and that brought him to a corner near the old home. He let the fiction go then, and went up to the house. As he approached the door it was opened and Miller came out. He turned to speak to Ruth, who was standing in the doorway. Then he came down the walk. Seagrave stopped so that Ruth would have time to close the door before he ac- costed Miller. Miller peered at him through the gloom without seeming to recognize him at first. “What ’re you doing here?” Seagrave demanded. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it?” Miller asked. “ All dolled up, aren’t you? Well, I don’t know as it’s any of your business what I’m doing here. It’s a free country, more or less, and I can still go and come as I like.” 127 Seagrave put a hand on his arm and his fingers bit into Miller’s soft flesh. “You keep away from here from now on,” Seagrave ordered. “ If you don’t—” A swinging fist was more eloquent than the finishing of the sentence would have been. Miller jerked himself free. ‘You keep your dirty hands off me,” he said violently. “ You may be able to hang your bluffs on men like Allison and Rad- cliffe, but it don’t go with me.” ‘“T’ve a notion to slap your face,” Sea- grave declared. “ That ’d be about your speed.” “TI wish you would,” Miller retorted. “If you did, I’d have you pinched, and you’d know what the inside of a cell was like—not, I guess, that you don’t know already. Go on with your slapping. I’ve got my face right here with me.” Seagrave turned from him and started up the walk. “You wouldn’t fight back,” he said. “There isn’t a scrap in the whole bunch of you. Get out of here and stay out.” Before he rang the doorbell he looked back. Miller was standing where he had - left him, looking after him, and Seagrave could imagine the malevolence in the man’s eyes. He could not, however, imagine the venom that was in Miller’s heart. Miller was without the slightest conscience. He had not a man’s strength, and he had to be wily where another man would have been strong. There was nothing he would not stoop to. He was still standing there, his lips twist- ed and his eyes blazing, when Ruth opened the door to admit Seagrave. He departed, muttering vile oaths when Seagrave entered the house and closed the door behind him. Seagrave, without knowing it, had stepped on a rattlesnake. The snake had not struck—yet. In the house Seagrave was not thinking of Miller. He saw the quick scrutiny his wife gave him, and he smiled at her. ‘“‘ What are you thinking?” he challenged her. She shook her head and led him into the 2 library. “You wanted to see Grace?” she asked, comIrebooks . - «tae < ~, — . ee Ce ee ee > = OS oe ico a See