Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 4, 1926 — page 75: what you’re looking at

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

WAR SPAWN. painstakingly—just as the builders had built the bridge—begin to build her new life. So in the space of half an hour Judith had run the gamut from despair to hope. So it happens that Tragedy holds the hand of Comedy at times, and perhaps gains courage from the contact. The note had told her to consider the stateroom and its contents at her disposal. With her new resolve to take what ma- terials that fell to her hand in the building of her new life she resolved to go on a voyage of discovery and find what there was for her. She reread the note. Then for the first time during the strenuous hours just passed great tears gathered in her beautiful eyes and dropped upon the note. The soft, womanly part of her nature had been reached by kindness. The occasion seemed to justify this exhibition of emotion. Ju- dith had known so little kindness during her nineteen years! Before she started on her voyage of dis- covery it seemed fitting to Judith that she should make preparations for the journey. She dried her tears and sat down on the carpet and removed her shoes and stock- ings. These she made into a parcel. The open porthole invited. She threw the bun- dle into the sea. Then utter recklessness possessed her. She unbuttoned her soiled gingham dress. This slipped. to the floor, and she stepped out of it, feeling, somehow, that she was discarding, bit by bit, all vestige of the old life. Resolutely she bound the rest of her ‘clothes into a tight parcel, and tossed them through the porthole to join the shoes and stockings. Then she removed the bandage from her forehead, leaving only the adhesive tape to hold the cut together. She bound up her hair into a great rope around her head. A moment later she stood in the bath- room designed for Ivy Fenwick, with the delightfully scented soap in the silver soap dish, and the water that poured hot and cold streams into the big, fluted, white conch-shell bathtub, pink lined and satiny finished. 5 AD 385 Through the portholes came delicious, invigorating whiffs of sea air. Judith slid into the water with a little sigh of satisfac- tion. ae CHAPTER VIL. THE MOONLIGHT SONATA, & N deck several hours later Stephen was tramping restlessly up and down, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed upon the floor. Dinner was over. He and the doctor had played interminable games of shuffleboard. It seemed to him the day would never end. The doctor, sitting back in a steamer chair with his feet elevated, was content- edly smoking and watching the glories of their first sunset out. He considered him- self a lucky dog to have fallen into so fine a berth just when he was almost down and out from his wound. Through the swirl of smoke from his cigar he watched the changing of the rose ~ of the horizon to opalescent tints of sap- phire, violet, yellow, deepening to crimson at the edge where the sky met the sea. The Psyche seemed sailing in a rainbow as the colors were reflected in the waters. Stephen was not watching the nature- painted seascape, though he had been known in times past to climb high moun- tain peaks for the sake of viewing a sunset or a sunrise. He continued to pace rest- lessly up and down, “I think I’d better go below and see how my young patient is progressing,” said the doctor at last, tossing the glowing end of his cigar into the sea. The sun had now definitely departed, leaving-a delicate mem- ory in its afterglow. ‘Good idea, old man.” Stephen paused in his pacing and laid a large, well-shaped hand upon the doctor’s shoulder. “ I wrote a note and tucked it under her door after Owonto took her lunch to her. It just occurs to me that perhaps she can’t read.” ‘“Oh, she doubtless can!” rejoined the doctor. ‘‘ American kids usually have a smattering of education.” ‘“ How old is she, fourteen or fifteen?” -sked Stephen idly. (E@) 200K