Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine, Vol. 107 No. 3 — page 38: what you’re looking at

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

380 “Lost it,” Hildreth grumbled. ‘“ She knows now. Some stenographer, confi- dential secretary, entrusted with this money —frightened to death that it’s missing!”’ He dropped off, stopped uncertainly a moment. A stranger, without friends, iden- tity or abiding place in Chicago—the night and the storm could swallow him. He glanced acutely at the money case, turned the bills’ edges. Five at least were for a thousand each, then many of five hundred under a rubber band, as some‘ paying-teller must have passed them out to a girl messenger. Hildreth dropped the thing into his top- coat pocket. It seemed to press against his side with a mocking, malignant jeer at him —his hopes, despair, and acute need at a time of his own crisis. Thousands—dropped to his hand without question or possibility of discovery. A walk of half a block, a turn of a cor- ner, and he was a free man again, his honor saved, his good name and his family’s re- stored; he could take the night flier East to home, and be himself again to-morrow, without question; debonair, the witty and lovable chap of his mother’s and sister’s set. It just needed such @ little thing to pull him out—a few thousands were enough and here was a small fortune. It was Hildreth’s luck—Lionel’s luck, for he had never hada rough-and-tumble. ‘smash in his life until that affair of Jimmy Brandon’s last summer-~which had driven him into this present corner, trapped; his mouth sealed for his friend—and he had dropped out of his own life with a smile, to make good again, as he had promised him- self so buoyantly—auntil now. The entiré melancholy incongruity of it all flashed through his mind as he stood with his fingers in his pocket on the bill- case. A little thing—such a little thing—. can make or break one. He had half- turned away, shutting his eyes against some new, sudden, despicable aspect of his sur- render, when he saw the girl again. He almost cursed under his breath; then he was conscious of a growing wonder. - There she was, strolling on slowly in the slant of the rain. Only a glimpse of her face, pale, with dark eyes wide, the collar ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE. of her rough coat upturned, the pink of her edx showing delicately among the corusca- tions of water drops on her hair when she passed the blaze of a jeweler’s window with the thousand facets of its display reflecting upon her. She even seemed pitifully in- terested for a moment in the diamond cases, as one consciously trying to distract an overwrought mind by a pretense of forget- fulness. . Hildreth stepped slowly along behind her. He became conscious of a merciless analysis of her; she was too well groomed, a per-— sonality too distinctive to be wandering in a Chicago street in this aimless fashion; al- ready a man or two—even in the storm— had turned to glance at her. ‘“And the money?” argued Hildreth. “One would think she’d be in a panic— her face was tragic when I first saw it. She ought to # appealing to the police, trying to find that car number, or some- thing. Well, did she lose it?” He thought swiftly of the other girl— the. veiled girl in the car aisle who had given that one acute, comprehending glance at him as he descended. Then his black rebellion came; he need not inquire of either of them, of none in the world; he could slink away in the crush of the street. Yes, that was it—sl¢mk/ And instantly Hildfeth knew it was useless to bully him- self. Slink/ It occurred to him that he didn’t know how. He had stood four-square to every man until his partner, Brandon, got him isto this fix—and he had gone West last summer to make that good, too. And he would—that he happened to be in Chi- cago, broke, to-day, was merely an incident —a thoughtless oversight and stubborn re- luctance to let his people know. He looked again across the street to the girl. ‘“Oh, bother! She’s dazed—walking as in a stupor! Stunned—trying to think how to account to her employers! Trying to buck up!” He hastened as she turned out of State Street. He just wanted to see her face again ere he addressed her. Two blocks distant among the wind-swept, gloomy of- fice buildings he almost touched her arm. Once the storm staggered her; he reached’a COMICEDOO© C)) S Co mM