Argosy All-Story Weekly, December 2, 1922 — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

ABOVE SUSPICION. “As things turned out it was a waste 0’ time, wasn’t it, for whilst you two was set- tin’ in your drawin’-room till nigh mornin’ plottin’ and plannin’ to drive him to the wall, somebuddy else did what put him for- ever beyond your reach.” The woman had listened intently, her beautiful lips curled in a smile that was half a sneer. : “Tf I had planned Mr. Benkard’s ruin with Mr. Lane, as you say, why should I help to avenge his death?” “ Because, ma’am, I reckon if you’d hated him bad enough for that you’d ’a’ killed him yourself with your own hands before this,” replied Geoff quietly. Zoe Dawn still stared at him, but grad- ually the yellow glitter in her eyes soft- ened till they deepened to brown once more, and the sneering smile faded from her lips. Then without warning she burst into a storm of great, tearless sobs which welled up from within her, rending and twisting her beautiful body as though it were upon the rack. Geoff glanced uneasily at Dr. Hood, but the latter motioned to him to remain silent, and slowly the terrible sob- bing subsided until at last the woman sank back spent and exhausted in her chair. Then the fat little doctor arose, busied himself for a moment at his medicine cabi- net, and came to her side with a glass in his hand. ‘Drink this, Miss Dawn. It will do you good, and then you can tell us whatever you feel like. We won’t pester you with a single question you don’t want to answer, and nothing you say will go beyond these four walls.” She obeyed and touched his hand grop- ingly, like a child. “Thank you. It is true, what this man says! I would have killed Joe Benkard long ago if I had not loved him too well!” CHAPTER XV. THE SURPRISE PARTY. HE silence was so profound that the measured ticking of the tall clock in ~ the corner sounded like dull hammer strokes and the drowsy twitter of birds seeking their nests among the trees came plainly in at the opened windows. Zoe Dawn clasped her white-gloved hands tight- ly together and began her story. “It is nearly three years now since Jo- seph Benkard saw me at the races and became infatuated with me. He had heard of me, that other men in high places had tried to make me care for them, and I think it must have been these rumors of my sup- posed conquests which piqued him at first, but soon he himself began to care. “T can say this without conceit, for I know that he fought against it, and I have reason to believe that until our meeting he lived only for ambition. From that hour, though, he who had mastered everybody and everything that opposed him, by fair means or foul—he loved me against his own will. As for me, I found after a few months of his strange, half-reluctant devotion that he meant more to me than all the world beside!” Her hands unclasped and she struck the arm of the chair. “What a fool I was! I thought that the world would forget me easily; that I could hide myself from it except for him until Zoe Dawn was no longer remembered. Then I might take my place as his wife. He led me to believe this, of course, and that as soon as he had reached the position of power in the financial world which he had set for himself he would marry me. ‘“‘T had made fools of men, but now the tables were turned. My trust was as blind as any unsophisticated girl’s could have been. For almost two years I was abso- lutely happy, and then, just a few months ago, he changed. He was not tiring, but he was fighting against me and against him- self. I fought back, but it was no use. He told me brutally that there could be no future for us together; that any wife would hamper him in his ambition, but one to whom the breath of past intrigue and scan- dal still clung would defeat all he had worked for and planned. His will. was strongest in the end, you see, and I let him go.” The woman paused, and the soft summer twilight stealing in at the windows .cast ever deepening shadows about her chair. Comicbooks.com — ie ae