Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb 1914 - Sep 1916 (assorted issues))

40 TEE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE her call. Suddenly she paused in her work. "He has not seemed so strong of late; perhaps he is tired and thirsty. I'll take him a pitcher of fresh, warm milk," she decided, and hurried to the barnyard to carry out the first necessity of her plan. Her cow, sedately chewing its cud, eyed Rose in mild surprise at the untimeliness of this performance, but the slim little hands soon coaxed the compliance of the beast, and from the milking-pail the pitcher was filled foamingly. Then Rose hurried off toward the fields. "Oh, there he is*!" Rose whispered to herself, as she neared the ranks of shocked corn, and, as always when she came to him, her heart swelled with tenderness. Suddenly she stopped, with a little gasp of amazement. Lester was not alone. With a feeling of physical sickness, Rose noted the bold beauty, the handsome garments and the easy poise of the woman to whom Lester was speaking in so animated and familiar a manner. The woman turned away, paused and said smilingly : "You will want a name to call me by when we meet again. Well, mine is Florine." Then she threw him a kiss and strolled away. For a few moments Lester watched her admiringly; then, with an air of buoyant cheerfulness, strode across the field toward his neglected corn. With grave, troubled eyes and a "dull ache in her breast, Rose retraced the path she had come. "It — it hurts so," she moaned softly, "but if it will make him happy, I must not mind, or let him know I know." Nor did the girl, in the days that followed, for one moment allow her husband to suspect that she knew — what all the neighbors knew. This was, perhaps, the most cruel part of it all, for Rose had, for all her gentleness, a high, white pride, and she knew how spiteful gossip played with her husband's name, his and the Strange Woman's. Once, indeed, the farmfolk came to her, under guise of pity and friendship, and her spirit flared up in haughty anger. Coldly she bade them begone. What her husband chose not to tell her, if, indeed, what they said was true, she would not hear from other lips. But when, outraged at her hardness, the women had gone, the girl wept bitter tears. Even in her wish to be the more tender and loving, Rose was unknowingly driving Lester from her. In the frame of mind to which he had come, her caresses but irritated him, her kisses cloyed. With pathetic earnestness, she strove to do still more for him in little, intimate ways of which he never knew: to wash his garments, to prepare for him the food he liked best, the dishes of which now, alas ! went frequently untasted. These things were to her a precious joy. One afternoon, when the valley seemed fairly brimming with the amber air and golden sunshine, this impulse came to her as she was gathering the apples that had fallen from the old tree beside her kitchen window, and, with a happy little smile, she selected a dozen of the finest and set out for the fields. For a while Rose failed to locate Lester, as he was hidden by the corn, but, at length, she came suddenly upon him, and she felt her heart strain to breaking in her breast, for the Strange Woman was with him, and it did not need the interpretation of love for her to read the meaning of the look upon his face. They did not observe her, for the stacked corn shielded her, and for a little time she remained, still and helpless in her pain. Their words came plainly to her ears. "This is good-by, Freddy," the Strange Woman said, and, curiously, there was a tremor in her voice. "Good-by? Why?" Lester demanded. "Because I am going away — tonight. Playtime is over." "But— but I cant let you go!" he cried, in almost angry protest. "Why, what would I do without you? For the first time in my life I've had some one to whom I could talk, some