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

THE WITNESS TO THE WILL 51 and his long arm shot out. The steep cliff, with its sheer fall to murderous depths below, was but a pace away. Taken unaware, Terence stumbled ; there was a brief snatching of the empty air, a gasping sound ; then the sickening impact of flesh on bottomless depths, and the last silence. Beldon cowered under the thing he had done; then flew, with the sly, furtive haste of the habitual fugitive from the law. A little letter, tear-stained and broken of heart and spirit, had sped its way over the seas, and the recipient sent the answer in his own person. The letter had said that the address would probably be a different one by the time he should return, and, not knowing of the circumstances under which Marjorie had left Thorndyke Hall, Lieutenant Preble came there direct from his ship to ascertain. He came by the wooded path, and he remembered, with a catch in his throat, of the tender vows that little path had witnessed, and of the delicate, love-touched lips that had made them precious sweet. He wondered what manner of sordid, combative words those lips had had to frame since then, and, as he was wondering, with a half-tender, half-grim smile curving his lips, he heard a slight groan, from the depths of the ravine. Terence was a hardy Irishman, brawny and hard and resilient, else had that groan never issued from his lips. When the Lieutenant reached him, he found a broken arm and considerable surface damage, but nothing that would endanger the life of the supposed corpse. With imprecations and threats, the Irishman told his tale, from the witnessing of the will down to his resolution to face Beldon and demand what had become of it. 4 'He thinks you are dead, Terence," said the Lieutenant, "and — " "And small wonder to that!" ejaculated Terence, excitedly, "afther the pushing av me into kingdom come. It's a murderer he is in his cursed heart, and it's such that the Blessed Virgin sees him." "Well, Terence," continued Preble, after the outburst had subsided into half-audible mutterings, "my plan is to go to the house and confront Beldon. He's a coward, else he would not have done this deed. That he's guilty is obvious for the same reason. He'll be badly frightened at sight of you, and we may get a confession from him." Beldon was cowering in the library, when Terence stepped in at one of the unhinged French windows. A half-emptied decanter stood beside him, and the hand that drained the glass trembled as he set it down. Terence crept silently around the chair and faced him suddenly, an awful, accusing figure, blood-stained and ashen from the fall. "God!" yelled the would-be murderer; then, crashing the decanter to the floor, "it's this cursed whisky that's doing this " "The will, Misther Beldon," said Terence, gutturally; "where is the will?" ' < A million hells ! ' ' Beldon pulled open the secretary near him and thrust a sealed paper into the very tangible hands extended to receive it. Then he sank into the chair and pulled the whisky-glass to him. Spring had dawned over Thorndyke Hall, the spring of the earth and the richer spring of two close hearts. Banished into a past, too gray to be recalled, was the time of grim struggle and hardship. Perhaps, in a happier world than this, the Major's heart found peace in the supremacy of the right, and sought, even there, to work a miracle in the broken spirit of the son he had so sorrowed. Terence, the groom, was driving them, Marjorie and her lover-husband, and their hands met under the light robe. "Dearness," she whispered softly, "the darkest hour is just before the dawn — isn't it?" "And, oh, beloved!" he answered, "the dawn is wondrous fair."