We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
THE MAKING OF A MAN
55
THEY INVOKE THE AID OF THE LAW
Traver and Ruth slipped into the next room just as the enraged deacon, with Sam and a few curious followers, confronted Jack Weldon. They found him quietly smoking and insolently cool to their heated inquiries. They retired baffled and left the hotel on false scents. While they were scouring the town, Ruth and Morton Traver had found a minister to marry them. With the help of Jack Weldon, they evaded the searching party that evening. The next morning, they were discussing the probability of the deacon having returned home, when a furious hammering at the door startled them. Traver hadn 't time to reach it before it was burst open. Deacon Merritt had invoked the aid of the law; it was the constable who demanded the return of the daughter to the outraged father. With his arm about Ruth, Traver faced the crowd.
' ' I rather think, ' ' he said, ' ' that a wife cannot be taken from her husband."
There was a good, honest glow about his heart as he drew the marriage certificate from his pocket and displayed it to the father. The deacon tapped it with a furious and contemptuous finger.
"The girl is not of age!" he almost screamed. "I have a legal authority over her till she is: and as long as there's a breath in my bodv, she
shan't go traipsing over the country with any unregenerate play-actor!"
There was nothing to be said in argument. Traver, with the instinct of the primal man for protecting his own, tried to keep her by force; but she was torn from his arms, and as her father bore her away, the constable held the infuriated husband back.
That was the turning-point in Traver 's career. The dissatisfaction that had germinated after the meeting with Ruth was growing apace. He felt that he was wasting his life — he was doing the easiest, just drifting along. He wanted to be better in every way ; he wanted to win respect for himself, both as an actor and a man. So he left the repertoire company and set his face toward the big city, where he intended, by study and hard work, to rise to a higher plane.
Back in her Scubville home, conditions were worse than ever for poor Ruth. Berated by her father, shunned by her younger sisters, twitted by her owl-eyed student brother, who was aspiring to a fire-and-brimstone ministry, she longed for the affection of her husband and the larger, freer life he offered her. She could not go to him till she was of age. for her father would find her and bring her
SEARCHING Till' " HELP C'OI.IM NS
WANTED