Motion Picture Story Magazine (Aug 1912-Jan 1913)

56 THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE deep interest, leveled his opera-glasses on the unconscious face of the count. "Bravo !" he said. "I have felt all along that I knew the man — now I know it. He is one of the most notorious rogues of society in Italy, and is wanted badly by the * Brotherhood, ' a political secret society. ' ' " Badly?" asked Walter. "Badly — so badly that the slightest hint to him that he is recognized, and you will never see him again. " Two hours later, Walter and Pesca waited for the count 's return in his own drawing-room. They were armed and prepared for any emergency. A merry humming announced his coming, and the two stood before him. "I have come to exact an entire confession," announced Walter, grimly, "of the crime perpetrated against Laura, Lady Glyde." "And I, as the secretary of the ' Brotherhood, ' ' ' chimed in Pesca, "which you betrayed, have come to bear witness. ' ' The expression on the round face of the corpulent man with the noiseless tread was impossible to describe — a mixture of irony, terror, and feline cunning. But the result was inevitable. He sat down with remarkable agility, and the long and explicit confession flew from his pen. When the job was done, Walter bowed, took it from him, and started to withdraw. The man smiled, and burst into fluent Italian to Pesca. The little man sadly shook his head. On the morning following the next night, the huge body of a foreignlooking man was found in an unfrequented part of St. John's Wood. Absolutely no trace of identification was found upon his body or clothing. A singular thing was the size of the wound causing his death ; it was very small and shaped like the letter T, which stands for "Traditore" in Italian. But a few things more remain to be said. With Fosco's death, and his confession in Walter's possession, the health of Laura improved rapidly, her eyes lost their haunted look, and the faint pink of the primrose sought her cheeks again. Retribution sought out, with heavy hand, Sir Percival Glyde, too, for as Walter was about to journey to Blackwater and confront the baronet with the criminal evidence, he received news that Sir Percival Glyde had perished miserably in a fire. He had been seen to go, late at night, into his study with a mass of papers; in the morning he was found suffocated in their ashes. Less than a year afterwards, the church registry of a London parish church showed this simple entry : "Married, Laura Fairlie, daughter of Philip Fairlie, of Limmeridge House, Cumberland, and Walter Hartridge, London." The Song of an Usher By LILLA B. N. WESTON All up and down the shadowed ways, I daily pass with velvet tread ; A braided jacket on my back, With rakish scrolls of blue and red. And when, with superhuman skill, I've seated scores of humankind, I must perforce step briskly back And drone to whosoe'er I find, Whether they be tucked or frilled, Accompanied or lonely — "Lower floor entirely filled — Balcony seats only!" Ah. I have caught the cloud that flits Across a hundred waiting eyes, Till I've begun to wonder if, When I cross o'er to Paradise, And stand with eyes unlocked, unsealed, To view the Great Performance plain, That I have lived and died to see, Will I be met with this refrain, Uttered by some voice long-drilled, Unredeemed and lonely — "Lower floor entirely filled — Balcony seats only!"