Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Glory Road 111 "Lord!" •■ I'his is the point. Awhile ago l got a letter from Paul asking me if everything was all right with June. He saiil that seeing she was with me everything would be all right, of course. But 1 didn't like that. h showed in the first pi. tic that he was suspicious of something, and in the second that he was passing the buck u> me. 1 keep out of other people's business, so l got out from under this." "I'h? .How ?" "1 wrote Temple to come on here. Just that. Didn't try to tell anything, because I don't know anything. But 1 thought if anybody ought to look after his property, it was him and not me. And that's the way things stand now." "Is he coining?" "I don't know. I haven't heard from him. hut I should think if he was coming he'd wire me. Now what do vou think about all this, Tom?" The man's brows knit, and his face grew anxious as he mutilated his cigar. For the first time he seemed to realize the seriousness of the situation. Elsie felt relief at the thought of his strong shoulder helping to share the burden that had grown heavier of late than she cared to bear alone. He suddenly struck the table with his fist. "By thunder!" he exclaimed. "We just finished that picture in time, didn't we? I had a little luck for once !" The music had stopped and the dancers were moving back to their tables. As Elsie sat there speechless, the others of the partv approached the table and dropped into their seats. With the maddening cheerfulness of the unconscious, Briscoe turned to Miss Tremaine with an amiable remark. Elsie almost had apoplexy. The conversation between them was not resumed. XXI COR Stephen Holt the day of June's promised evening visit to his office was the longest of his life. Every consideration gave way before the great question. "Will she give up Temple or not?" He was in a fever of anxiety that would yield to no sedative of mind or body. Alternately he touched the heights and depths of expectation as he soared with hope or tumbled like Lucifer in despair. "Oh, she will do it, she will be reasonable," he would tell himself, eagerly, in one phase. "And if she w ill just free herself— I'm not afraid then. She lows me now, and once free of I Vniple — " He saw himself triumphant ; in imagina (ion experienced June's next and final siir render; visualized ever) ecstatic detail of their union, and felt himself, at the mere thought of it. gloriously strengthened and grateful proof againsl any calamity life could bring him. "l>ut her conscience, her sense of duty! She'll never give in, never!" he would suddenly think in reaction, and begin again his breath-taking plunge into the abyss. "Love me' God! What a conceited fool I am. to think that a girl like that from another world would look at a raw. selfish, cruel brute like me. Oh what a fool I've been to think that she might love me! I ought to be thankful that she lets me see her now and then. No! She'll turn me down, Briscoe and all. and then what'll 1 do? God, what'll I do then?" His desire and need of her grew, for he was suffering ; not in the bleeding way of very sensitive natures, but stolidly with a mute, animal-like endurance that had something pathetic about it. The punishment softened him and brought to the surface a new tenderness towards her which was the result of mutual experience, for he had seen her suffer. He remembered her as he had seen her last, crumpled in her chair, white, pitiful, broken, and with himself standing over her harsh and relentless, and an infinite longing to take her in his arms and obliterate the memory of that cruelty with tenderness rushed over him, combined with the bitterest self-denunciation and abasement. "Oh, God forgive me for that !" he prayed. "What kind of a dog am I that I could treat her like that !" He wanted to kneel at her feet and beg her forgiveness, to humble himself in any way that would bring him relief. And then, as always, the old resentment, the old sting of defeat, came hack. "But hadn't she earned it? Hadn't she deserved it?" He had tried every other way to make her listen to reason — He began to ask himself what spring of motive or desire actuated her indomitable stubbornness. The answer did not come at first, but presently he saw : her duty to