Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1916)

The Glory Road 119 ami claim our love. What is life lor if it's not lor Loving? Without it we might U well kill ourscU His vo.ee was husky with emotion but vibrated with the tremendous intensity oJ his feelings. Never bad she been so moved. Beneath that gentle, infinitely tender speech, trebly enhanced by his restraint, his great yearn ing cried out to her. It shone like a hoi. restoring sun upon the flood-torn desolation of her heart. It offered rest, and haven, and the end of struggle, and indescribable delights. The touch of his hands seemed to transmute the blood in her veins to wine. Hut through her brain went a thought like a bugle call : "No, no ! This mustn't be. I must go. 1 must go before it's too late." She freed one hand, and her dying resolution got her to her feet, repeating: "I must go before it's too late ; if he takes me in his arms I'm lost!" Holt also rose, and there was a swift, wild light in his eyes. Then, before she could resist, he had stepped toward her and gathered her to him and his lips were upon her cheek. And then, as her last instinctive resistance gathered itself, they grew conscious of a sound — a clear tapping on the door. Holt raised his head and stared, a look of dazed fury on his face. "Damn that watchman." he swore under his breath, "I'll kill him !" Again came the knock. With a supreme effort at self-command he released June, who stepped back unsteadily and rested, with her hand upon the edge of the desk. "Well, who is it?" snarled Holt. In reply the door opened, and Paul Temple came slowly into the room. XXIII A FTER two or three steps he stopped ^*~ and stood looking from one to the other, trying to comprehend the scene before him ; June, flushed, drooping, confused, her face a mirror of astonishment ; Holt, furious with exasperation and chagrin, and in a mood for murder. It needed but a glimpse of their attitudes and a moment in that surcharged atmosphere to tell Temple that he had interrupted a crucial seem-. \\ hat it had involved he did not know, ior he had not eavesdropped, and had heard no word-, as he reached the door. Holt and June, sun ilarly, had been so engrossed with their problem, as well as unsuspicious of anyone's coming, thai ihej bad not beard his approach up tin carpeted stairs and through the outer office. Bach confronted the other, then, in equal ignorance. June in her stupefied amazement which now more ami more included apprehension, was the iirst to find speech. "Paul!" And then alter a pause, "How on earth — did you get here.''" She could not cease staring at the familiar figure, tall and sinewy, with an athlete's poise and grace. How familiar the face was, too, lean and strong, with an expression of perpetual wilfulness which experience had given it, and which even his present iron sternness could not dispel. His gray eyes were as cold and cheerless as sea under fog. Temple did not answer at once. As if by instinct he reached behind him and pushed the door shut. Then he walked toward her, ignoring Holt completely, and taking her two lifeless hands in his, looked down into her shrinking face. For an instant he probed her soul, and she felt that there was no iota of her pain, humiliation and struggle that he did not divine. And she, with the strange irrelevancy of such moments, noted the ingrained dust of travel on his blue coat. "Poor girl !" he said, gently. "You look worn out !" Then he dropped her hands and answered her question. "I don't suppose you were expecting me. I didn't intend you should. I wanted to see how things were, myself." She flashed him a hurt look, but he had turned a cold and steady eye upon Holt. "From one thing and another I learned that everything wasn't all right with you. so I came on to find out what was the matter. I went straight from the train to the bungalow, and Elsie told me that you had come here." He omitted mention of all the fears that Elsie had poured into his ears during their few moments together. "And now," he demanded, fiercely, "what are you doing here?" June had no chance to reply, for Holt, whose revived emotions had become jealous fury, broke in :