Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1916)

104 Pickles and Pearls of the peerless beauty, and the advertising had been carefully cut away. Charlie sat back with the picture in his hands. As he gazed at the charming face, he sighed heavily ; then he looked around warily, and, feeling positive he was unobserved, he pressed the poster picture to his lips. At last, in one keen, vibrant moment, he had analyzed his elusive emotions. It had required a train wreck and a narrow escape to bring the truth home to him, but now he knew. Ah, yes, he had succumbed to the charms of the fair girl who was that day to be wedded to a counterfeit duke ! He sighed again, and again touched his lips to the picture of Miss McTodd. "How dare you ! That picture belongs to me, if you please!" Charlie almost dropped the picture in his astonishment. He turned, to see De Yere sitting up at the foot of the oak, aye, and regarding him with baleful eyes. "Then you are alive !" exclaimed Charlie. "Certainly I am alive ! I have as much right to be alive as you have. You thought I had succumbed, and that you could go on to Boggsville alone, return the tiara, and save the Pearl of the McTodds from the designs and false pretenses of Jack O' Byrne. But I am entitled to as much credit as yourself for unmasking this false pretender! If Lola and her father are to choose between Harold de Vere, millionaire, and Charlie, the night watchman, the result is not difficult to forecast. I shall be the favored one. But," and De Vere's voice grew bitter, "you have deceived me ! You yourself are in love with Lola McTodd !" "Talking about rights," returned Charlie, with spirit, "did you ever read a love story, De Vere ?" "Have I not, indeed! But what of that?" "Tell me, did you ever read one novel in which the girl failed to marry the man who saved her life?" There was triumph in Charlie's voice as he added : "I have saved Lola twice — twice !" De Yere dropped his head suddenly, and pulled a splinter out of his red coat. Too true, ran his bitter reflections, this Charlie had rescued the lovely Lola McTodd more than once ; but "I had more to do with preserving Miss McTodd from that infernal machine than you had !" asserted De Yere, throwing up his head quickly. "What could you have done if I had not overheard O'Byrne talking with Pridby there in the hotel? You basely left me under the rim of the Italian fountain, and went on to rescue Lola yourself. And it was equally base of you to take all the credit." Physically, Harold had not been injured in the least. Mentally, however, he was in a terrible state. Charlie did not wish to quarrel with De Yere. They had worked together for several days, and had passed through grievous dangers and hardships side by side. Now, it was too bad that a woman should come between them and kill their friendship. "Harold," said Charlie soothingly, "it must be ten o'clock." "How do I know what o'clock it is?" was the petulant rejoinder. "My watch was stolen while I was hurrying to the factory that night, to save you from the infernal machine." "Ten o'clock at least," pursued Charlie, "and Boggsville is forty miles away !" "Forty or four hundred, what is that to me ?" "But at three this afternoon the supposed duke weds Miss McTodd ! Can you so soon forget the fair Lola and the net of deceit in which she has been caught?" "Ah, me, the wedding!" Harold struck his forehead heavily. "I had