Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1916)

CLASSIC who loves the sound of a certain name, '‘Harold — lover — mate !”' The man jumped from his horse, and for one filched moment from the miser hands of perfect bliss they wrung their halcyon hours back again. Life is full of such happenings as that, after all. Page upon page, chapter upon chapter of dull pedantry ; then suddenly, unexpectedly, with the radiance of a brilliant gem, one comes across a perfect thought clothed in most perfect rhythm, and the quivering echoes haunt the heart with the sad fragrance of pot-pourri till the heart is a crumpled thing itself. How our little pawns of selves are moved back and forth across the board, and here and there, and hither and thither, not even immortal Omar could divulge, but turned in his quaint wisdom to declaim, “He knows about it all; He knows — He knows!” “I am going home — to England,” Harold said, after the first rapture and the assurance that John was riding the range and only a deaf but abhorrent black was on the place. “My father has died — and I must take the title. But .1 am going back — a murderer ■” Madge raised her head. “A — what?” she asked. “I killed my brother, my darling; that is why I left you so without a word. My father sent me forth to wander upon the face of the earth with the brand of Cain upon me. I ” The woman threw back her glorious head and faced him. “Listen to me, core of my heart,” she commanded ; “you are as guiltless of that crime as you were in your mother’s womb. I did not know of your flight — because — John killed Lionel, best beloved, and he forced me to fly with him. Lionel came to me and remonstrated with me after your quarrel with him. I resented it and struggled to break loose from him. John forced a longsought-for entrance at that moment, and killed your brother Lionel in a jealous fury.” Harold stared at her as one who dreams over long of grewsome horrors and wakes, at last, to the peace of a quiet room and a balmy, untroubled day. “You have taken the brand of Cain from my shoulders,” he whispered ; “it has never left me, and neither has your face, my love, my queen. You have crept into my very veins, and you stir me to deliriums. Seven years I have hungered and thirsted for you ; sweated for you ; moaned for you in my sleep. I have been like a man on a vast desert who gasps in his parched, swollen throat for a draught of water. I have raved for you ; sobbed incoherently to God for the touch of you ; cursed you, my sweet, for the very desire you have inoculated me with. And now I shall never let you go. You must come home with me — to stay.” Madge crept close to him. In her gypsy blood there was no law but one — to follow her man tho he lead to the outermost brink of the world. “Come back for me tomorrow,” she begged, “and I will go.” Red John was there when he came, and he leered at him as he faced him sullenly. Madge, crouching behind a clump of bushes, watched the gypsy suspiciously, and her tired eyes gleamed. John whipped a pistol from his belt and threw one to Harold. “I’ve fought for her once, by Gar!’’ he said, “and I’ll do it again.” He paused and looked at the woman, gloatingly. She raised a deprecatory hand. “If both of you should go,” she begged, “what of me — then?” John laughed harshly. “There’s the black in the kitchen,” he said noisomely. Madge shrank back and Harold dropped his pistol. “I wouldn’t fight a dog like you,” he said. “We’ll toss a coin for the one to shoot.” The coins tossed and John picked his up. “You win,” he said. Harold paused, and in that pause (Thirty-seven)