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THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE
from the floor and made a gesture as tho trying to clear a mist away. The mist refused to clear. With the same vagaries of movement, the Man-WhoHad-BeennRedwin put on his hat and coat, passed out of his office into the street and disappeared.
A week later, the papers screamed with the Inexplicable Absence of the multi-millionaire. Hints of foul play set men 's heads to shaking gravely. A hundred or more mothers, wrathful at being defrauded, began to furbish up their daughters for another market. And the world wagged on its way.
Two months after the disappearance of Robert Redwin, when the papers had relegated the case to the obscurity of the fourth page, sixth column, to make room for later wars, divorces and murders, a shabby figure stood at a tiny backwoods Tennessee station, half -fainting from hunger and weariness. Thru strange ways the Man-Who-Was-Redwin had traveled to this place, selling the jewelry he had found upon him in pawnshops to buy bread and cheese; tramping the roads; working like a laborer in the hay-fields with soft, white hands that bled and tortured, and puzzled, weary eyes, always seeking — seeking something. This vague need had harried him on, driving his swollen feet over railroad-ties, his starved, rag-clad body thru days of torture; now he could go no further. It seemed a bitter thing to his poor, bewildered, unremembering mind that the agent in this little station would not let him die in peace on the platform ; that was all he wanted, just to die comfortably in the shade, but the man would not understand. He talked loudly and rudely. The Man-Who-Had-Been Redwin swayed under the agent's brusque shove and fell sprawling loosely across the dusty road.
He supposed, as the light faded from his eyeballs, that he had died.
Later, when he opened the tired eyes, he was sure of it. Above him was a face kind and gentle and lovely, he thought dimly, as, when he was a
little boy, he had imagined angels' faces were. Soft hands were on his forehead, with peace in the touch — and he had longed so for peace ! With a tired sob, he put out his hand like a child and clutched a gown.
' ' Dont go ! " whispered the ManWho-Was-Redwin, huskily. "I'm so tired — I 've come so far !• You wouldn 't go now, would you ? ' '
The girl's face was very tender, very pitiful. She took the wandering hand in her own strong clasp, and it was an anchor to his wandering senses.
"No, I'll stay hyar," smiled Josephine Blake. "Dont y'u fret, I'll stay."
Later, over the food that she set out for him, the Man-Who-Was-Redwin listened to her soft-syllabled tale of how she and her grandfather had found him at the station and brought him home. The man listened solemnly, eyes on the lovely face before him. Hungry as his body was for the bacon and corn-pone on the table, his soul was hungrier, and he fed deeply of her sweetness and simplicity. Yet still he remembered nothing. He was like a new-created Adam first looking on Eve. To him there had never been other women — her face awoke no memory of other faces, daring-eyed, bold, painted. Yet some far, deep voice of his soul cried gladly: "It is She!"
Like timeless things, the days passed now in the cabin by the "crick." The Man-Who-Was-Redwin learnt to do many things, awkwardly, like a child — to saw wood, to hoe corn and to love a woman. Always, whatever he was doing, his seeking eyes would roam until they came to her, and rested there with a feeling of deep peace. He said little to her, but their eyes spoke often — his, pleading, wistful ; hers, shy, yet beginning to fill with the clear light that maidens burn only for their lovers on the secret, holy altars of their souls.
It was afternoon. In the shade of the big cottonwood on the edge of the corn-field grandpop slept the serene