The Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1914)

MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE ■ it dizzy on any i by man, bul the Loftiness of bis planning caught bis breath and made bis brain reel. He in love, but did not yet realize it. i lt 1 1 1 clean-lived years bad taughl him none of the Bymptoms. All thai he realized now was a face re liim ever— waking, sleeping and yonder on the daily heights he trod. Margarel what a smile she bad! bis bear! thrilled to the mera ,,!•> of it and her small, pale hands like white violets, and her month The boy blushed and stemmed the enrrenl of his thoughts resolutely, calling himself a fool — the old tale of the employer's beautiful daughter and the poor apprentice over again. Well, he'd oever tell her, anyhow; he'd just beat it for another citv and — " Here Pate took a hand. Oul of a towering loft building stumbled a man, frantic with haste, and on his footsteps a curl of threatening gray. "Fire!" shrilled the man. hysterically '" tin —fire — fire " 3top, you fool!" Frank was :ing him in healthy disdain. '•Why. John:" The boy wrenched himself tree. his horror-stamped face writhed another expression, a sort of cringing shame. "Margaret" — he d a shaking thumb backward — ride there leggol I 'm goin1 f'r help." lh jerked free and swayed. ghing and muttering, down the • Prank waited to hear no more. ! to clean, onbreathed, upper air, he i thru the murk of the up up, calling aloud the his tongue: Wl e yout Bweetheart, I 'm me uncon jely, it was the onlj as she was slip ' out into th< .„,,,. . id. n joy ■■ ing her I mmd the will t, ■ aloud. And th( □ : i her, his arms about her, and she was no longer afraid. No stranger wooing ever wooed than this — no more terrible background than that stain of wavering red and gray. "The laces — John was here to steal them. I tried to stop him — his cigaret " She did not realize that she was confessing her brother \s guilt. The woman-instinct to put off the longed-for confession of love was hers even in this place of death. "Margaret!" he cried, unlistening; then, over and over, "Margaret — Margaret — Margaret " That was all, but enough ; and in the midst of the smoke and flame their lips met for one ecstatic moment. Then he swung her to his shoulder and turned to fight a way to the street. "And I'm to go up this afternoon/' Frank cried eagerly. "One hundred advance pay — one hundred more when it's done. Pretty soft, eh? One more job like this, and we'll be able to start housekeeping." The sure joy of possession thrilled his tone as well as the proprietory hand he laid across the girl's. Stephen looked at the pair pridefully ; then his glance caught his son. and he sighed. John sat sullenly, crumbling his bread on the cloth, with no appearance of listening; yet below the heavy lids his eyes gleamed covetously. One hundred already! lie glanced slyly at Prank. Perhaps in his pocket this moment! Not all the wealth in the world would have tempted him to take Prank's place astride the steel hands of the great clock in the tallest tower in the city — what good was money to a dead fellow, anyhow .' Vet Q< sented the other's acquirement of the job. Margaret's eyes were tragic. "Oh, Prank!" it was a wail o\' primitive womanfear — "but the tower's high. When I was a little girl 1 used to think it reached to heaven. Donl Lr<> never mind the money. I'm — I'm afraid!" "Nonsense, child," Laughed the loxrw easily; "it's a eineh. The superintendent and some of the fel