Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

26 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY She believed the district attorney had not been deceiving her, when lie had promised to help Jerry. She saw what the obstinate hatred of the gangsters for the man they looked upon as their enemy had blinded them to. That Langham would be replaced by another district attorney, if he were killed. Then the evidence he had collected would still be used against the crowd. They would be no better off than they were before. And Jerry would have lost a friend in authority who had pledged himself to plead his case in court. That night, with a note she had written, telling Laiigham under no circumstances to ride to Rose Mount in his tliis isn't a passing infatuation on your part ?" ■'Sweetheart !" Herndon answered, with a note of reproach in his voice. '"How can you doubt me? But hurry — this is our chance to get safely away together. He must be at Rose Mount, by this time. It will take him at least an hour to return. And by that time we can be safely on board the steamer, wdiich sails for South America in less than three hours more." But at that moment, Langham was talking over the telephone in a road house only ten minutes outside the city limits on the way to Rose jNIount. "Jerry has escaped?" he repeated ex "Gee," Nance lied, "it was such a pipe last night that I came back again to rob you 1 automobile, but to go by train instead, Nance was once more in the district attorney's home — for a second time having effected a burglarious entrance there. She stopped short, as she came along the hall on tiptoe toward the door of his library. Voices were borne to her from the room beyond its closed door. "Enid !" — Herndon was pleading. "Come away w-ith me, my darling. You don't need to consider him. He doesn't love you — hasn't his neglect shown it?" "Xo," sighed Mrs. Langham in assent, "I don't believe he does. And I must have companionship, affection — and you do love me, Clyde? You are sure — citedly over the wire. "Yes — yes ; the Riley gang did it? I understand. Yes. That's right. Do that. All right— Lll get right back to the house. Meet me there. Good-by." The district attorney ran out and jumped into his waiting car, turning it back toward the city — as his wife was saying in the library of their home : "I'll go with you ! Wait for me here, while I run up the back waj and get my jewel case." Nance, listening outside the door, heard a swish of skirts across the room inside, then a door open and close, and then — silence. Her lips grimly set, Nance turned the handle of the door and walked into the room. "So it's you, is it?" she said scornfully to the man who wheeled to face her as he heard the door open. "You're Mr. Langham's assistant — I've seen your face in the papers. And I've seen somethin' else there, too, it seems to me. A story, tellin' about how you two went to college together, and all — that you was friends. A 'friend' — I guess he wouldn't think so, if he'd heard what I've just been listenin' to outside this door. You and her ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Plannin' to run off behind his back " She stopped. Mrs. Langham had come back into the room. "Who are you?" the woman addressed the girl, in startled surprise. "What are you doing here " "I'll tell you what I come for,'' said Nance, taking a step toward her and holding her eyes with a steady gaze. "I come to do Mr. Langham, your husband, a good turn. It's too late to do that now, I guess. He — he's likely dead by this time. But now I'm goin' to tell you what I think of you both " Mrs. Langham's face had gone ashen. "Dead !" she cried out. Herndon started toward her, reassuringly. "Don't pay any attention to what she says ," he began. The woman flung oft' his hands as they would have taken hers, with a shudder of revulsion. She spoke to him, but she was still looking wide-eyed at the girl. "Don't touch me!" she ordered. "I see everything now — now that it may be too late. It's my husband I love, and not you. It was only pique at what I thought w-as his indifference to me, that made me think — think I could go away with you. I wouldn't now for all the wealth in the world. I — I think I hate you for tempting me." She went on, to Nance : "What have you heard about my husband, that makes you say — what you have? Tell me. Has there been an accident The sound of the front door shuttin.g broke in upon Nance before she could speak. "There'll be a caller, Hodges, in a few minutes," they heard the voice of Langham addressing a servant in the hall. "You'll show him into my library, the moment he arrives." The district attorney's quick steps