Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

12 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY is no hope — I am going blind. Rather than endure such a living death, I have determined to take my life. When you receive this, I will be no more. I have left you everything in my will. All my love, Jimmie." The other letter, which he left upon the table beside the one to his wife, was nished-room house on West Twentythird Street. As he did so, the liner on which he had booked passage, and in a stateroom on board which he had last been seen, was slowly backing out of the pier to begin its voyage Europeward. Jimmie mounted the rickety stairs of "I am to blame!" wept Jeanne. "1 know he did it for my sake!" addressed to the captain of the steamer, and ran as follows : "Captain Lewis : I am going overboard when we pass the Shoals. Please don't make any attempt to recover my body, as it is my wish that the sea shall claim all that remains of , "James Blagwin." Putting on a tweed cap, which he pulled far down on his head, and turning up the collar of his overcoat, Jimmie stepped out of his stateroom — trusting that no one would recognize him with his face thus half concealed. He joined the flock of friends and relatives of the passengers on board who were crowding toward the gangplank. In their midst, he left the vessel unquestioned. Five minutes later, James Blagwin, alias "Henry Hull," which was the name he had decided to adopt after he had severed all connections with his former life, put his key in ihe door of a fur the lodging house, and entered the room he had engaged there. He sat down heavily on the side of the bed. "Now you're free, dear," he said gravely and half aloud, "or you will be in less than twelve hours more — to marry the man you love. And I hope you'll be very, very happy !" Meanwhile, Mr. Proctor Maddox had received a note from Jeanne. She had sent it off to her "soul mate" immediately after her interview with Jimmie that day in the library of their country home, to inform him that she had broken the news to her husband, who had "acted like a brick," and was going to get her a divorce. "You will have to go away, dearest," Jeanne had written, "until it is all over. And then you can come and claim me, and we will be married." Maddox, when he received the letter, had smiled over the first part and frowned over the last. He had never had any intention of marrying Jimmied wife. He had wanted her to run away with him. But not to a parsonage. That had not been his idea in wooing her affections away from her husband at all. Presently, though, he smiled over the ending of her note, too. It was an evil smile. He would go away and wait till she had been granted her divorce, as she had asked. Then he would come and take her with him — to Europe, or some other place. The little detail of their marriage he would persuade her to forget, until after they had gone away. And after that she could not insist upon it For then he would already have taken the step that would make his marrying her impossible. The steward who came to the door of Jimmy Blagwin's stateroom on board the steamer that evening, received no answer to his knock. Repeated pounding on the panels of the door producing no response, he tried the handle of the door. The door swung open, and the steward confronted a vacant stateroom, the berth of which had not been slept in. Simultaneously, he made another discovery — that of the two notes Jimmie had left behind. The steward hastened away to bring back the captain. He saw the sealed envelope on which Jimmie had written his wife's name and address, and read the letter that well-known young clubman and wealthy figure in Wall Street had left for him. The captain hastened away to the wireless room. And thus it was that, early the following morning, Jeanne received a wireless message which told her that her husband had committed suicide. Was she glad that now she could go to her "soul mate"? She was not. On the contrary, she was prostrated by the news of Jimmie's death. For, in the moment when she knew — or thought she did — that he was.no more, she realized that he was the one she had always loved, and always should love. When, some days later, she received the farewell letter that Jimmie had written to her, she informed his friend. Carlton Adams, the lawyer, that she did not believe Jimmie's story that he had been going blind. "It's my fault !" she wept. "He did it because he thought I wanted him out of the way so that I could — could marry