Radio and television mirror (Jan-June 1942)

asked no questions. That was what I had wanted and needed, and I was grateful. Every day I walked for miles along the shore, deliberately tiring myself so 1 should sleep at night. Every day I wrestled with the doubts in my own soul, struggling to make the decision I would have to abide by for the rest of my life. Once before my life had been broken into pieces. I had patched it together again as best I could, and gone on. Now it was torn to shreds again, and this time whatever I decided was to be irrevocable, forever and ever amen. This time there would be no turning back, no second chance. And this time it Involved not only myself but the happiness of others. I TURNED away from my protected pocket between the rocks, and walked along the beach. I walked like one driven. Over and over, my heart repeated one name and one image— a tall figure with laughing eyes that looked deep into mine. And yet — It was then I heard the hail. I whirled around. A short, chubby figure was hurrying toward me over the sand, calling my name. He was not one of the fishermen from the neighborhood, for he was dressed in city clothes that contrasted oddly with the barren surroundings; and the choppy little stride that brought him closer was not that of an outdoor man. I waited, a little apprehensively. He was slightly over middle iige, with iron gray hair and quick, intelligent eyes. He smiled as he reached me. "You're Jane WIngate, aren't you?" "Yes ..." I said, half qucstlonIngly. He regarded me for n moment, steadily. Then he sold, "Why are you running away, Jane?" Fear closed around my heart. "I — I don't know what you mean. Who arc you?" "Don't be alarmed, my dear. My name is Keen. I'm from New York. I'm a tracer of lost persons." "OhI I've heard of you from — from a friend." "I wonder if the friend could have been Tom Galloway. It was he who sent me here." "Tom sent you here? What business was it of his?" I said furiously. Listen to Mr. Keen, Tracer 0/ Lojtt Persons, iii thrillinff dranuu, hcord Tuesday. Wcdiicsdav ond Thursday nights at 7.15, E.S.T., on NBC-Blue, sponsored by Kolynos Toothpaste. "And what business is it of yours to track me down and search me out like— like a criminal? I'm not doing ^ anybody any harm." "Perhaps," he said gently, "you are doing yourself harm. And when a lovely young lady suddenly disappears, it is the business of those who love her to try and find her again. It is my business to trace lost people. And you are lost, Jane. Aren't you?" "If I am, I can find myself again." "But not like this. Not by running away from the world. You've always done it, haven't you? When things went wrong you tried to cut yourself off from life, to shut out feeling and emotion, to live in some rigid sphere of your own, never relaxing for fear you might be hurt again." I stared at him. "What makes you .say that?" "Don't forget you've been missing nearly a week." He took my arm and began to walk me down the beach. "After Tom asked me to take the case, I talked to .several friends of yours who know you and love you very much. From what they told me I pieced together a picture— and I see now that it was pretty accurate." There was so much kindness in his gray eyes, so much understanding that I felt my anger evaporate. "Did the picture tell you I'd be here?" He laughed. "Tom suggested this place. While we were cudgelling our brains to think where you might be, he suddenly remembered a chance remark of yours months ago. You said you'd been to a place as a child that you'd often thought of since as the most perfect place to be alone. You said that if anything ever troubled you, you would choose Correction Cove to come and think it out. So — here we are." "Imagine Tom remembering a little thing like that." Mr. Keen's eyes twinkled. "Imagine," he said. Then he added more seriously, "Now, Jane, where can we go and talk? Isn't there some place out of the wind . . . ?" "There's a little shelter over there." I pointed to where I had been standing. "But — Mr. Keen, you're being very kind. But I don't want to talk. There is nothing to be gained by talk. I came here to make a decision and I would like to make it alone." "No. I'm afraid you want only to look at the memories you treasure in your heart — and memories can sometimes piny you false. I think I can help you. Don't forget that distant music is always sweetest, that the moonlight that shone over >*'>«il*^. ?„t»^^^?'"''"^ "^^ years ago is far InH^K'."'^" ^"y "'at shines today, and that people have an aura of romance that we've buUt around them m our memories. That was the way ■t was with Gilbert Forrester, wasn't "So you know about that, too." I whispered. 'You know about GU." We had reached the litUe cove by that tune. The wind had died and there was a ray of afternoon sun struggling through the clouds. I saijk down on the sand, suddenly weary.. Then I looked up at the man who was watching me so steadily out of those kindly gray eyes. I patted the sand beside me. "Sit down," I said. "I'd like to tell you all about it " It began when I was in college. It seems to me a lot of things begin then. You are old enough to think yourself grown. Your mind and senses are at their most receptive point and you are hungry for life. You stand at its threshold, eager and unafraid, too young for wisdom but too young for disillusion, too. It is a moment like a bright coin spun in the air, and it will never come again. My senior year was the happiest of my life, for it was at its beginning that I met Gilbert Forrester. He was like a golden thread running through the pattern of those days until he had wound himself completely around my heart and enmeshed it. Gil was handsome, Gil laughed at life. He could have anything he wanted — and he wanted me. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't gay. In fact, I was rather serious. And I wasn't pretty — except, Marcia McNair said, when I was with Gil, and then I was beautiful. Marcia was my room mate and best friend, and she said when I was with Gil or when I spoke of him a radiance transformed me that was like a light shining through. Marcia and I were as close as sisters, and she knew the night Gil first said he loved me and the night we first talked of marriage and the vague but ecstatic plans we made for it. We would wait till after Commencement, Gil was to go into his father's business — "Not that I'll be much good at it. but the old man wants me there and he'll pay enough so we can be married right away," he'd said — and then maybe the following fall, maybe the following winter we would be married, and then — and then — Oh, those golden, singing days when Gil and I were nineteen and in love. Then came the Spring dance and after that everything was different. Violet Eaton was at that dance, and Violet was Continued on page 78