PUBLIC LEDGER, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11TH, 1914 PAGE THREE THe Trey C)? Hearts A Novelized Version of the Motion Picture Drama of the Same Name Produced by the Universal Film Co. 1 By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE AaAor mfTU Ftum Hmnkr." "Tim Brc Boat." "77 Aadfc Bcg..c nhutrated wftk Pfcotcgraplu from tb Pktare Production Copyright, 1814. toy Xrfraia Joseph Vance never have the courage to pull that trigger "when I'm helpless In your hands!" The hot blood mantled her exquisite face like red fire. She caught her breath with a sob, then flung wildly at him: "Well, if you must know it's true. I can't bring myself to kill you. I would to God : I could. But I can't. For all that, you shall die -I could not save you if I would ! And this I prom ise you you shall never see Rose again before you die I" And while he stood gaping, she swung from him and ran, quickly cov ering the little distance between him and the car. As sbe jumped into this and dropped down upon the seat beside her half conscious sister, Marrophat swung the car away. It vanished in a dust-cloud as a throng of railroad employes surround ed and assailed him with clamorous questions. CHAPTER XXI!. The House Divided. Alone in that strange place of si lence and shadows that den of the devil's livery, crimson and black chained to the invalid chair wherein, day in, day out, for years on end, he had suffered the Promethean torments of the life that would not die out of his wretched, wrecked carcass, though without ceasing sharp-beaked envy. hatred, malice and all uncharitable ness pecked insatiably at his vitals: Seneca Trine sat waiting, with the im passivity of a craven figure waiting on the imminent hour of ultimate avengement for the wrong that had made him what he was. ; "Another hour!. ... In sixty minutes more they will be here, Judith and Marrophat and Rose poor fool! r-and him! ... In sixty minutes more they will put him down before me, bound and helpless, if not dead ... j A Blight pause prefaced words that j were a whimpered prayer: "God send i that he be not dead! Have I lingered 1 mt Rose Turned on Her Passionately. here In anguish all these weary year for the fulfillment of my revenge only to be cheated at the end by Death? God grant that Alan Law may be laid down still living here at my feet! . . . Then . A bitter smile twisted his tortured features: "Then shall my will be done j ? hira ! And. UieE, whnJ have sggn fciiLi lia as his father died then Ah, God! then at last I too may die! tt There was a long silence, then a groan of exasperated protest: "Why do they not come? Why does Judith delay, when she knows how I fuller? Way have I been put off from day to day with, her telegrams that begged for- more time and promised every thing but told nothing! until yester day. . . . Where are those mes sages she sent me yesterday?" His one sound hand groped out like a claw and sought a mass of papers on the desk beside him, sorting put from among them two yellow forms. Painfully he blinked over these and slowly his pain-bent lips conned their wording; ";Alan and Rose safe with me will bring both home tomorrow night with out fail,' " he read the first aloud; and then the second: "JHave motorcar waiting for me tomorrow morning from three o'clock till called for New Bedford waterfront Judith.'" "No!" he affirmed with the fervor of One persuaded by his own desires: ; "I must not doubt the girl! She has : promised, she has performed: j So still was h, indeed that he seemed to sleep, but so deceptive was that semblance that he wa3 alert for the least sound. The girl entered soft- ; !y, as if fearful of disturbing his slum ber's; but she found him with - head erect and eyes a-blaze. , "Judith!" he cried, his great voice vibrating like a brazen bell. "At last! Where is he? You have brought him? Where is he?" With no more answer than a sigh, the girl drooped her head and let her hands hang limply with palms ex posed. After an instant of incredulous dis appointment the man shot a single, frigid question at her: "You have failed?" "I have failed," she confessed. "Why?" She shrugged slightly., "Who knows whyone fails? I did my best: he was too much for me, outwitted me,, at every turn. Time and again I thought I had him, but always he escaped, either by his own wit and courage or with another's aid. Only yesterday night they were all three in the hol low of my hands but now I bring you only Rose." She faltered, awed by the glare of his infuriated eyes. "Let me explain," she begged. fle snapped her short: "You cannot explain. The thing is impossible, that you should have failed. There is some thing beneath this, something you will not tell me." She endeavored to speak, but he en forced silence with a sonorous "No!" His hand sought the row of buttons on the desk and pressed one long. Almost instantly a servant glided noiselessly into the room. "My daughter Rose have her brought hese to me at once!" In another moment the replica of his daughter Judith was ushered into his presence. Upon this one he loosed the light nings of his wrath without ruth. Rose suffered him in . silence. His most galling recrimination educed no retort from this one. In a lull in Trine's tirade, Judith chose to interject: "Don't be so hard on the silly fool: she's not responsible; she's' sick with love for that good-looking simpleton!" "And you!" Rose turned on her passionately "what about you? If I love Alan Law, at least I love him openly, I am not ashamed to own it- and I don't pursue him, as you do,tre tending I mean to sacrifice him to a wicked family feud, and then spare him every time I meet him, to lead him to believe' I haven't the heart to injure him as you do, hoping so to work upon his sympathies and earn a kindly word and a pat on "the head from his hand!" Fiercely she leveled a denunciatory arm at her sister. "There!" she cried to her father "if you need to know there stands : the daughter who has betrayed your faith as I have not, who have never even" pretended to approve your villainy!" "I think," Trine announced in a voice of ice "I have learned now what I needed to know." . His fingers sought the row of but tons; and when a servant responded, he inquired: "Mr. Marrophat has returned?" "He is in the waiting room, sir." "Conduct Miss Judith to him and teH him I hold him personally respon sible for her safe-keeping. He will understand." ' And for a long time thereafter the father, alone with the daughter who had been estranged from him since birth by every instinct of her nature, essayed in vain to break down -her mutinous silence. At last Trine summoned two of his creatures and had her led weeping from the rooms to be held prisoner in her bedchamber on the topmost floor of the house. : .-' Alan paused and smote his palm with a remorseful fist. "By the Eter nal, I'm forgetting Barcus!" "Barcus?" ' "Chap whose boat I chartered n Portland sheer luck on my part: he's one of the salt of the arth. First, something must be done for the boy. You've got influence of some sort in New Bedford, surely?" Digby reflected: "Some. There's George Blaine, justice of the peace " ""The very man. Telegraph, him in Barcus' Interests immediately. And telegraph Barcus as well send him a hundred for expenses, and tell him to join me here in New York as quick as he can!" "Your friend's address?" Digby in quired, jmildly ironic as he sat down at the desk and fumbled with the sup ply of stationery. , : "New Bedford jail, of course!" Alan chuckled but cut his laugh in two as something fluttered from the pack of envelopes which Digby had disturbed and fell to the floor between the two men. Face up, it grinned sardonic mock ery of Alan's confidence: It was a trey of hearts. With an ashen face and a trembling hand, Digby stooped to pick the damned thing up; but Alan was be forehand with him,, and got his fingers first upon the card. "Now will you believe?" Digby de manded huskily. "In what? A simple coincidence?" Alan flouted. "Not I! Who knows I'm in New York or that the Arthur Law rence for whom your agent engaged these rooms was Alan Law. No, my friend: it's a bit too thick for me. Take my word for it, this is nothing more nor less than a eouvenir of a poker party held by yesterday's tenant Of this suite." "Perhaps perhaps!" Digby assent ed, stroking tremulous lips. "But I'm afraid for you, my boy. Who knows that Trine's spies were net watching my man when he made this . reserva tion? Who knows but that 'Arthur Lawrence' was too thin a disguise for Alan Law? I tell you, I'm frightened to the marrow of my old bones! Do me this favor at least, my boy: now that you've been warned, whether by accident or design we won't argue that do leave town go incognito tc some quiet place near by anJ wan, there fcr the sailing of the next trans atlantic steamer. Oh, surely you can't deay me this one wish of my fond old heart, my boy!" With a gesture of unfeigned affec tion Alan dropped a hand on Digby's shoulder. . . - - "There's nothing on earth I would not do for you," he said 'you've been a father and a mother to me ever since I can remember, even if we were sepa rated, most -of the time, by three thou sand miles of salt water. But - this thing I can't do it, even, for ysm. x can't do it even for myself.. Rose Trine is here in New York, in the hands and at the mercy of her father and sister: and you may judge what their mercy will. be when you learn all that she has done for me. I won't go and I can't go until I find her and take her with me. And that is final." "Then," Digby struck in, . grasping wildly at a straw of hope, "I have your word you'll go, providing I find and re store Rose to you?" - J "You have my word to that, unques tionably. Bring Rose to me, and I'll gladly shake the dust of New York from my shoes, and never return till Trine is put away comfortably -in his grave." ";' "It shall be done," Digby promised. "It must!" ."You believe that?" "In twelve hours Rose shall be re stored to you." "Will you make a book on it? I'll bet you something happens and hope I lose into the bargain. If you believe you can carry out your promise, wire the White Star line to reserve the best available suite on the Oceanic, sailing tomorrow morning at ten and make arrangements for a mar riage before the boat sails." "I'll go you," Digby agreed: "and If I fail, I forfeit the cost of the reser vation. But about this marriage " He hesitated. , "You'll have to have a license in this state and can't get one except "Then we'll marry In Jersey!" Alan ! insisted. "Dig up some clergyman over there, if jou don't know one your self" . "Oh, I'm well acquainted with the very man!" CHAPTER XXIV. The Time or Night. Not ill-pleased to be left to his own ! devices (whose proposed character Digby would never have approved had he so much as suspected them) Alan I none the less deferred action until ' after midnight. ! And espionage was all he feared save and except always, of course, fail ure to find his Rose. ' j It was about one In the morning when he arrived incenspicuovoly (but not so much so as to seem deserving ' of police surveillance) in the neigh borhood of the Riverside drive home of his mortal enemy, a grim white house that towered, stark and tall, upon a corner. His preliminary rcconnoisance pro vided little more than comfortless ex ercise. Huge, still, its wall bathed in the milk and ink of moonlight and shadow, all its windows dark but one and that one, in the topmost tier, showed only a feeble glimmer, so slight that Alan almost overlooked it. But once discovered, il focused upon itself his thoughts with a power little less than hypnotic. He believed with small doubt that Rose was a prisoner within those walls; that Judith must have con veyed her there with all speed. And, this being the presumptive case, that small, high window of the light might well be hers. .Directly across the street from the Trine residence, on the opposite cor ner, a colossal apartment structure stood half-finished, stonework to its second story, gaunt iron skeleton rear ing above. To his infinite disgust, Alan found the guardian very wide awake, very much on the job: no chance here to steal unseen into the building. . This in itself might have been deemed a suspicious circumstance: not for nothing does an honest night watchman so deny the laws of nature and the tenets of his craft. But Alan merely praised. the man while cursing the very fact of his existence; and, ac costing, overcame with bank-note3 breathed a silent prayer to the god of all true lovers, and cast it from him with all his might with such forco that it almost unseated him at the end of the swing. But nothing less would hate served to bridge that yawning chasm. And the watch flew straight and true, squarely through the lighted win dow and to the further wall. . . . At that very instant of his exultation over an obstacle overcome, he heard a sound behind him of heavy breathing. The assassin had come that close upon his prey when Alan turned and discovered his peril. The same moonbeam which had aided Alan in the composition of his message struck across the other's face, and showed it like a hideous Chinese mask of deadly hatred, with its 'eye balls glaring and its lips drawn back from the naked blade gripped between its teeth a stiletto nothing short of a foot in length. With a sharp, startled movement, Alan swung himself bodily about, so that, seated again astride the girder, he faced the assassin who sat up, straddling the girder, his feet hooked beneath it a stiletto poised in hi3 right hand to strike. But even now Alan was in little or no better case than before. If he faced the thug, he faced him with no arms other than his bare hands. He had not even a pen-knife in his pockets. With a low cry of desperation Alan snatched off his hat, a soft and shape less felt affair, and flung it squarely In the fellow's face. Before he could recover before, that is, it dropped away and cleared bis vision, Alan had bent forward and grasped the wrist of the hand that held the knife. He snatched simultaneously at the other hand, bst it eluded him. Alan had this advantage, as lofag as the knife might not strike that his right arm was free, while the assassin had only his left. With this he strove persistently to reach his knife-hand and possess - himself of the weapon As persistently Alan foiled his purpose by dragging the knife-hand toward him and swinging it far out to one side. At the same time he struck repeatedly with his clenched right fist at the oth er's face. His blows did little dam age beyond disconcerting the other; but this proved a very considerable CHAPTER XXIII. A Sporting Offer. Some two hours later, that same evening, Mr. Alan Law,, very , much alive and, in spite of a complete new outfit of ready-made clothing, looking much more like himself than he had In a fortnight, issued forth from the Grand Central station, hailed a taxi cab, and had himself conveyed to the Hotel Monolith. But if he looked his proper self once more, it speedily was demonstrated that-his wish was ptherwise: for after learning from the room-clerk of the Monolith that a suite was being held in the name of Arthur Lawrence, that was the name Mr. Law inscribed on the register. On the other hand, it was his true name that he gave to the person whom he called upon the telephone immedi ately after being shown to his rooms. But then he was speaking to his old friend and man of business, Mr. Digby. Within another ten minutes this last was in conference with his employer: "I think you must be out of your head," he insisted nervously, once their first greetings were over. "You might jus as sensibly throw yourself from the top of the Metropolitan tower as come to New York while Trine lives and knows you're this side the water." Nonsense!" Alan laughed. "Remem ber this is New York not the back woods of Maine!" ' ... ' The Face of Judith Was Distinctly Revealed. by applying in person with your bride to-be. There won't he time " Alan's Appearance at the Hotel Monolith. what seemed an uncommonly stubborn reluctance, and got h's ie couid not Enow tnat anotner skulked behind a barrier of lime bar rels and overheard all that passed and, when Alan had ducked smartly into the unfinished building, rose and stole after him with footsteps as noiseless as a cat's and a face that had the sav agery of a tiger's when it was tran siently revealed In a shaft of moon light. At length Alan gained the gridiron Df girders on a plane with the lighted window across the way, and crept along one of these, gingerly on his hands and knees, until he came to its end and might, if he cared to, look down a hundred feet to the sidewalks. That view, however, did not tempt;; he kept his eyes level; and was TBrj warded with a bare glimpse of a prettily-papered wall, framed in the lace of ; half-drawn curtains. And . of sudden whether through! fortuity, or instinct, or the psycho?; logical attraction of his steadfast con centration the tenant of the room! came to the window and stood there for a little, looking pensively out, alto gether unconscious of the watcher in his aerial coign. Again a horrible uncertainty har assed him. Was the woman Rose or Judith? That she was one of these he could plainly see. But which? Dared he assume his hopes fulfilled? With difficulty he detached his hungry vision from her, and drawing from his pocket a small notebook, tore, out a blank page, placed this flat on the girder, found a pencil, and with, the assistance of a ray or two of.; moonlight scrawled a message of al-j most stenographic brevity. When he looked up from this task,: she had vanished. Sitting up, astride the girder, he took his watch a cheap affair he had nicked up when reclothing himself in he garments of civilized society, at vidence, that morning opened the ick of the case, and closed it upon ae folded message. Then drawimr back arm. ha factor !n the duel. In the end, they served together with that steady, re sistless downward and outward drag, to break the grip of the man's locked legs. Abruptly he pitched forward cn his face along the girder, kicking wildly, grasping at the air. The stiletto fell from an instinctively relaxed grasp, and disappeared. And before Alan could release his hold, or ease the strain upon the right arm of the as sassin, this last had slipped bodily from the girder and hung helpless in space, dangling at the end of Alan's arm with no more than the grip of five fingers between him and death. The shock of that unpresaged turn brought Alan forward and fiat on his stomach. And the strain on his left arm was terrific. He doubted if he could maintain it for another minute Nor was there any reason whyv he should retain it. The end he had de sined for hi3 victim was merely his just desert. And yet Alan could not let him go.' Thus the battle began anew but now it was a battle with a man half crazed and struggling so madly tbat he well-nigh frustrated the efforts of his rescuer. In the upshot the assassin lay like a limp rag across the girder, head and arms dangling on one side, legs and feet, on the other, spent with his ter rific exertions and physically sick with terror. And in this state Alan left him: he had done enough; let the man shift for himself from this time on. CHAPTER XXV. Changeling. In the vague, chill gray of that dull and desolate dawn, Judith stirred ab , ruptly on the couch of a sleepless night, and with the rapidity of one who has arrived at a settled purpose after a long period of doubt and per plexity, rose and bathed and dressed herself in negligee. In tho adjoining room she could hear small, stealth3r noises the sounds m.di Ly Lr moving about ajid preparing against the unguessable mo ' ment when her rescue would be at ! tempted, according to the Information conveyed in that midnight message. ' For chance had conspired with her insomnia to station Judith in the re cess of her darkened window, Idly viewing the gaunt framework of the unfinished building from an angle which, when Alan edged out along the girder, showed him plainly in silhou ette against the sky. In. Judith's eyts his identity was un mistakable. She had hardly neede the night-glasses which presently shr brought to bear upon him at the mo ment when he was laboriously inditing; his message while grim death stalked him from behind. She had seen him throw the watch and had heard the double thump of its impact with the wall and floor of Rose's bedchamber. And she had witnessed with wildly beating heart that duel in the air able to surmise its outcome only from the fact that the victor spared the Ufa of the vanquished. The clock was striking six as she left her room: across the street work lngmen were streaming into the build ing to begin the labors of the day. Brushing unceremoniously past the drowsy and indifferent guard in the corridor outside the door to Rose's room, Judith turned the key that re mained in the lock on the outside, re moved it, entered, and locked the door behind her. Without any surprise she found her sister already dressed to the point of donning her outer garments. Rendered half-frantic by this unex pected interruption, threatening as it did the perilous scheme that Alan had proposed, Rose greeted her sister with a countenance at once aghast and wrathful. "What do you want?" she demanded tensely. "To come to an understanding with you," Judith told her coolly. "There is no understanding possible between us: you know that as well as L" "Yet one there must be." "I insist that you leave this room at once ! " "Insist by all means and be damned! I may leave this room and I may not, dear little sister. But one of U3 will never leave it alive." With a start of terror. Rose shrank back from this strange, wild thing that wore the very shape and sem blance of herself. "What do you mean? You cannot mean to murder me in cold blood, Judith?" "Not I!" Judith laughed harshly. "But, since it has pleased Destiny to decree that we must both love one man let Destiny decide between us and bear the blame of murder!" "Judith!" "One moment!" Crossing to a sida table, Judith took up a glass from a tray that held a silver water-pitcher, and returned with it to the table that occupied the middle of the floor. At tha same time she opened a hand till then fast clenched and disclosed a small blue bottle with a red label shrieking the warning "POISON!" "Strychnine," she explained com posedly, "in solution." And emptied the bottle into the glass. A measure of courage returned to Rose. "Do you expect to be able to make me drink that?" 6he demanded 0 "EitemptUGUsly. "Not I but Destiny, if it will! See here." From a pocket of her dressing gown Judith produced a sealed deck of playing cards. "Let these declare the will of Destiny toward us. I will break the seal, shuffle the cards, and deal," she explained, suiting action to word. "The one who gets the trey of hearta will drain that glass. Is it a bar gain ?" "Never! Oh, now I know that you are altogether mad!" "Perhaps. Are you ready?" And Judith made as if to deal. "No never! I tell you I refuse!" Rose chattered, terrified. "You dare not refuse." "Why?" "Because of this." Whipping a small revolver from an other pocket of her dressing-gown, Ju dith placed it on the table, ready to her hand. "You will shoot me if I do not con sent?" "Not you but him. If you refuse, little sister, I will shoot Alan Law dead when he comes to keepJiis ap pointment with you." "Ah!" Rose cried in mingled fright and amazement. "How did you find out?" "Never mind. f Is it a bargain, now. about the trey of hearts? Remember, 1 shall keep my word about this pis tol." With a shudder Rose bowed her head. "Deal," she muttered fearfully, "and may God judge between us!" One by one she stripped the cards from the top of the deck, dealing first to Rose, then to herself. One by one they fluttered to the table on either side the glass of poison, and fell face uppermost. The trey of hearts fell to Judith. There was an instant of silent dread, ended by Rose, as Judith's hand moved steadily toward the glass. "Judith!" she implored. "Don't I beg of you I didn't, mean it I take back my consent " "Too late!" said Judith, lifting the glass and eyeing its contents with a strange smile. "Judith! you cannot mean to drink it?" "Can't I, though?" .the other laushed mirthlessly. "Just watch rno!" With a strangled cry Rose covered her face with her hands to chut out the sight, stood momentarily Bvyajjng, aO W CONTINUED)