Author of "The Fortune Hunter," The Brow Boast," "The Biack Bag," ete. Dlastrated with Photographs from the Picture Production 1914, by Louls Joseph Vance i & sign from her, so that he had grown | accustomed to the unflattering belief CHAPTER 1. The Message of the Rose. deep In the leather-bound of an ample loungechair, fd apart from the world by the ble solitude of the library of ofi's most exclusive club, Mr. Law sprawled (largely on the of his neck) and, squinting dis mtentedly down bis nose, admitted hat hie was exhaustively bored. Now the chajr filled so gracelessly '#tood by an open window, sonie twen- 'ty feet below which lay a sizable walled garden, an old English garden Hn full flower. And through the win 'dow, now and then, a half-hearted breeze wafted gusts of warm air, 'Sauve and enervating with the heavy ragrance of English Poses. Mr. Law drank deep of it, and in | #pite of his spiritual unrest, sighed slightly and shut his eyes. + An unspoken word troubled 'depth of his consciousness, so. that wold memories stirred and struggled to ts surface, The word was "Rose," 'and for the time seemed to be the 'Name neithér of a woman nor of a flower, but oddly of both, as though She two things were one. His mental the | 'vision, bridging the gap of a year, con- | ijured up the vision of a lithe, swee i#llhovette in white, with red roses! fal her belt, posed on a terrace of the {Riviera against the burning Mediter; {ranean blue. "Mr. Law was dully conscious that "he ought to be sorry about something. | But he was really very drowsy indeed: | land so, drinking deep of wine-scent | roses, he fell gently asleep. { The clock was striking four when he. awoke; and before closing his | Be had noticed .that its hands dudicated ten minufe¥ to four. So he! Joona not have slept very long. | r some few seconds Alan did not | but rested as he was, incredu- iy regarding a rose which had ma- terialized mysteriously upon the little table at his elbow. He was quite sure "44 had not been there when he closed eyes, and almost as sure that it not real. And in that instant of awakening the magic fragrance of the rose-garden Resmed to be even more strong and woloying sweet than ever. Then he put out a gingerly hand iand discovered that it was rea! beyond all question. A warm red rose, fresh: plucked, drops of water trembling and sparkling like tiny diamonds on the ivelvet of its fleshy petals. And when dmpulsively he took it by the stem, he N red a most indisputable thorn which did service for the traditional Convinced that he wasn't dreaming, {Alan transferred the rose to his sound , and meditatively sucked his a URE With Red Roses at Her Belt. thumb. Then Le jumped up from the chair and glared suspiciously round the room. It was true that a prac- 'tical Joke in that sol atmosphere + a thing I tawavia: still, there rose. | : Wes no one but himself in xéd to exasperatién, Alan fled b, only pausing on the way out lex the emvelope he found ad: to him In the létter-rack. 'blank { desk and waited respectfully for leave | In street dress was admitted to the| 1 Law, Alan Law." / that she had forgotten him. And now the sign had come--but what the deuce did the trey of hearts mean? When morning came, London had lost Alan Law. No man of his ac Gualntance--nor any woman--had re. ceived the least warning of his dis- appearance. He was simply and suf- ficiently removed from English ken. | ruin; it came to be an open duel be- CHAPTER IL The Sign of the Three. Out-of-doors; high brdzen moon, a day in spring, the clamorcus life of New York running as fldent as quick- silver through ity brilliant streets, Within-doors, nefther sound nor sun beam disturbed a perennial quiet that! Was yet not peace. The room was like a wide, deep well of night, the haunt of teeming shadows and sinister silences Little, indeed, was visible beyond the lonely shape that brooded over it, the figure of an old man motion less in a great, leather-bound chair. Hig halr was as white as his heart was black. The rack of his bones, clothed in a thick black dressing: zown with $vaist-cord of crimson silk, from the thighs down was covered by t black woollen rug. He stared un- linkingly at nothing: a man seven- oighths dead, completely paralyzed but for hig head and his left arm. Presently a faint clicking signal dis- turbed the stillness. Seneca Trine put forth his left hand and touched one of a row of crimson buttons embedded in the desk. Something else clicked ~this time & latch. There was the faintest possible noise of a closing door and a smallish man stole noise- lessly into the light, paused beside the to speak. "Well 7" "A telegram, sir--from England." "Give {t me!" The old. man seized the sheet of yel- low paper, scanned it hungrily, and crushed ft in his tremulous elaw with a gesture of uncontrollable emotion "Send my daughter Judith here!" Two minutes later a young woman Ld chamber of shadows. You sent for me, father?" "Sit down." She found and placed a chalr at the | desk, and obediently settled herself in it "Judith---tell me--what day is this?" "My birthday. 1 am twenty-one." "And your sister's birthday:' Rose, too, is twenty-one." "Yes." "You could have forgotten that," the old man pursned almost mockingly. Do you really dislike your twin-sister so intensely ™ The girl's voice trembled. "You know." she said, "we have nothing in common--beyond parentage and this abominable re€emblance, Our natures differ as light from darkness." "And which 'would you say was-- light * "Hardly my own: I'm uo hypoerite. } Rose is everything that they tell me! my mother was, while I"--the gf smiled strangely--"1 think--1 am more your daughter than my mother's." A 'nod of the white head confirmed the suggestion. "It ig true. 1 have watched you closely, Judith, perhaps more closely than even you knew. Before' 1 was brought to this"--the wasted hand made a significant ges ture~"1 was a man of strong "pas sions. Your mother never loved, but rather feared me. And Rose Is the mirror of her mother's nature, gentle, unselfish, sympathetic. But you, Ju- dith, you are like a second self to me." An accent of profound satisfaction informed his voice. The girl waited in a silence that was tensely expect: ant. "Then, if on this your birthday 1 were to ask a service of you that might injuriously affect the happiness of your sister--?" The girl laughed briefly: ask it!" "And how far would you go to do my will? "Where would you stop in the serv- ice of one you loved?" Seneca Trine nodded gravely. And after a brief pause, "Rose is in love," he announced. "Oh, I know--I know!" the father affirmed with a faint ring of satistac tion. "f"am old, a cripple, prisoner of | this living tnd: but all things 1 should kmew--somehow---1. come to know in course of time!" "It's true--that' Englishman she scraped an acquaintance with on the "Only | made his life a reign of terror 'dle. Then I too, may die content" "In the main," the father corrected mildly, "you are right. Only, he's not English. Hig father was Wellington ©" SHE DAILY BRITISH WHIG, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1914. See The Motion Pictures Of This Story At The, IDEAL THEATRE On Mondays And Tuesdays then--1it came to pass that we loved one woma , your mother, -~all but her heart: too late she real fzed it was Law she loved. He never forgave me, nor 1 him. Though he married another woman, still he held from mie the love of my wife. I could not sleep for hating him--and he was no better off. Each sought the other's tween us, in Wall street.. One of us had to fail--and I held the stronger hagd The night before the day that Was to have seen my triumph, | walked in Central park, as was my habit to tire my body so that my brain might sleep. Crossing the Rast drive I was struck by a motorcar running at high speed without lights. 1 was picked up insensible--and lived only to be what 1 am today. Law tri- umphed in the street while I lay help- less; ouly a living remnant of my fortune remained to me. Then pis I won her | In Liverpool: We Both Loved One Woman. chanffeur, discharged, came to me and | sold me the truth; it was Law's car | with Law at the wheel that had struck me down--a deliberate attempt at as sassination. 1 sent Law word that I meant to have a life for a life.. For what was I better than dead? I prom- ised him that. should .he escape, J would have the life of his son. He knew I meant it, and sent his wile and son abroad. | Then he died sud- denly, of some common ailment---they #ald; but I knew better. He died of fear of me." | Trine smiled a cruel smile: "1 had | Ever | #0 often 1 would send Law, one way i or another---mysteriously always--a' trey of hearts; it was my deathsign for him; as you. know, our name, | Trine, signifies a group of three. And! every time he received a trey of | hearts, within twenty-four hours an | attempt of some sort would he made upon his life The strain broke down hig nerve ' "Then 1 turned my attention to the son, but {he distance was too great the difficulties insuperable. The Law millions mocked all my efforts; their alliance with the Rothschilds placed mother and son under the protection of every gecfet police in Europe. Put they dared not come home. At length 1 realized I could win only by playing a waiting game. I needed three things: more mcaey; to bring Alan Law back to America; and one agent I could trust, one incorruptible agent I ceased to persecute mother and aon, | lulled them into a sense of false se | curity, aud by. careful speculations | as repaired my fortunes. In Rose I had the lure to draw the boy back to America; In you, the one person 1 could trust "I sent Rose abroad and arranged that she should meet Law. They fell in love at sight. Then I wrote inform- ing her that the man she had chosgen was the son of him who had murdered all of me but my brain. It fell out as I foresaw. You can imagine the scene of passionate renunciation--pledges of undying constancy--the arrange ment of a secret code whereby, when she needed him, she would send him a single rose---the birth of a great ro- mance!" The old man laughed rardonically. "Well, there is the history. Now the rose has been sent; Law is already homeward bound; my agents are watching his every step. The rest is In your hands." The girl bent forward, breathing heavily, eyes aflame in a face that had assumed a waxen pallor. - "What is it you want of me?" "Bring Alan Law to me. Dead or alive, bring him to me. But alive, If you can compass it; I wish to see him The band of hot-blooded youth stole forth and grasped the icy hand of deathn life. "1 will bring him." Judith swore-< or alive, you ®bhall have him here." CHAPTER NI. The Trail of Treachery. But young Mr: Law was sole agent of hig own evbhishment: just ps he was nobody's fool; least of all his own. | meaning { ing fo consult the guide, but on. sec- i and meantime determined to watch | ross The auswer forestalled his arrival Trine's death sign for your father. For God's sale, look Yo yourself and keep sway from America. But Alan had more than once vis ited America incognito and unknown to Seneca Trine via 4 Becret route of hie own selection. Eight days out of London, a second- class passenger newly landed from one of the C.-P. steamships, he' walked the streets of Quebec--and dropped out of sight between dark and dawn, fo turn up presently in the distant Canadian hamlet of Baie St. Paul, ap parently a very tenderfooted American woods-traveler chaperoned by a tach turn Indian guide picked up heaven- knows-where. Crossing the St. Lawrence by night, the two struck off quietly into the hinterland of the Notre Dame range, then crossed the Maine border. On the second noon thereafter, trall-worn and weary, as lean as their depleted packs, the two paused on a ridge-pole of the wilderness up back of the Allagash country, and made titeir midday meal in a silence which, it normal in Indian, was one of deep misgivings on Alan's part. Continually his gaze questioned the northern skies that lowered porten- fously, fonl' with smoke--a country wide conflagration that threatened all northert Maine, bonedry = with drought. Only the south offered a fair pros ct. And the fires were making, southward far faster than man might hope. te travel through that grim and stubborn land. Even as he stared, Alan saw fresh columns of dun-colored smoke spring up in the norttAvest. Anxiously he consulted the impas- sive mask of the Indian, from whom his questions gained Alan little com- fort Jacob recommended forced marches to Spinlt Jake, where canoes might be found to aid their flight: and withdrew into sullen reserve, They traveled far and fast by dim forest trails before sundown, then again paused for food and rest. And as Jacob sat deftly about preparing the meal, Alan stumbled off to whip the little trafl-side stream for trout. Perhaps a hundred yards: upstream, the back-lash of a careless cast by his weary hand hooked the state of Maine. Too tired even to remember the ap propriate words, Alan serambled ashore, forced thromgh the thick un- dergrowth that masked the trail, found his fly, set the stats of Maine freecand swinging on his heel brought up, nose to a sapling, trans fixed by a rectangle of white paste. board fixed to its trunk, a trey of hearts, of which each pip had been neatly punctured by a 22-caliber bul let. He carrfed it back to camp, mean- ord thought, held his tongue. Tt wa not Hkely that the Indian had over looked an object so eomspicuous on | the trail. So Alap waited for him to speak-- | Jacob more narrowly, though no other ruspicious circumstance shad marked the several days of their association. The first half of the night was, as the day, devoted to relentless prog- southward; thirty "minutes of steady jogging, five minutes for rest-- | and repeat. No morg question ag to the need for such urgent haste; overhead the north wind muttered without ceasing. Thin vells of smoke drifted through the for- est, hugging the ground, like some weird acrid mist; and ever the cur tained heavens glared, livid With re flected fires. By midnight Alan had come to the bounds of endurance: flesh, bone and «inew could no longer stand the strain. Though Jacob declared that Spirit lake was now only six hours distant, far as concerned Alan he might have said 600. His blanket once un- rolled, Alan dropped upon it like one drugged. The sun was high when he awak- ened and sat up, rubbing heavy eyes, stretching aching limbs, wondering what had come over the Indlan to let him sleep so late = Of a sudden be was assailed by sick: ening fears that needed only the brief- him overseas to this mortal pass. Fea- ture for feature, even to the hue of her tumbled hair, she counterfeited the wowan Le loved; only those eyes, aflame with their look of inhummn ruthlessness, denled that the two were one. He sought vainly to speak. The breath rustied in his parched throst like wind whispering among dead leaves. Thrusting the Indian roughly aside, the woman knelt in his place® by Alan's head. "No," she sald, and smiling eruelly, shook her head--'"no, I am not your Rose. But I am her sister, Judith, her twin, born in the same hour, daughter of--can you guess whose daughter? But see this!" She flashed a card from within har hunting shirt and held it before lis eyes. "You know it, eh? The trey of hearts--ihe symbol of Trine--Trine, your father's enemy, and yours. and---Rose's father and *mine! So, now, perhaps you know!¥ A gust of wind like a furnace blast swept the glade. The woman sprang up, glanced overshoulder into the for est, and signed to the Indian. "In ten minutes," she sald, "these woods will be your funeral pyre." She stepped back. Jacob advanced, picked Alan up, shouldered his body, and etrode back into the forest. Ten feet in from the clearing he dropped the helpless man supine upon a bed of ry logs and branches. Then, with a single movement, he disappeared. CHAPTER IV. ~~ Many Waters. Overhead, through a rift in the foliage, a sky was visible whose ebon darkness called to mind a thunder cloud. The heat was nearly intolerable; the volce of the fire was very loud. A heavy, broken erashing near by made Alan turn his head, and he saw a brown bear break cover and plunge on into the farther thickets--forerun- ner of a mad rout of terrified forest folk, deer, porcupines, a fox or two, a wildcat, rabbits, squirrels, partridges -a' dozen more iin Two minutes had passed of the ten. Something was digging nheomfortably into Alan's right hip--the automatic pistol in his hip peeket, of which Jacob had neglected to relieve him. Then a -sharp, spiteful erackling hrought him suddenly to a sitting posi- tion, to find that the Indian had thoughtfully touched: a match to the pyre before departing. At Alan's feet the twigs were blazing merrily. It would have been easy enough, acting on instinet, to snateh his Hmbs away, but he did not move more than to strain his feet as far as their bounds permitted Conscious of scorching heat even through his hunting boots, he suffered that torture unt!l a tongue of flame licked up, wrapped teat | round the thick hempen cord and ate it through Tmmediately Alan kicked his feet free, lifted to a kneeling position, and crawled from the pyre. As for his hands--Alan's bunting- knife was still in it8 sheath belted fo the small of his back. Tearing at the belt with bis hamperod fingers, le contrived to shift it round until the sheath knife stuck at the bélt-loop over his left hip. Withdrawing and conveying the blade to his mouth, he cst investigation to confirm. Jacob had absconded with every valuable | item of their equipment. § Nor was his motive far to seek. Overnight the fire had made tre mendous gains. And ever and anon, the wind would bring down the roar! of the holocaust, dulled by distance bit not unlike the growling of wild animals feeding on thelr kill, Alan delayed long enough only to | swallow a few mouthfuls of raw food, | gulped water from a spring, and set | out at a dog-trot on the trail to Spirit Lake. » For hours he blundered blindly on, holding to the trail mainly by instinct. At length, panting, gasping, half- blinded, h? staggered into a little nat- ural clearing and plunged forward headlong, so bewildered that he conid | not have said whether he was tripped or thrown; for eves as he stumbled a heavy body landed on his back and m say to earth. x Sawed the Cords Agsinst the Razor Sharp Blade, ° gripped it firmly between 'his teeth, and sawed the cords round his wrists against the razor-sharp bl Before Alav could turn and run he saw a vanguard of fiimes bridge G0 yards at a bound and start a dead pine blaging like 8 torch. And then he was peiting like a mad- Trine and the Tudtan--the latter wield. i ing the paddle. } In the act of turning toward- the | dam he saw Jacob dvoy the paddle. ! The next instant a bullet from a Wine chester 30 kicked up a spurt of peb- bles only a few feet in advance of Alan. He quickened his pace, but the next bullet fell closer, while the third ae tually bit the earth beneath his run- | ning feet as he gained the dam. Exaspérated, he pulled up, whipped | out his pistol and fired without atm. | At the same time, he noted that the ! distance between dam and cance had B Py Lo © A Tremendous Weight Tore at His Arms. lessened perceptibly, thanks to the strong current sucking through the spillway. ; His shot flew wide, But almost in- stinetively his finger closed again upon the trigger, and he saw the pad- dle snap in twain, its blade falling overboard. And then the Indian fired again, his bullet droning past Alan's ear As He fired in response Jacob start. ed, dropped his rifie and erumpled up' in the bow af the canoe, | Simultaneously earth and heavens rocked with a terrific clap of thunm der. He turned again and ran swiftly along the dam, toward two heavy tim: bers that bridged the torrent of the } spillway. Then a glance aside brought him up with a thrill of horror; the suck of the overflow had drawn the canoe within a hundred yards of the spill' way. The dead Indian in its bow, the living woman helpless in its stern, it swept swiftly, onward to destruc tion His next few actions were wholly unpremeditated. He was conscious only of her white, staring face, her strange likeness to the woman that he loved. | He ran out upon the bridge, threw himself down upon the innermost tim-| ber, turned, and let his bodwgall back! ward, arms extended at length, and swung, braced by his feet beneath the outer timber. - With a swiftness that passed con.' scious thought, he was aware of the canoe hurtling onward with the speed of wind, its sharp prow apparently almod directly for his head. Then hands closed round his wrists like clamps; a tremendous weight tore at his arms, and with an effort of incon- teivable difficulty he began" to Hft, to drag the wbman up out of the foam- ing jaws of death. Somehow that impossible feat was' achieved; somehow the woman gained a hold upon his body, shifted it to his| belt, contrived inexplicably to clamber over him to .the timbers: and some-| how he in turn pulled himself up to safety, and sick with reaction sprawled | prone, lengthwise upon that foot-wide! bridge, above the screaming abyss. | Later he became aware that the woman had crawled to safety on the! farther shore, and pulling himself to-| gether, imitated her example. Solid! earth underfoot, he rose and stood swaying, beset by a great weakness. Through the gathering darkness--a ghastly twilight in which the Naming! forests on the other shore burned with ' an unearthly glare--he discovered the wan, writhen face of Judith Trine close to his and he heard her voice, a scream barely audible above the com- mingled voices of the conflagration' and the cascades: "You fool! Why aid you save me? | fine perfume on sight. 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