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ticularly what happened to him, so long as there was no danger of de tecting the fraud that had been per petrated. John Martin and she were to be married in four months' time. They were very fond of each other in a sensible way. Every Saturday night John called and every Wednesday night he took her to the theater. It was an ideal engagement from a monetary point of view, for John was earning $300 a month as secretary to a prominent publisher, and had five thousand in the bank besides. About three weeks after Lucille's successful maneuver the girl waited in vain on Wednesday evening for John to appear. She was as much amazed as disappointed. It was the first time since their engagement that his regularity had failed. And the absence of a telephone call induced in her first anger, then alarm. "John is ill, mother!" she exclaimed at last, when all hope of his appear ance that night had been discarded. "Or else he has met with an accident on the way." j- - "Oh, no, my dear," said Mrs. Hamp ton. "No doubt he was detained at the office on business." "But he ought to have called me up. Pshall call him up and let him know what I think of his behavior!" cried Lucille, angrily. She flew to the telephone and call ed up John's address at his apart ment house. "Mr. Martin said that if anybody called him up, to say he'd gone to the theater with a party," answered Ithe attendant's voice at the other end. Lucille slammed down the receiv er. "That beats everything!" she said indignantly. "I shall send back 'r." "Better wait till Saturday, and give it to him, dear," said wise Mrs. Hmnton. Lucille, burning with humiliation, con.iuacu mat wxiat she had to say might better be said than written. . She spent three wretched day, which were not rendered any more pleasant by the look on Hilda's lace, which now bore a broad smile. Saturday night came, but John did not This was the climax of Lucille's suffering. At ten o'clock she sat down and wrote him an indignant letter, breaking off the engagement She was glad, she said, that she had found him out at last before it was too late, but she wished he had been enough of a gentleman to teE her what she had wanted to tell him, that each had grown tired of the other. But before the note was posted there came a ring at the apartment door, and Lucille, opening, encoun tered John Martin himself, wearing an expression at once penitent sheeping and absurd. "Forgive me, Lucille," he pleaded, taking her hands in his. The girl found her anger evaporat ing so rapidly that she could not keep back the tears. "I was a brute, a beast, to believe it of you," continued John, "but the evidence was so circufllstential, and if I hadn't received Hilda's letter to night" ,,- "What are you talking about, John?" demanded the.fcrf "Why, the letter. Hlldawrote me, dearest To think that she should have behaved in such a way. Why, the girLmust be mad " "John!" cried Lucille. "I don't know what you mean about Hilda writing you letters, but why haven't you been to see me, and why did you leave word on Wednesday night that you had gone to the theater with a partv. without even telephoning me?" She was beginning to weep again. Her feelings overcame her. John clasped her in his arms and tried to comfort her. "Don't you know, Lucille?" he asked. "I came here on Wednesday a few minutes earlier than usual, and I I saw what I thought was you, in the kitchen, in the arms of a stranger." ...v-w .. -y -- --"-' IHHHBH