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Newspaper Page Text
9immmmmimmm9mimmm , ai THE BETTER WAY By Eustace Livingstone "Think twice, Betty." "I have thought "till my brain is weary and my heart is sore. I have lecided it is the better way." "Very well," said John Randall, "go the road you have chosen. I will take mine. There need be no scandal you. are a lady, I try to be a gentle man. Remember, though, neither will 2ver turn back to retraverse the mis taken path." The woman put out her hand as if moved by some pleading influence, but the man was gone. Before night fall the home they had shared for sight years was in the hands of car penters, masons and decorators. Be fore a week had passed by a parti tion, roof high, divided the big double house into two parts. On one side lived the wife, on the other the hus band. The people began to talk. It was vain, however, for anyone to discover any lapses from duty and rectitude on the part of either of the occupants of what was now known as "the house of mystery." .Mrs. Ran dall went about her usual way, quiet, grave, reserved. Mr. Randall never deviated from the routine which had marked him always as a systematic business man and a consistent mem ber of good society. "There's something under the sur face," spoke Mrs. Judge Bascom to her husband "some dark drama." "Get it out of your mind, wife," was the blunt retort. "There are no two better people in the world than my worthy friend Randall and his wife." , "Then, wny " "Pride. Neither will seek to re move the barrier they have raised in their own self-willed natures. Mrs. Randall would die by slow tortures before she would unbend from what she considers to be true womanly dig nity. Her self-centered consciousness lias repelled Randall and has made him believe she no longer cares for him. One good heart-to-heart talk would settle .everything such as you and I engage in when we're not fight ing our usual family battles!"-and the good-natured judge laughed in his whimsical way. The old jurist was correct in his surmises, but he had not gone deep enough into the proposition. "When John Randall married Betty Morse they had been very much in love one "Go the Road You Have Chosen, I Will Take Mine." with the other. Then there had been a disappointment. No children had blessed their family. hearth. At the end of two years, however, a relative of Mrs. Randall, a widow, died, leav ing a little babe scarcely a year old. Her last wish was that the Randalls should adopt the child. This they did and rare sunshine came to the lonely home. Two happy years passed by 1 and the little one died. ti;. as.i i-r .. ..... .a ..-r. - - -a-; sv. x, '.-JJj-t.jt.Ut