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Newspaper Page Text
RWB mmmmgmnammmm 5!SS5 NOBLY WON By Victor Redcliffe (Copyright by W. Gr-Ghapman.) Life seemed at its fullest and sweet est for Cynthia Russell. She sat be fore a blazing grate, the curtains drawn, the door locked, a great paper basket at her side, filled with old let ters, old photographs, all the wreck age of her girl life. Wreckage was the correct term. There was happiness supreme in face and heart now, yet at some tender suggestion of the past, some vivid re minder of a guarded, stifled career, brow and lips drew close, more in se cret pain than in resentment. There came a soft tap on the pan els of the hall door. Cynthia threw a drapery over the tell-tale basket She Stirred up the crisp, blackened mass that crowned the glowing coal like a funeral veil. Then she went to the door and challenged: "Who is it?" "Leila, dear," came the prompt re sponse, and Cynthia admitted her dearest friend and present guest, Miss Lane. A madcap unrestrained, keen, in quisitive and loyal, Leila's keen eyes and alert mind soon surmised the in terrupted occupation of her hostess. She deftly uncovered the basket, Bhe glanced knowingly at the brittle mass in the grate, she moved toward her a photograph lying at Cynthia's el bow. "Ghosts of the past an actual hero of the present," she said softly. "Now, then, Cynthia, tell me all about it." Cynthia flushed as she concealed the tell-tale photograph and her devoted friend sank to a stool at her side and clasping her hands prettily looked straight up into the eyes of her friend. "Well," faltered Cynthia, "as you have seen the photograph " "Yes, of Richard Graydon go 6u, dear," pleaded Leila eagerly. "We we are engaged.' , Leila sprang up with a wild shriek of joy. She clasped her arms about Cynthia, her eyes dancing with sin cere approbation of the announce ment. "Oh, my dear, I am so delighted!" she said. "I was afraid you were go ing to fade away into a settled old widow." "I have been one fpr two years, you know," intimated Cynthia, nd there was a species of anxious entreaty in Had Cynthia Forgotten Him? her voice, "and, Leila I was starve mg for love! love! love!" Her inmost soul burst the leaden trammels of years at this wild out burst Cynthia fell to weeping in the arms of her pitying and loyal friend. "No wojnan was ever a truer wife," said Leila' earnestly, "your new hap piness is your reward." It seemed true. Four years pre vious, through the arts of a maneu vering mother, Cynthia had given up her girlhood's fondest dreams and $ jfumffygggjij