may 2, 1914 ALL- STORY WEEKLY MAY AY About Wrinkles If the skin be kept soft and smooth, wrinkles may be staved off almost indefinitely. But the question is — How is it possible to achieve this? The Natural Way of Preventing Wrinkles is to use Pears’ Soap The soap that was invented 125 years ago for this special purpose, and has never been equalled for its exquisite emollient and skin-vivifying properties. Its action is at once protective and preservative, main- taining the skin in a healthy condition and retaining its youthful freshness. The Great English Complexion Soap “ All rights secured ” OF ALL SCENTED SOAPS PEARS’ OTTO OF ROSE IS THE BEST ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. Go over in the corner and have a good half hour’s talk with yourself Where will you be next year? You have your mind set on a better job, haven’t you ? You want to earn more money, don’t you ? You feel that you ought to make more of yourself and that NOW is the time to start. Right so far, isn’t it? Well, what are you going to do about it? Just “wishing” won’t get you anywhere. Do you know enough ? Have you had the training that the bigger job requires ? Be honest with yourself. Look the ^>tuation squarely in the face. Your whose future depends upon the way you answer those questions now. If you are willing to admit that the job you want requires a big man, a well-informed man, a well - trained man, why not let the International Correspondence Schools qualify you for the job? Every month 400 men of all ages and occupations report advancement in position and salary wholly due to I. C. S. training. These men stopped “wishing” and acted. They marked the coupon. . Mark the Coupon No matter how little you earn and regardless of your present situation or pre- vious lack of opportunity, the I. C. S. can help you. Mark the coupon to-day. International correspondence schools" ” l Box 804, SCRANTON, PA. I Explain, without any obligation on my part, how I can qualify for the position before which I mark x I I I I I I I I I I | Name | Present Occupation | Street and No. I City_ State. Salesmanship Electrical Engineer Elec. Lighting Supt. Electric Car Running Electric Wireman Telephone Expert Architect Building Contractor Architectnral Draftsman Structural Engineer Concrete Construction Meehan. Engineer Mechanical Draftsman Refrigeration Engineer Civil Engineer Surveyor Mine Snperintendent Metal Mining Locomotive Fireman & Eng. Stationary Engineer Textile Manufacturing Gas Engines Civil Service Railway SJail Clerk Bookkeeping Stenography# Typewriting Window Trimming Show Card Writing Lettering & Sign Painting Advertising Commercial Illustrating Industrial Designing Commercial Law Automobile Running Teacher English Branches Good English for Every One Agriculture Poultry Farming Plumbing & Steam Fitting Sheet Metal Worker Navigation Spanish Languages French Chemist German In answering this advertisement it is desirable that you mention All-Story Weekly. is to put the reader in touch irnme* diately with the newest needfuls for the homtj^pffice, farm, or person; to offer, (p< seek, an unusual business opportunity, or to suggest a service that may be performed satisfactorily through correspondence. It will pay a housewife oKmisiness man equally well to read these advertisements carefully. Classified Rates in The Munsey Magazines The Munsey .... $2.00 \ The Cavalier (Weekly) .60 The Argosy Railroad Man’s Maga- 1.30 / zine All-Story Weekly . . .801 $5.50 J Special Combination Rate $5.20 Leu 3% cash discount. May 30 All -Story Forms Close May 9 11 A New Force In, Business” is a booklet that tells how to advertise successfully, in the classified departments of the Munsey Publications. Mailed anywhere on request. AGENTS & SALESMEN WANTED WE FURNISH YOU CAPITAL TO RUN PROFITABLE liiisiuess of your own. Become one of our local representatives and sell high grade, custom made shirts; also guaranteed sweaters, underwear, hosiery and neckties direct to homes. Write Steadfast Mills, Dept. 23, Cohoes, N. Y. TWO CAPABLE SALESPEOPLE WANTED in your town. Big commissions. Something absolutely new. Unusual opportu- nity. Write Tolax Co., 23 Devereux St., Utica, N. Y. Agents — The Biggest Seller Out. Beer in concentrated form. A good glass of Beer wattled by everybody. So convenient — cheap —show it, sell them all. Carry right in your pocket. Enormous demand— big protits. Send no money. Just a postal for Free Sample proposition. The Ambrew Co., Dept. 1048, Cincinnati, O. LARGE INCOME SELLING SPECIALTY RUGS. Colored illustrations and important information free. Sample rug for- warded prepaid. $1.00. Reference Boylston Natl. Bank, Boston. Dundee Mfg. Co., 46 Chauncy Street , _B< art on, Ma ss. AGENTS W A N T E D . — AGENTS MAKE 500 PER CENT. PROFIT selling “ Novelty Sign Cards.” Merchants buy 10 to 100 on sight. 800 varieties. Catalogue Free. Sullivan Co.. 1233 W. Van Buren Street, Chicago, 111. HONEST MAN WANTED IN EACH TOWN to distribute free advertising premiums; $15.00 a week to start: ex- perience unnecessary. References required. Address McLean, Black & Co., 5 S. Beverly Street, B oston , Mass. SAVE YOUR LEGS.— WHY WORK SO HARD FOR SO little, when our line assures you large profits and the work requires such little effort? Investigate this. Samples free. Luther Gordon Co., 208 N . 51 h Avenu e, C hicago. AGENTS— RED HOT SUMMER SELLER.— Concentrated soft, drinks — orangeade, grape, raspberry, etc. 7 kinds. Small package — enormous demand. Whirlwind sales — astonishing profits. Get it quick, while it’s new. Write to-day for full particulars. Ai i i erica n Products Co. , 300 3 Syca more St., Cincinnat i , O. WHAT ARE YOU SELLING? If we had your address we'd show you how to sell more, send you free pocket sample and largely increase your profits — not one week, but weekly. S. Mfg. Co., 20D . W arren Street, N ew York. WOMEN AGENTS PATENT ATTORNEYS PATENTS THAT PROTECT AND PAY. ADVICE AND BOOKS FREE. Highest' retYrauvs. Best results. Promptness assured. Send sketch or model for free search. Watson 10. Cokman, 624 F Street, Washington, D. C. O PATENT SECURED OR FEE RETURNED. SEND SKETCH for free report as to patentability. Guide Book and What to Invent, with valuable list of Inventions Wanted, sent free. One Million Dollars offered for one invention. Patents se* cured by us advertised free in World's Progress; sample free. Victor J. Evans & Co., Washington, 1>. C. UNITED STATES AND FOREIGN PATENTS and Trade- Marks. Free hook and opinion as to patentability. Joshua R. II. l’otts. Patent Lawyer, 8 Dearborn St., Chicago; 929 Chestnut St., Philadelphia; 805 G St., Washington. “PRIZES. FOR PATENTS.” “MONEY IN PATENTS.” •' How To Get Your Patent And Money.” “Why Some Inventors Fail.” “ Needed Inventions.” Sent free. Randolph & Co.. 624 F Street, Washington, D. C. IDEAS WANTED— MANUFACTURERS ARE WRITING for patents procured through me. Three books with list 200 inventions wanted sent free. Advice Free. 1 get patent or no fee. R. B. Owen, 69 Owen Building, Washington, D. C. MUSIC AND SHEET MUSIC SONG POEMS WANTED: MONEY IN SUCCESSFUL SONGS. Send us your poems for examination. We revise, write the music, pay for and secure copyright in your name, arrange for orchestra and furnish song slides. Particulars, terms and book, “ How Music Makes Money,” free. C. L. Partee Co., 406 Astor Theatre Building, New York. SONG POEMS WANTED. We will write anisic to your words, publish, advertise and copyright in you^Piame. Send us your song poems or melodies. Instructive b free. Marks- Goldsmith Co., Dept. 26, Washington, D. - AGENTS WANTED TO SELL BRASSIERES. NIGHT GOWNS, COMBINATIONS, AND CORSETS ON SALARY AND COMMISSION. Quick results assured. Rechnitz Bros., 142-146 West 24 th St., New York City. HELP WANTED MEN OF IDEAS AND INVENTIV E ABILITY should write for new “ Lists of Needed Inventions,” Patent Buyers, and “ How to Get Your Patent and Your Money.” Advice free. Randolph & Co., Patent Attorneys, Dept. 40, Washington, D. C. GOVERNMENT P OS I T 1 0 N S~ P A Y BIG MONE Y~Examina - tions everywhere soon. Get prepared by former United States Civil Service Examiner. 64 page booklet free. Write to-day. Patterson Civil Service School, Box 1304, Rochester, N. Y. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES BUILD A $5000.00 BUSINESS IN TWO YEARS. Let us start you in collection business. No capital needed: big field. We teach secrets of collecting money; refer business to you. Write to - day for Free Pointers and new plan. American Collection S e rvice. 1 1 St at e Street, Detroit, Mich. LD-IT, A NEW DISCOVERY. Needed in every home, office, store, garage — everywhere.- Re the wholesale . distributors in your locality. Profitable, Permanent, Sales Repeating. Write today. Ritter Specialty Co., M-5, Columbus, Ohio. • - TYPEWRITERS GENUINE TYPEWIHTEir - BARGAINS; no ' matter what -make, will quote you lowest prices and easiest, terms, or rent, •allowing rental on priceT Write for’’ big bargain list and cata- logue 16. L. J. Peabody, 286 Devonshire Street;;. Boston. Mass. PIANOS DO NOT PAY FANCY PRICES FOR CHEAP NEW PIANOS: buy standard make slightly used. We have a large assortment of the best makes from $125.00 up, delivery free anywhere, and very easy terms. For sixty-five years Pease Pianos have been a standard of durability. Write for complete list. Pease Pianos, Leggett Avenue and Barry Street, Bronx, N. Y. MOTION PICTURE PLAYS WRITE MOVING PICTURE PLAYS; $10.00 to $100.00 each: constant demand: devote all or spare time; experience, literary ability or correspondence course unnecessary. Details free. Atlas Publishing Co., 312 Atlas Bank Bldg., Cincinnati, O. STAMPS AND RARE COINS $4.25 PAID FOR FLYING EAGLE CENTS DATED 1856. We pay a cash premium on hundreds of old coins. Send 10c at once for New Illustrated Coin Wtlue Book, 4x7. It may mean your fortune. Clarke & Co., Coin Dealers, Box 103, Le Roy, N.Y. TELEGRAPHY TELEGRAPHY— MORSE AND Wl RELESS— Railway account- ing (station agency) taught quickly, and' Railroad and Western Union wires and complete Marconi Wireless Station in school:' Oldest and largest school. Expenses low — can earn part. Positions 'secured. Catalog free. Dodge's Institute, 10th St. , Valparaiso, Ind. In answering any advertisement on this page it is desirable that you mention All-Story Weekly. ALL STORY WEEKLY Vol. XXXI CONTENTS FOR MAY 2, 1914 No. 1 A No vel— Complete in this Issue THE HAUNTED LEGACY PAUL REGARD 1 Four Serial Stories A PRIZE FOR PRINCES. Part 1 REX T. STOUT 111 HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Part II Martha M. STANLEY 151 AN ANCIENT GRUDGE. Part I.. ..WILLIAM TlLLINGHAST ELDRIDGE 173 FALSE FORTUNES. Part III FRANK CONLY 195 Four Short Stories HOURS OF GRACE HERMAN STRUCK 100 ALICIA GOES A-BURGLING ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE 142 THE PURSUIT OF ANTAR Mary Linda Bradley 164 “NOTHING EVER HAPPENS” ' EFFIE RAVENSCROFT 187 Supplement from The Cavalier. THE GRAND GETAWAY. Part I A. H. C. MITCHELL 1 CAPTAIN VELVET’S REVOLT. Part II EDGAR FRANKLIN 16 THE EDITOR’S DESK THE EDITOR 222 NEXT WEEK’S Complete book-length novel will be by J. EARL GLAUSON the author of “ The Outsider.” HIS NEW STORY IS CALLED RED WAMPUM and is a fine American yarn about red- skins and settlers of the early days. ISSVED WEEKLY BY THE FRANK A. MVNSEY COMPANY. 175 Fifth Avenue. New York, and Temple House. Temple Avenue, E. C., London Feans A. Monbit, Preildent. Richard H. Tithiiunoton, Secretary. Chribtopbir H. Pori, Treuurer. Single Copies, 10c. Copyright, 1914, by The Frank A. Munsey Company By the Year, $4.00 ENTERED AT THE NEW YORK POST-OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MAIL MATTER.— COPYRIGHTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. PmtO-Lite mfor Motorcycles The only reliable lighting system Prest-O-Lite spells safety — it is absolutely reliable. It is simple and sturdy. It stands the rough and tumble work, the jolts and the vibration. Has no delicate connections or frail parts. Your light may snap out suddenly at a critical time, if it depends on a toy storage battery or any other com- plicated system. Prest-O-Lite is the most convenient system. Needs practically no attention, has no mysteries, and breeds no troubles. The first cost is small. The oper- ating expense is no greater than that of a carbide generator, and only one- third to one-fifth that of electric light. 30-Day Free Trial You can prove all our claims for Prest-O-Lite by our 30-day trial plan. Before buying any other system, insist upon the same kind of a test. Don’t pay for poor light Any dealer who offers you a combination of equipment, including any other lighting system, will give you Prest-O-Iyite instead, if you insist. And if you know the facts, Tear off on the dotted line, write your name and address below and mail it for com- plete information about motorcycle lighting. you will insist. Prest-O - Lite is ideal for Stereopticons The Prest-O-Lite Co., Inc. 733 Speedway Indianapolis, Ind. (Contributor to Lincoln Highway.) Please send facts on ALL Lighting Systems to MAKE BE YOUR OWN BOSS’ I f you are making less than $50 a week write us to' day. We can help you to wealth and independence by our plan, you can work when you please, where you please, always have money and the means of making barrels more of It. Just listen to this. Mr. Lloyd started from San Francisco and trav- eled to New Y o r k. He stayed at the best Hotels, lived like a Lord wherever he went and cleaned up more than $10.00 every day he was out. Another man worked the fairs and summer resorts, and when there was nothing special to do', just started out on any street lie happened to select, got busy and' pulled in $8.00 a day for month after month. This interests you, don’t it? MY PROPOSITION 18 a Wonderful Kew Camera with which llll rnUrUOIMUIl you can take and instantaneously develop pictures on Paper Post Cards and Tintypes. Every picture is developed without Aims or negatives and is ready to deliver to your customer in a minute after making the exposure. Tills remarkable invention takes 100 plc : tures an hour and pays you a profit of from 600 to 1,600 per cent. Everybody wants pictures ami each sale you make advertises your business and makes more sales for you. Simple instructions accompany each outfit and you can. begin to make money in a short time after the outfit readies you. UfC TOIlCT Ynil 80 ,n,,ch confidence have we In Ggr f f L I llUO I I UU proposition that we trust you for part of the cost of the outfit. The regular selling price of the Camera and complete' word- ing outfit is reasonable. The profits are so big, so quick, so sure that j*ou could afford to pay the full price if we asked you to do so. But we are so, absolutely certain that you can make big money from the start that we trust you fora substantial sum which you need not pay unless you clean up $200 the first month. Fair enough, isn’t Itl Do not delay a minute , but write us today for our free catalog and full particulars. L. LASCELLE, 627 W. 43d St. Dept. New York Best grade cedar canoe for *20 Detroit canoes can’t sink All canoes cedar and copper fastened. We make all sizes and styles, also power canoes. Write for free catalog, giving prices with retailer’s profit cut out. We are the largest manufacturers of canoes in the world. DETROIT BOAT CO.. 246 Bellevue Ave„ Detroit, Mich. 1 GEMS LOOK LIKE DIAMONDS Stand acid and fire diamond test. So hard they easily scratch a file and will cut glass. Brilliancy guaran- teed 25 years. Mounted in 14k solid gold diamond mountings. See them before pay- ing:. Will send you any style ring, pin or Btud for examination — all charges prepaid. No money in advance. Mom*y refunded if not satisfactory. Write today for free catalog. WHITE VALLEY GEM CO.. 703 Wulsin Bldg., Indianapoli. r School Information cxxxxsjzxxxzxxxzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxzxxxzxxxzxxxxxxxxxxxxx: R eaders of munsey’s magazine are • cordially invited to use Munsey’s School Information Service. If you intend to send your son or daughter away to school, write and tell us just what you have in mind, so that we may place our fund of school information at your disposal. This service is rendered without cost to you, and inquiries will be answered promptly and effectively. Merely state about how much you Wish to pay for tuition, the kind of school desired, and its locality. r ixx: 1V/I xzxxzzxxxxxxxixxxxxxxxxxxzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Munsey’s School Information Service 175 Fifth Avenue, New York City ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. Special BARGAIN SALE I “EVERYBODY’S DOING IT”— BUYING DIAMONDS, WATCHES, JEWELRY, on CREDIT, YOU SAVE ONE-THIRD Diamonds Watches on Credit These are our Big Leaders — always fashionable, always worn by lovers of artistic jewelry. Let us send you any of these handsome pieces, or any article shown in our Catalog, for your examination and ap- proval, all delivery charges prepaid by us. If satisfact- ory, send us one-fifth of purchase price as first payment, Send for FREE Jewelry Catalog (Established 1868) STORES ALSO IN: PITTSBURGH ST. LOUIS OMAHA ig, the famous Loftis “Perfec- tion” mounting, 14k solid gold .... $50 No. 625-LaValliere, solid gold, 1 Diamond, 4 whole , Pearls, 2 Sapphires; with 15 in. chain. Our best seller, $25 lOur handsome 116-page Catalog, illustrating over 2.000 bargains, is sent free on request. All the new, popular styles in Jewelry — gorgeously beautiful Diamonds, Artistic solid gold and platinum mountings — exquisite things — thatsellin some cash stores at almost double our prices. Our Easy Credit Plan is fully explained in Catalog. Send for it today. IT IS FREE. _LOFTIS BROS. & CO., Diamonds, Watches, etc., MM Dept. N 846 lOO to 108 N. State Street. CHICAGO, ILL. LEARN RAGTIME Let me leach YOU Ragtime Piano Play* ingbymail. Yon learn quickly— easily ',!n 20 lessons. Even if you can*t play a note I'll teach you to “ play any piece in real Rag - time . “Money-back” Guarantee, Write me now for specia Mow terms and testimonials from hundreds of happy students. Axel Christensen (Czar of Ragtime) Director Christensen School of Popular Music 90® Christensen Bldg., CHICAGO, ILL. POEMS WANTED ■ VL-mw IT mi l L .v LARS in ro> , a] ti e> . Send me samples of your work for free criticism or write for valuable FREE BOOKLET and fairest, most liberal proposition offered by a legitimate publishing house employing ONLY successful methods. Absolute pro- tection for you. Est. 16 years. Many Successes. JOHN T. HALL, Pres., 134 Columbus Circle, New York Government Position The Parcel Post is creating thousands of openings in the Post Office, Railway Mail and Rural Carrier services. These are life jobs with good pay and short hours, annual vacations and no fear of “ lay-offs” or strikes. Civil Service examinations for these and other desirable positions are being held all the time. Our 64-page booklet tells how you can prepare for “exams” under per- sonal supervision of former U. S. Civil Service Secretary-Examiner —A man who knows and whose knowledge has helped hundreds to success. Write to-day for booklet. It’s free, without obligation. PATTERSON CIVIL SERVICE SCHOOL, 455 Administration Sq., ROCHESTER, N. Y. AGENTS $35 to $75 A WEEK INCOME. New invention. Scrubs, takes up water. No wringing, no cloths, less work. Big sales— big profits. Exclusive territory. Write today. Special terms. PIRRUNti MFG. CO., Dept. 34G, Chicago, III. o /\The GreafestMotor Boat rl< 3 U for Thertoney Ever Built MULLINS 16 foot special steel launch affords the pleasures of motor boating, and provides a safe, seaworthy, dependable motor boat, with grace- ful lines and beautiful finish — Absolutely Guar- anteed Against Puncture— Safe as a life boat, with air chambers concealed beneath decks in bow and stern— Can’t warp, split, dry out or rot — No seams to calk— No cracks to leak. MULLINS $130 Special Launch is equipped with 2- Cycle, 3- II. P. Ferro engines, that can’t stall— Speed 8 1-2 to 9 miles an hour — One man control — Fitted with MULLINS silent under-water exhaust. This 16 footer seats 8 people comfortably — has 4 foot beam and 11 foot 4 inch cockpit— Positively the greatest launch value ever offered. Write today for beautifully illus- trated motor boat catalog, containing full particulars. THE W. H. MULLINS COMPANY 324 Franklin St. Salem, Ohio, U. S. A. THE WORLD'S LARGEST BOAT BUILDERS M U ULINS STEEL BOATS CAN’T SINK AGENTS **a weefc 0 |rajF, i-* Thousands of dollars paid to i^F agents already in the field; Will Gunckie, of Ohio, got $240 worth of orders first week. A. Berriider, of Kansas, made $30 in four hours. Made 8 calls, took 6 orders. Well, of Missouri, made $10 in one hour. Hamilton, of Wyoming, made $60 first two days. We want good agents in every county in the United States, Canada and Mexico. NFW INVFNTION ' T « st <> ut - Nothing like it. FOLDING BATH 1YIL W 11 v V EdN I IKJIH TUB G - ves to eyery home a coni pi et e bath room in any part of the house— without expense. Biggest, quickest, surest money maker of the century for agents. Territory being rapidly assigned. Send your application today. 100 % PROFIT We h aek you with our capital and experience. / We give you complete instructions, assistance and co-operation. No charge for territory. Don’t delay. Send your name at once. Write plainly and give name, of your county. Com- plete particulars FREE. Write today. ROBINSON MFG. CO., 35 Factories Bldg., TOLEDO, 0. You Want Money? Listen ! You are facing a rare opportunity to make money in big quantities as a one minute photographer. No experience. Small capital. Unlimited money-making field. Every- buys. 13c profit on a sale. Fifty sales a day bring $6.50 profit. Write at once for our FREE BOOK ABOUT THE “MANDEL” POST CARD MACHINE A wonderful one minute picture machine. A portable post card gallery. Takes, finishes and de- livers post card and button photos at the rate of*tlkee a minute. -*■ No plates, films or dark room. Enor- mous profits for red blooded,, ambitious men and women. No waiting. No delays. Profits begin at once. First sales bring back practically entire, investment. Don’t delay — get an early start. Fairs, carnivals, picnics, outdoor celebrations, busy corners, small or large towns— money everywhere with a “Mandel” Machine. Consider the big chance we offer you and write without delay. _ — 478 Ferrotype Building, CHICAGO, or Dept. 478, Public Bank Building, 89-9t Delancey Street, NEW YORK. IE CHICAGO FERROTYPE CO., In answering any advertisement on this page it is desirable that you mention All-Story Weekly. ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. Statement of the ownership, management, etc., of ALL-STORY WEEKLY, published weekly at New York, N. Y., required by the Act of August 24th, 1912. NOTE— This statement is to be made in duplicate, both copies to be delivered by the publisher to the Postmaster, who will send one copy to the Third Assistant Postmaster-General (division of Classification), Washington, D. C., and retain the other in the files of the Post-Office. Editor — T. N. Metcalf, 175 5th Ave. , New York, N. Y. Managing Editor — T. N. Metcalf, 175 5th Ave., New York, N. Y. Business Manager — Wm. T. Dewart, 175 5th Ave., New York, N. Y. Publisher — The Frank A. Munsey Company, 175 5th Ave., New York, N. Y. Owners : (If a corporation, give names and addresses of stockholders holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of stock.) Frank A. Munsey, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders, holding 1 per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities : There are no bonds, mortgages, or other securities against The Frank A. Munsey Company. WM. T. DEWART, Business Manager. Sworn to and subscribed before me this 9th day of April, 1914. J. D. BROPHY, Notary Public No. 485, New York County. (My commission expires March 31. 1915.) SEAL Did you ever study a map of the United States, Canada and Mexico? Those three countries contain more than 400,000 miles of railroads. Those railroads pass through thousands of prosperous cities, towns and vil- lages. In each of those places are dozens of stories that are suitable for the Railroad Man’s Magazine Write to the editor of that publication for full details regarding length and treatment of story, payment and all other particulars. Address: Editor, “Railroad Man’s Magazine” THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY 175 Fifth Avenue, New York City, U. S. A. in answering this advertisement it is desirable that you mention All-Story Weekly. ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. MAKE A MOTOR-BOAT OF ANY ROWBOAT IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE TURN ANY ROWBOAT INTO A MOTOR-BOAT WITH AN Starts with one- twelfth turn of fly-wheel; no cranking. Drives a row- boat 8 miles an hour — a canoe 12 miles. EVINRUDE MOTOR COMPANY 522 M Street Milwaukee, Wis. So simple to operate that women and children are “Evin- ruding” everywhere. Why not get. one for your vacation! By special arrangement we have procured as an exclusive feature, the FAMOUS MAXIM SILENCER and can apply it to either 1S*13 or 11*14 models. The “Evlnrude” has always been practically silent in operation, but this ad- dition makes it a veritable triumph. No similar motor can use the Maxim Silencer. It has been added to the already long list of exclusive “Kvin- rude” features. It is the only marine motor In the world having a Built-In Reversible Magneto This magneto is not affected by rain, waves or even complete submersion. The ••Evlnrude'’ is built by the largest manufacturers of row- boat motors in the world. Capacity fur 11*14. 60.000. Has been adopted by twelve governments, in- cluding the U. S. A. Weight about 60 pounds, may be carried like a suit case. For sale at Hardware and Sporting Goods Dealers everywhere. Illustrated Catalog Free Upon Request. -NO. 40-1-2 kt.; No. 42-5-8 kt. ; No. 45 3 . 40-3-8 kt. ; No. 47-5-8 kt. ; No. 48- . o. 49—5-8, 1-16 kt. Compare these ers. Wo import the rough Di&- ^^£ 0 ,. ;m here, save 33 per cent duty, : to you. Write today for I.Oti and SPECIAL NO OFFER of <.||8P for only $100.^^ EASV vTERMS Buy direct from Importers und Save Dealer’s Profits. Startling low prices— and pay in little amounts ' from time to time. Certified Guarantee with every Diamond — guaran- teeing its weight and quality. A safe way to buy and save money — no inconvenience — and have the Diamond now. Perfectly cut, blue white Diamonds, gleaming, sparkling, scintillating — genuine high quality. Not a cent to pay until you have examined the Diamond. We send you free mag- nifying glass. Any diamond in our Beautifully illustrated Diamond and Watch Free Catalog I will be sent for examination without obligation. This offer is open to l every honest person — OPEN' TO YOU. Note the wonderful l values shown here— NO. 40-1-2 -1-4,1-10 kt.; No. 40— 3*8 kt. 3-8, 1-10 kt. ; No. 49-5-8, prices with others. We t monds, out them here, Give the saving our BIG CAT A WORLD-BE ATI One Carat Diamonds for All Diamonds, also watches, oi terms — no money first. SendfOt Catalog today. Dept/ A 7 W. Madison St. Chicago, III. BLUE WHITE GENUINE DIAMONDS - moderate prices For good dressers and careful spenders The kind of men who buy Style- plus Clothes $iy dress the best and save the most. They have two prides — pride in their personal appearance and pride in their ability to get the most for their money — to make “the best buy.” Styleplus #17 Clothes REGISTERED "The same price the world over A Styleplus suit this spring will save you at least $3 to $8, for it has the look and the wear you thought only possible in clothes of the higher price. Style+all wool fabrics. Style+per- fect fit. Style+expert workmanship. Style+guaranteed wear. You can tell a genuine Styleplus by the label (in the coat collar), the Sleeve Ticket, and the Guarantee (in the pocket). Send for our book, “As Others See You.” Henry Sonneborn & Co. Founded 1849 Baltimore, Md. In answering any advertisement on this page it is desirable that you mention All-Stoby Weekly. ALL-STORY WEEKLY— ADVERTISING SECTION. Soda crackers are extremely sensitive to moisture. Before the advent of Uneeda Biscuit the only persons who ever tasted fresh, crisp soda crackers were the people in the bakeries. Now that we have Uneeda Biscuit — we have perfectly baked soda crackers — perfectly kept. No moisture can reach them — no contaminating influences can affect their flavor — their goodness is imprisoned only to be liberated by you for you when you open the package. Five cents. NATIONAL BISCUIT COMPANY In answering this advertisement it is desirable that you mention All-Stoky Weekly. ALL-STORY WEEKLY VOL. XXXI MAY 2, 1914. No. 1 * A NOVEL-COMPLETE IN THIS ISSUE. CHAPTER I. OUT OF THE INVISIBLE- A LMOST before the limousine l came to a standstill young ■ Turga had thrown open the door and was darting across the side- walk. He had tea-ed and tangoed for half • an hour longer than he should have done, and he was in danger of being late for a dinner engagement. It was his twenty - first birthday. The day had been full of excitement and drinks of one kind or another, and his nerves were on the jump. Youth and nerves were both in his present haste, yet as the street door closed behind him he paused, i S In his hand was a soiled, yellow envelope. How it had got there he wasn’t quite sure. He had a vague recollection of having passed some one on the outer steps. He wasn’t sure. Yet there was the envelope. It was odd. Athwart his high- strung nerves there swept, very light- ly, a minor chord of uneasiness — a ghostly hand on the strings of a harp. He turned and threw a glance back in the direction from which he had just come. , A Waiting automobile — a few nonde- script pedestrians — general impression of a misty, autumnal evening, with the lights on streets and passing vehi- cles showing dimly — and that was all. z 2 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. No one in the lobby, iiq one lurking on the steps, and yet the impression was growing stronger, now that he took thought, that there had been somebody there — a man, gaunt, dark — dark because the only really notice- able thing about him was the whites of his eyes. Turga looked down at the missive again with a shuddering little smile. For a second or two he was almost tempted to cast it from him as a thing unclean. He mentally decided to burn his gloves, at any rate. Still holding the yellow envelope in his hand, he entered the elevator and was carried to his bachelor quarters on the top floor. An aged man servant was there to receive him — a man with a swarthy complexion and glowing dark eyes, with the stamp of strength and passion about him still despite his snow-white hair.. His appearance, as well as his lan- guage when he spoke, showed unmis- takably that he and his young master were sprung from the same race. For Turga also was dark — dark, slim, elegant — and his eyes had all the sombrous luster of the East. “ What is this thing, Paulo? ” asked Turga, with a little laugh, as he al- lowed the servant to take his hat and stick. “ Begging letter, I suppose.” Paulo took the letter as well, just as he had taken hat and stick, with un- smiling humility; but as he looked at the yellow envelope a gradual change of expression came over his face. “ Open it,” young Turga flung over his shoulder as he strode through the padded luxury of his drawing - room into the room beyond. He had already floundered through his bath and into fresh linen when Paulo appeared again. In one of his hands the servant still held the yellow envelope, * and in the other was a crumpled sheet of paper. He was trembling. His eyes glowed, and he smiled slightly. “It is the call, sir,” he said in the same musical language which Turga had used a little while before in ad- dressing him. “ What call? ” Turga was struggling to get his tie just right, and didn’t even turn. But he let his eyes drift beyond the shoul- der of his reflection to where the re- flected Paulo stood. What Turga saw in the - old man’s face brought him round with a recurrence of that same feeling of uncanniness he had experi- enced a little while before in the lower hall. “ What call, Paulo ? ” he asked, with a touch of irascibility. “ Noth- ing doing for to-night, at any rate; I’m late now.” “ It is for to-night, sir.” With visible constraint of the ex- citement which illumined his face, Paulo stepped forward with the paper outheld, Turga took it with a little gesture of impatience. He read a sin- gle line: Come with Paulo at nine o’clock. The only signature was a symbol in the form of a cross, to the arms of which were added winglike projections. “ Why, this is absurd ! ” he ex- claimed. “ It is necessary for me to be at the Plaza in fifteen minutes. I’m late now.” But even as he spoke he had a creep- ing sensation that the thing was not absurd. Paulo had never looked nor acted like this. Moreover, he felt that at last he was on the verge of enlight- enment as to the mystery which had enshrouded his life. ^ " It made him gasp. He knew so lit- tle about himself ! All that he did know had been told him by Paulo. That he was rich, that he was, noble — • these things he had accepted as nat- urally as he accepted the color of his hair. So had it beerf even with his name. He was Count Carlos Turga. No one had ever questioned it, he himself least of all. And Paulo was his s®rv- ant. THE HAUNTED LEGACY, 3 “Look here, Paulo,” he said after a frowning pause. “ I ask you what’s the meaning of this confounded tom- foolery — 'anonymous letter, go with you whether I want to or not? I call it cheeky. They can go to the devil l ” The boy was speaking to convince himself, not Paulo. The old servant listened without change of expression. “ You’ll have to go, sir.” “ Why?” “ It is important, sir.” “And if I refuse?” The servant slowly shook his head. “You can’t refuse, sir,” he said with meek obstinacy. “ I say why not ? ” cried Turga. He was working himself into a passion. “ Do you think I’m going to disappoint my hostess at this hour? ” “You have time now, sir, to make your excuses.” Turga had finished dressing. For a moment or two he stood and looked at Paulo, with his slim, young form drawn up very straight and his splen- did eyes blazing. Into the dusk of his cheeks there had crept an underglow of pink, such as might have come into the face of a dark-complexioned girl. “To Mazes with excuses! ” he said. “ I’m twenty-one. I’m master of my own movements, I imagine.” “ The paper had the mark on it,” Paulo sighed, with more than paternal patience. “ That swastika thing ? ” “ The winged cross.” “ Winged fiddlesticks — ” “ Shall I call up the Plaza, sir?” Young Turga threw his clenched fists into the air above his head and grated a half-articulate curse. “You’ll drive me crazy, Paulo! What is this thing — or have you gone mad ? ” Paulo smiled slightly. “ It is the call, sir,’’ he said again as their dark eyes took contact with- out flinching. “ The days of your preparation are over. Here is the winged cross to prove it. At nine o’clock you'll come with Paulo and learn many things that he can’t an- swer.” “ And if I make them wait ? ” % “You won’t make them wait.” Turga started to speak again, then dropped into a chair. “ Call the Plaza,” he said in desper- ation. CHAPTER II. INTO THE UNKNOWN, It was one of those misty nights in October when all material things are dissolved into a sort of vague unreal- ity. There had been a little fog to- ward sundown, but this had increased with the advancing night. It grew heavier still as the automobile made' its way down-town. Turga was alone, for Paulo had taken his seat outside where he could direct the chauffeur on this strange excursion. The young man had plenty of time to meditate. The night outside was symbolical in its mystery and gloom of the scarcely less impenetrable night in his own mind and heart. Not for the first time — but more profoundly perhaps — he considered the facts and the circumstances of his ca- reer. As far back as his memory could go he had been a creature apart. He had never known family ties or affec- tions, except as these came to him through the presence of the old serv- ant. There had always been wealth, but the source of this wealth was as unknown to him as the source of his very existence. Yet he was conscious that he had always been the object of unremitting care. No youth — and he knew many sons of families eminent socially and financially — had ever been more care- fully clad, educated, and looked after generally. Now he was twenty-one. He told himself that he was a man. With what he considered a man’s courage and sang-froid, he attempted to con- 4 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. front not only the past riddles, but the present one. , The automobile had entered a region of deserted streets — streets that in the daytime teem with their striving mil- lions, inhabited at night by mere mem- ories. It was as a city of the dead; a city itself dead, now still and silent where a little before it was so instinct with life. Through street after street they passed, each more deserted than the last; dark and silent houses peering down upon them; each succeeding lamp-post surmounted by a waning, sickly glow — as though these last sen- tinels of human activity were them- selves discouraged, about to yield up their spirits to the triumphant gloom. It was at the end of one of these streets, which had seemed intermi- nable to the young man in the com- fortless luxury of the limousine, that the automobile halted. A moment later Turga confronted his servant on the sidewalk. Turga was still in evening dress. His silk hat was pushed back at a boyish angle of challenge. He stood with his feet apart and his chin down. For a moment Paulo regarded him with that same cryptic smile that had been on his lips back in the apartment. “ I’m glad to see, sir, that you are not alarmed.” “ Not alarmed, certainly not,” said Turga. “ But, by the Lord Harry, Paulo, if you’ve begun to joke with me at your age — ” The smile disappeared from the face of the old servant. Instead there ap- peared an expression of almost relig- ious exaltation. “ It is no joke, sir,” he whispered. He turned and spoke a few words softly to the chauffeur, who thereupon touched his cap, resumed his seat, and prepared to drive away. He had not even paused to give Turga a glance — a most extraordinary thing for a well- trained chauffeur, as Turga knew him to be. Ordinarily, a young man of distin- guished appearance and arrayed in evening clothes would have attracted attention in that part of town. Yet, the occasional pedestrians whom they encountered passed them by without apparent notice. It was almost as though they were invisible. The automobile had carried them through the down-town business sec- tion to the fringe of one of those lost residential districts — once aristo- cratic, now thick-coated with grimy squalor. It was a lugubrious place, where every house might have been the birthplace and home of tragedy; where dim alleyways led to dim, sug- gestive courts; where doors were open on black interiors. The only signs of life were occa- sional frightened cats, starved and unclean — these and a few furtive men and limping women, the occasional squall of suffering children. Turga was beyond the point of asking questions. He had never been in a place like this — not that he re- membered. With a little internal clutching at his heart, he asked him- self if it were possible that he had sprung from such surroundings' — that this was the hideous geography of his origin. Paulo did not enlighten him. Paulo had nothing to say. Once Turga had glanced at the old servant — had seen that rapt expression that had come there a while before when they were still standing at the side of the auto- mobile. It was evident that the old man knew where he was going. He walked with the air of one who treads a familiar path. He looked neither to right nor to left. He seemed to be absorbed in his own thought. That they were near the river Turga knew. In the air was the damp reek of sea-fog and ships, of tar and bilge and ooze, and occasionally the smell of queerly aromatic cargoes from the far places of the world. They came at last to the door of what appeared to be a deserted ware- THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 5 kouse. It was a large, low building of brick. Over the door, almost illegible in the dim light, a yard-high expanse of scaling paint still proclaimed the name of “ W. G. Frail.” Turga started. He knew the Frails very well — from a distance — a rich and famous family. Without pause, still intent on his secret broodings, Paulo brought out a key and unlocked the door. A mo- ment later they had stepped inside and the door was closed behind them. Turga felt a hand on his arm,* whether Paulo’s or not he could not say. At any rate, there was some- thing unfamiliar about it. Paulo had taken his arm, ft is true, once or twice before in his life, when Turga had been having too much of a celebration; but the action then had always been timid and friendly. There was nothing timid in the hand on his arm at the present time. It had the undefinable feel of authority about it — an authority which Turga, for some reason or other, neither ques- tioned nor resisted. He told himself that he was in for an adventure, and that he would see it through. There followed an interminable promenade across a rough plank floor. Not a word was spoken. No gleam of light came from any direction. Thgy passed through another door. There was a change of atmosphere; the air had become closer, damper, subterranean. Upon Turga’s straining senses there came two things — a recurrence of aro- matic odors, very faint, and, fainter still, the sound of weird music and many voices. CHAPTER III. witches’ sabbath. At some time in the remote past the place had probably been used as a storage-cellar for alcoholic liquors — possibly Jamaica rum. The ^sweetish smell of spirits was still there. There was a dim forest of brick pillars supporting the low, brick arches of the roof. What light there was came from what seemed to Turga as the remote distance — a suggestion of red and yellow, such as might be thrown out by either a camp-fire or by Venetian lanterns unsteadily suspend- ed from moving hands. They had come through the last door. He turned to look at his erst- while invisible guard. It was Paulo. From the farther end of the grotto- like place in which they found them- selves there still came that confused babble of speech and intermittent gusts of music which had reached them before the last door had opened. Without preliminary Paulo whistled * — a high, shrill blast, with a little quaver on the end of it. After that silence fell. Silent were their footsteps on the damp, earthen floor as they walked rapidly forward. The only sound that broke the still- ness was the occasional dripping of water, the faint crackle of fire, and the bubbling murmur of a boiling pot. Turga saw, fitfully outlined in the uncertain glow, the segment of a living circle — the faces of men and women, each impressed somehow with the seal of savagery, of cunning and cruelty and excitement. Then the music broke out again, a wild, minor chant beginning with the quavering falsetto of some old man or woman, he knew not which, and gradually accumulating the hushed, strange cadence of other voices. And in these voices was the suggestion of the same things that he had seen in those oddly limned faces — savagery, cruelty, excitement. As they passed the last row of pil- lars that barred his view, his first impressions were verified — both veri- fied and magnified. The circle was complete — men and women, perhaps two hundred of them, most of them old, some of them young, all seated on the floor, except for one old hag. 6 ALL-STORY. WEEKLY. She it was, evidently, who was act- ing as mistress of the Satanic choir. She stood in the center of the circle, a grotesque figure — a grotesque sil- houette against the red and yellow glow of an open fire over which an iron pot was simmering. She appeared now large, now small, as the flames rose and fell; and again, almost invisible, by some trick of the uncertain light, as though she were not a creature of flesh and blood at all, but merely the fantom of a dis- ordered brain. It was some time before Turga’s intellect resumed its proper functions. He was like a swimmer who had been cast into the middle of a whirlpool — the rushing of sensations had been too complex, too confusing, too over- whelming. Then he began to recognize some of the words of the chant. He heard “ Fate,” “ Doom,” “ Destruction.” These words might have applied to his own impending destiny; but, be- fore he could formulate the thought, he heard a name other than his own — “ Frail.” He found himself at the center of the circle. He was standing just back of the Satanic choir-mistress. Paulo had brought him there, but Paulo had disappeared into the circle of dimly seen faces and figures. “ Fate,” “ Doom,” “ Destruction,” “ Frail ” — the words were assuming their proper sequence in his brain. It was the language that he and Paulo had always used when speaking to each other — a dialect of the Bohemian mountains. They were chanting the doom of the Frails — all that was left of the race of the great Count von Frelinghuysen, who had fled to America from Bohe- mia and changed his name half a cen- tury ago. Turga had bent every faculty now to understand. He and Hugh Frail had been classmates in the same university, belonged to the same clubs — in a manner belonged to the same clique. though they had never been in any sense intimate. It was not so much a song — song would have been too pretty a term for that devilish chant — as it was a recita- tive, in which the old woman standing in front of him shrilled her uncanny falsetto — the crazy winging of a wounded bat — trailing along with it the sibilant weight of the chorus. Aie, the lord-count was a mighty man, And he builded his castles of blood and gold. Blood of our youth, the gold of our clan, But this is the end of the fated span; Behold, behold! We take again what was never sold. If there is such a thing as fate in the lives of men, this appeared to be the temple of it, the woman in the center of the circle its high priestess. Her incantation was not devoid of logic, despite the apparent frenzy she threw into it. There was no denying that great families grew up, then de- cayed and disappeared like the trees of a forest. That this hour was impending for the Frail family was conceivable. It was even conceivable that Turga him- self was the chosen instrument to this end. The longer he stood there the more completely he surrendered both will and personality. Upon him was the omnipotent grip of destiny. Destiny had provided him with all things. Destiny was his creator. He had never felt it before, but he felt it now — that forever afterward, in all things, by day and by night, he could not otherwise move or think or feel. Suddenly silence fell on the assem- blage, and he was looking into the beady, inscrutable eyes of the old woman. She was very wrinkled, very yellow and terrible; yet her ugliness had about it something of the majesty of age and infinite intelligence. “ Who are you ? ” she asked. In the tremendous silence Turga heard his own voice recite his name. THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 7 i age, address. Each syllable he pro- nounced was echoed in a whisper from the circle. CHAPTER IV. BAR SINISTER. There followed another period of silence. Turga stood very straight. He made a proud young figure standing there — proud and incongruous in his evening clothes there in the dank crypt with no other light than that of the open fire, confronted by the an- cient witch, circled by her fantasmic band of followers. Her eyes held his, beady and inscrutable. “ Yes, that name will do,” she said in soothing tones widely different from those she had used in her incantation. “ But the time has come for you to know the truth. You, also, are a Frelinghuysen, my chick. Yes, you’re of the noble blood — the noble black blood. Left-handed — left-handed. ” “ I’m right-handed,” said Turga, with that slight blush of his. " Left-handed, my chick,” said the old woman — “ left-handed, like all of us here; and yours the legacy.” “ What legacy ? ” he asked. With a quick movement the old woman turned and threw out her hand over the bubbling kettle. Instantly there rose from it a cloud of aromatic, intoxicating steam. Into this the old woman peered foT a moment or two with an expression of eager expectancy. Suddenly again she reached out, and this time it seemed that from the wraith of steam she plucked a coin. “ The Frelinghuysen thaler,” she murmured. “ Have you ever heard of it?” " No.” “ This is it” She kissed it and passed it over to him. He saw that it was a dollar — an ordinary American dollar of early date, worn and shiny. It seemed to pof Ass some other warmth than that of its recent bath of steam. It made his fingers tingle. It sent throughout his entire being a feeling of malaise, almost of nausea. He would have given it back. He could not. It clung to him, gripped him — that bit of minted silver — as though it were a frightful thing, the metallic heart of some invisible octo- pus, the signet of an invisible hand. As he stared at it he saw that it also bore the emblem of the winged cross rudely graven on its surface. Signet indeed of an invisible hand — a hand that was gripping him. “ What is it ? ” he managed to ar- ticulate in strained tones. “ The Frelinghuysen thaler,” the old woman repeated, speaking softly with a thrill of excitement. “ That is your heritage, my chick — oh, a rare and wonderful heritage ! ” She cackled with delight. “ What centuries are locked up in it,” she went on. “ He fled from Holland to Bohemia, did the first Frelinghuysen, before America was. He built his castle. The king was his friend. That was nothing.” She emphasized her statement by slowly wagging a crooked finger. Her small eyes were fixed, yet glowing still with excitement. “ That was nothing. The curse of his devil’s pact was upon him. Since then it has pursued his line. The last count fled to America, even as the first count fled to Bohemia ; but no man can flee his own shadow, my chick. Thou art the shadow. The dollar is thy legacy. Thine the power to carry on the curse — the curse of the Freling- huysens — curse of the Frails.” “ And if I refuse? ” “ You can’t refuse.” “ I’m a qian — I’m twenty-one.” The old woman laughed again — a derisive, fateful laugh. “The world is full of men like you. And which will be the gallows-bird and which the bishop? The world is full of sapling-trees. And which will be the crosier and which the gibbet? 8 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. [Ah, not for nothing have we reared you in idleness and luxury. But now the time has come. A young tree grew to become a gibbet. This is you, my chick.” Turga stood there palpitant, some- what frightened, yet his fear domi- nated, overwhelmed, by a sense of fa- tality, of exalted helplessness. Upon him he felt the grip of the invisible. He knew that the old woman was speaking the truth. The Turga of the past — the reckless, care-free youth — was a fading ghost. This present Turga was the reality, would remain so forever more. He swallowed, sought to get a grip on himself, tried to take a man’s part in the situation. He tore his eyes away from those of the old woman, glanced at the shadowy faces of the circle. “ Who are these people ? ” he asked. “ They are the last of the Cave- Dwellers,” the old woman answered. “ Our work is done in the old country. Schloss Frelinghuysen will never see another Frelinghuysen or a Frail. Strangers are buying it. Soon it will burn. Peasants will sow and reap where the cruel counts held sway. We have followed where the last count led.” She laughed softly. The laugh was echoed with a ghostly sibilance by the people in the circle. “ The Frelinghuysen thaler has be- come the dollar of the Frails. The curse is in it. You’ll see. You’ll see.” Before Turga could draw back or, even suspect her purpose, she had seized his shoulders in her skinny hands, had brought her dreadful face to his, and kissed him. Turga felt his senses reel. He was conscious that the entire assemblage had risen to its feet, that men and women were alike engaged in a mad saraband. There were shrieks of wild laughter and quick anger, of half ar- ticulate speech and song. But through it all there reached the center of his brain, steadily, insistently, the voice pf the old woman. She was calling him the chosen one, telling him that he was the ax in the hand of the woodchopper, that the creator of the Frelinghuysen name and fortune had borrowed from the world and had never paid back, that the world would reclaim its own, even as the earth had already reclaimed, long ago, its original toll of titled dust. The noise, the confusion, the intoxi- cating fumes from the seething pot mounted to Turga’s head. How he left the place he hardly knew. He had a vague recollection afterward of going out the way he had come in, without Paulo there to help him, back through the mean streets until he happened upon his automobile. At sight of him the chauffeur jumped down from his seat and opened the door of the limousine. Turga sank back into the familiar seat and the motor throbbed into life. Was he also, he wondered, a mere ma- chine, to be stilled or sped into action at the will of some higher power?- He strove to find himself, to recover something of the confidence and equi- poise that had been so strong within him only a few hours before. His hand touched the coin in his pocket, lingered there. Up from it — swift, subtle, omnipotent — sprang something that gripped him, held him fast, gave him that same feeling of exalted helplessness. There reeled through his brain a vision of sinister power. CHAPTER V. SET TO MUSIC. They rolled out of the section 0 f deserted streets into the sudden lhht and activity of Fourteenth Street, hen on up through the reassuring brilliance and movement of upper Broadway. Yet Turga felt strangely apart, almos- as though he were alone in silence and darkness, and all these people and things he saw and heard were bit the phantasmagoria of a disordered bain. THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 9 He thought wildly of making this solitude real, of going home, of lock- ing himself into his bedroom — any- where, anything to shut out this com- pelling, invisible specter. With a hand that trembled slightly he seized the speaking-tube to give the order to the chauffeur. Then he had one of the strangest experiences of his life. It was his voice that spoke. But it was as though the will that formed the words were other than his own. Home! Home! That was where he wanted to go; yet, very complacent, cool, with no trace of excitement, his voice was instructing the chauffeur to drive to the opera. The man didn’t understand imme- diately. Turga’s heart was thumping. This time — this time — While he was still resolving to resist, still striving to master the sort of terror which engulfed him, his voice, still dispassionate, repeated the order: “ To the opera ! ” Even there in the promenade of the crowded auditorium he felt strangely alone. All about him were the smooth backs and the sleek, well-nourished heads of men dressed as he was, yet they might have been so many spirits. Some one spoke to him, clapped him familiarly on the shoulder. He murmured a reply, but he had not even noticed who it was. He heard the stormy clamor of the “ Walkiire,” yet he seemed to be in the silence. He had tried to go home. A supe- rior power had forbade — that was the thing that kept beating through his brain. That was the thing which be- came the theme of the music — throb- bing, thunderous, triumphant — and the wild messengers of Wotan were attend- ant upon him — him, Count Carlos Turga. While he listened and mused — wait- ed as a man waits for a pain or a de- lusion to wear itself away — he sud- denly became conscious that his eyes, for the past several minutes, had been directed and held to something outside his purpose, just as his voice had been when speaking to his chauffeur. Wth a fresh quiver of an almost tragic interest, he recognized the object — or, rather, the objects — of his inter- est. He was looking at a party in the box almost directly opposite — a fascinating woman of about forty or so, gorgeous- ly appareled and begemmed; a girl of nineteen, slender and beautiful, and then a youth of his own age. As he looked he saw the elder, wom- an lift her lorgnon and scrutinize him with the lazy insolence of her kind, and through his heart there crept a feeling of dumb hatred. Into his face there crept a sullen flush, then faded again. He looked at the girl — dark hair, gray eyes, exotic — and his hatred was modified by the world-old sense of masculine greed. She was very young, very beautiful, very desirable in every way. Again his eyes shifted and rested on the youth. Surely the old dame of the warehouse had given him an easy task. The work of fate — the work to which that invisible hand and the cursed dol- lar in his pocket had doomed him — ■ might not be so disagreeable and diffi- cult, after all. For the first time that evening he felt a wave of almost good humor, almost of exultation. Then, once again, he felt that inex- plicable wave of dumb hatred, of a de- sire to work ill, to profit by the mis- fortune of these people at whom he was looking and who had been look- ing at him. For they were Mrs. Frail — the for- mer Princess Viatka — and her two children, Hugh and Agatha, all that was left of the fated line, and these were the ones that he was destined to destroy. He must not let them suspect, he told himself. He tried to look away. He could not. A black cloud had closed in upon his field of vision. The wild music of the “ W alkiire ” still throbbed in his brain; but of all the 10 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. vast assemblage there he could see only those three — the fascinating Mrs. Frail, the girl at her side, the weak and self-indulgent face of the heir of all the Frail millions. Once more Turga’s hand came in contact with the coin of ill-omen the old woman had given him. As he recognized the feel of' it he saw Hugh Frail bow in his direction, then rise and leave his place. CHAPTER VI. A GHOSTLY SOUVENIR. There was something about young Count Carlos Turga that had always made a certain appeal to the somewhat jaded interest of the widow of the late Horace Frail. She had often seen the youth hovering about on various occa- sions — dances, garden-parties, horse- shows. She had admired him. Every wom- an did that. No handsomer, better- mannered young man was imaginable, though the former Princess Viatka came from a part of the world where men are notoriously good-looking. She was a Slav in the flower of her age — gray eyes and abundant dark hair sagaciously coifed, subtle, ardent, possessing a tremendous amount of what people call temperament, thirsty always for new sensations, yet never losing that almost Oriental fatalism which translated itself in terms of the most exquisite poise. There was a delightful little flutter in her bosom now as she lifted her lorgnon. Perhaps it was that stormy “ Walkure ” music quite as much as it was the appearance of young Turga himself. He appeared to be very tragic, very distraught. Perhaps he was in trouble. Into the somewhat tropical field of her imagination there sprang up some idea of consoling him. He was certainly looking in their direction. It couldn’t be Agatha who wholly absorbed his attention. She knew all about the psychology of young men, and Agatha was very immature, not to say acidulous, and green. Mrs. Frail reclined languidly back in her chair and touched her son on the arm with her fan. Hugh generally re- quired some physical jolt to awaken him. “ Isn’t that young Count Turga over there, dear ? ” she asked. “ Yes,” he answered. “ Just been looking at him. A bit thick, you know — his staring at Agatha like that.” “ Let him stare,” said Agatha by way of disguising any emotion she might have felt. She was a slim, young thing, was Agatha, but there was that about her — just as there was about her mother — of the beautiful, dreamy, aristocratic Siberian tigress. Still young, slightly acidulous and green perhaps, but quite self-sufficient, quite self-possessed and capable of managing her own affairs, was Agatha. She also had dark hair and gray eyes, like her mother’s; but her eyes were more responsive, more capable of fleeting changefulness. “ By the way,” Mrs. Frail resumed, blissfully ignoring the animadversion of her son, “ he could just complete a little party at supper.” Hugh shrugged his shoulders. “ I was just going to beg off, mater.” “Indeed!” “A couple of fellows at the club — really couldn’t get out of it, you know.” Mrs. Frail stifled a yawn. She didn’t care very much what Hugh did ; this was her way of showing it. “ Then I must have Count Turga to take your place,” she sighed with fine resignation, i >li “ I’ll try to catch the animal for you now,” Hugh answered with something bordering on animation. One cocktail now would do him a world of good. Turga wasn’t surprised, a little later, when young Frail delivered him- self of the invitation. It was almost THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 11 as though he had been expecting it. For the fraction of a second his dark eyes swept the young man in front of him, and there flashed through his heart and brain, like the tepid fire of old wine, an almost dreamlike sense of power. The feeling was still strong within him as he entered the Frail box, brought the pink, beautifully mani- cured tips of the former Princess Viatka’s fingers to his lips, and he en- veloped, fleetingly, with his dark eyes the exceedingly graceful figure of Agatha Frail. He hadn’t desired the thing. It was fate that had brought him here. Had he had his own way he would even now be mooning the hours away in morose loneliness in his own bedroom. But the invisible guardian had decreed otherwise, had brought him into the presence of all that remained of the great family whose arbiter he was— youth, wealth, beauty. There was still that quality of tragic solemnity in his deportment which had just now so deeply impressed the for- mer Princess Viatka’s impressionable nature. But Turga was smiling in his heart. The chant still cadenced through his brain — — Behold, behold ! We take again what was never sold. Throughout the remainder of the opera, and afterward, in the soft reful- gence of the supper-table, with the cloy- ingly sweet music of a Hungarian band charging the atmosphere, Mrs. Frail was conscious that Turga’s eyes were upon ' her. The fact gave her quite an unusual and decidedly pleasant little thrill. She had never felt like that before when young men had looked at her. She had a presentiment of danger, illusive, haunting, ghostly. The music surged in upon them, swooning, voluptuous. “ They lack the fire of our Boliemian players,” said Mrs. Frail, with a smile that called for more intimate speech. Turga’s eyes flashed. Again that undertone of pink suffused his cheeks. “ How did you know that I was Bo- hemian ? ” he asked. “ I know Bohemia well,” she an- swered. “ It was there that I lived for years after my marriage; you know, Mr. Frail had a place there. We still have it — a gloomy and terrible place; Schloss Frelinghuysen, in the Piesen Hills.” “ And you’re going back some time ? ” The former Princess Viatka shrugged her exquisite shoulders. “ It was there that Mr. Frail died.” She flashed a pink and white smile in Turga’s direction sufficient to indi- cate that her mourning was a thing of the remote past. But his somber eyes came back from Agatha, met hers, and compelled her to go on in spite of her- self. “ A duel — a countryman of yours. Schloss Frelinghuysen always was haunted — family curse — all that sort of thing. That was why Count von Frelinghuysen, Mr. Frail’s grand- father, came to this country and clipped his name.” “ And left the curse behind him ? ” Turga was smiling, but an inner ex- citement had quickened his pulse. Everything — everything — was adding realization to this ghostly world which that night had been uncovered to him. Mrs. Frail affected a slight shudder — a little shrinking of her delicately carved throat and shoulders. “ I believe not,” she answered. Her vibrant voice dropped still lower, came to him accompanied by a minor rhap- sody from the orchestra. “ It all came back to me to-night when I saw you looking so dreadfully tragic at the opera. They say that ghosts can’t cross the water, you know; but, some- how — ” Without premeditation, Turga had drawn the marked dollar from his pocket and was idly toying with it on the table in front of him. At the sud- den break of what Mrs. Frail had to. 12 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. say he again glanced up at her. She was looking at the coin with a sort of passionate eagerness. “ What have you there ? Where did you get it? ” she whispered. He held out the coin for her exami- nation, and let his eyes drift over to Agatha ; only dimly visible in the light of the shaded candelabra, she was mani- festing her disapproval of her mother’s monopoly by affecting an exaggerated indifference. Mrs. Frail had taken the coin, was staring at it, fascinated. “ The Frelinghuysen thaler,” she whispered. “ The dollar of the Frails ! The dollar Horace carried when he was killed in the duel. I knew it! I knew it!” She lifted her eyes to Turga’s. He was again looking at her. She passed the coin back to him. It was quite ob- vious that she was frightened — fright- ened but thoroughly happy, as is often the way with women like that. “ The ghost,” she thrilled softly — the ghost has crossed the water.” CHAPTER VII. FOR HIGH STAKES. It was late, but Turga had no desire for sleep. He had hurried back to his bachelor apartment, unhindered this time by the invisible hand which had rested upon him so heavily some time before. Paulo was not there. For the first time within Turga’s memory the aged servant was not where he should have been. It was but another incident in the chain of circumstances which Turga felt was binding him. He telephoned to the lower hall. Paulo had not been seen since they had gone out together earlier in the eve- ning. He called up the garage and in- terviewed the chauffeur. The man’s memory of the night’s events coincided wholly with his in every respect, so far as that was possible. There was no trace of the cryptic message which had served as a pre- liminary of the mystery. Paulo had evidently taken it with him. He threw himself into an easy chair and tried to reflect. Had there been nothing else, it was remarkable enough the way he had been brought into con- tact with the Frails that night. Mrs. Frail had never been at such pains be- fore to manifest any interest that she might have had in him. He recalled again their moment of parting, when her fingers had lingered in his, when she had looked into his eyes with that strange expression of hers — a mingling of joy and fear and almost tragic anticipation — which he had first noticed when they were sitting together at the supper-table. It made him feel a little cruel, gave him once more that vision of sinister power. Then the memory of the mother was blotted out by thought of that fairer, younger face, and figure — Agatha, with Heaven knows what of volcanic fire smoldering under the gray ash of her inscrutable eyes. And he, Count Carlos Turga, was the ax in the hand of the great wood- chopper, he the sapling-gibbet, he the ordained instrument of destruction! Gradually, at thought of her, his ex- citement was tinged with something of remorse as well. It brought with it a resurgence of doubt and rebellion. After all, the thing was too absurd. He must have drunk too much. Men- tally, he catalogued the events and liba- tions of the afternoon. But even as he reflected, some force outside of himself — that same strange extra-volition which he had already experienced — had started him again toward the elevator. This time he did not resist. He knew that it, would be futile to resist. He even argued with himself in a blind attempt to prove that he was doing what he wanted to do; that the cool air of the night would do him good; that contact with the material aspects of normal things would bring him back to normal comprehension. THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 13 But the night had gone foggier than ever — a night of infernal enchantment when nothing was natural. He walked on and on, moodily lighting cigarette after cigarette in an effort to regain some degree of calm. Had he questioned himself, he would have admitted that there was only one place in town that he really cared to avoid — that was the Checker Club, the one club where he knew he would be pretty sure to encounter Hugh Frail. He had had quite enough excitement that night. He wished no more. Yet, he was not altogether surprised when he lifted his eyes and found that he had come to the Checker Club’s am- ple door. For a moment he paused. He smiled a little, felt within himself an impulse to turn back. He translated this im- pulse into the form of a command which he sent along the telegraph sys- tem of his nerves. It was as though his will had not been — as though it had never been. He was like a swimmer powerless in the sweep of a great cur- rent. His feet were carrying him through the club-house entrance. It wasn’t a very large club, but with a somewhat large reputation for the liberality of its house rules and the ex- tent to.which this liberality was utilized by its limited membership. Even before Turga had crossed the entrance-hall he could hear the voice of young Hugh Frail lifted high in maudlin speech. The sound came to Turga as both promise and challenge. Was this, then, the appointed hour? For a second or two he paused in the doorway. A smile was on his lips, a gleam of almost savage excitement, such as he himself had seen on other faces that night, came into his eyes. It had needed but a glance to see that the inmates of the billiard-room had been gambling — some primitive game of heads and tails.- Young Frail, his weak face flushed, was crowing some recent victory like a tipsy cock. “ I’ve got you all bluffed,” he said. “ You’re pikers — all of you. I chal- lenge the world.” “ There’s Turga,” somebody said. “ Try him.” Frail turned and looked at Turga un- steadily. For the second time that night their eyes met — the one sober, fateful, something about him of the watchful snake; the other muddled, arrogant, foolish. “ Heads or tails? ” Frail cried. And he added the information : “ I’m the champion of the world, Turga, old chap. Fair warning. Hate to take money from a child.” As he spoke he tossed a gold coin into* the air as a demonstration of his claim and called heads. Heads it was. He had advanced to that uncanny state of inebriety where some people are possessed of a sort of second sight. He again tossed the coin; again called the turn. “ For twenty dollars, what will it be?” The coin shot, revolving, into the air — a slender thread of light, “ Heads,” said Turga softly. He had drawn within himself. He was letting that other will do as it would. “ Heads it is ! ” cried several of the crowd with delight. Into Frail’s face had come a look of drunken stupefaction. What had hap- pened struck him as incredible, unjust. “ Make it a hundred,” he urged, bent on revenge. Turga did not speak. He poised the coin he had just recovered on thumb and finger and sent it whirling upward. There had recurred to him that words of the old woman that he had come into his legacy — that marked silver coin. If she had meant by that that funds were no more to be sent to him as hereto- fore, it was high time that he be accumulating some money of his own. Year after year these funds had come to him. He had never asked whence or why. “ Breads,” Frail murmured with less confidence than he had shown before. 14 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. The coin clinked down, rolled the length of the table, and toppled over on its side. A chorus of exclamations went up from the crowd. It was tails. Turga had won again. Frail was furious. But he sought to cover his discomfiture with rude sports- manship. “ I’m tired of this kid-play,” he averred. “Listen, Turga; are you a sport? One more shot for” — he paused to give emphasis to what he was going to say — “ for ten thousand dollars.” “ Ah, cut it out, Hugh! ” some one objected. Turga glanced in that direction, saw a stout young man with broad shoul- ders and yellow hair — Frederic Graw 3d. They had never liked each other to any marked extent. “ I’m on,” Turga said softly, with his eyes again on Frail. “ I’m on for any amount you wish.” Frederic Graw 3d had taken Frail by the arm, was expostulating with him; but Frail was obdurate, shook himself free. “ For ten thousand — more if you want,” he insisted. “ For ten thousand,” said Turga softly. His hand had sought the marked dollar in his pocket. At contact with it there had again crept up his arm and throughout his entire being a sense of fatality. He had nothing whatever to do with what was to follow. He was but the instrument in the grip of a greater power. He had brought out the coin and placed it on the table in front of him. As in a dream, he heard his' voice ask the question as to whether or not he should make the toss. Graw had whispered something to Frail — a warning perhaps, for Hugh had been borrowing heavily of late — but Frail continued to disregard him. Graw turned to Turga. Had he spoken to a deaf man it would have been the same. “ You toss,” Frail commanded “ I’ll call, the turn.” “ For ten thousand dollars,” Turga said, his voice barely above a whisper. For a moment or so he stood there, holding up the coin, waiting, half-fear- ful, expectant, yet certain of what was to follow. Suddenly the muscles of his arm and hand twitched convulsively and the coin was in the air. It had almost touched the table again before Frail spoke. All confi- dence had gone out of his voice. In spite of his effort to appear indifferent, there was no mistaking that tremulous huskiness. “ Heads!” Turga did not even look to see whether he had won or lost. He knew • — knew he had won even before he heard those there proclaim the fact. Frail had leaned over and seized the marked dollar. “Don’t mind, do you, Turga?” he asked with sudden sobriety. “ Don’t mind what ? ” “ Don’t mind if I keep this dollar as a souvenir ? ” “ Of course not.” He paused. “ Why?” Young Frail appeared to have recov- ered his sobriety. He gazed down at the coin for a while musingly. “ Coins like this have had a place in my family history,” he said. “ Maybe this one’s haunted. I want to try the thing out.” CHAPTER VIII. THE ZIGZAG ROAD. A high-powered roadster with a single occupant swerved into Broad- way, just missing the curb. Turga, standing alone on the corner, recognized Frail. His late adversary at the Checker Club was off for a spin. Those solitary “ joy rides ” of his were celebrated — his favorite wind-up for a night filled with other kinds of exhilar- ation. Turga felt a little crisping of ex- citement. There went the “winged dollar.” THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 15 There was something uncanny in’ that careening power, only half domin- ated by the tipsy youth — Phaethon and the Chariot of the Sun. There was a parking-space for pub- lic automobiles but a few yards away. Before Frail’s machine had traversed the distance of two city blocks — mak- ing an exaggerated curve round a vigi- lant policeman — Turga had stepped quickly forward, a nervous cranking- movement of one of his arms sufficient hint to the chauffeur of one of the largest machines. It happened to be an equal of Frail’s machine in almost every respect — late the property of some private in New York’s great army of ephemeral rich. “ Follow that machine,” said Turga briefly. The chauffeur wasted neither time nor words. He was a wise young man so familiar with the night-life of the city that he had ceased to wonder' — or to ask explanations — when a fare was so obviously a commander of ready money. Frail was already approaching Cen- tral Park. The chauffeur of Turga’s machine slid discreetly past the police- man, then'shot forward with a breath- taking burst of speed. Before two minutes had elapsed, the tail-light of the first machine had grown brighter. Frail was evidently not out for speed — not yet. He was seeing how close he could come to various obstacles, mov- ing and stationary, without touching them. It was a favorite sport of his. Half through the park, he swung out into Central Park West and started south at a livelier clip. He was no longer toying with danger. He had apparently selected a destination and was making for it by the shortest route. They were just in time to meet a ferry for the Jersey shore. Frail appeared to be perfectly happy. He was in evening dress, but he was bare-headed and sat hunched up in his driver’s seat. He looked neither to right nor to left, nor behind him. They climbed a long incline into the smooth expanse of a deserted boule- vard. There was a magnificent burst of speed for half a dozen miles or so, then Frail again began his fancy-work — swinging giddily from one side of the broad road to the other. Then he was off again like a shooting star. Turga’s chauffeur grinned, but spoke no word. Turga kept his eyes on the dim, red light. Before him it wound in and out through the misty darkness, now faint, now clear, like the annunciator on some tally-board of fate. Frail had left the boulevard, turned into a more dangerous road — narrower, darker, not so straight. Again he had stopped wavering, was again intent in getting from his machine its last shred of speed. There were risks enough. They dropped dizzily down long de- scents, catapulted over hills, stormed like the night-wind through sleeping hamlets. It had become a race. Turga’s chauf- feur had settled a little lower in his seat. This was something else than a noisy excursion round town. His mouth was finer drawn. The lines from nose to chin had deepened. Five years had dropped from his life. He was back again in the heyday of road-racing — when he had the big chance, when he had come within just an ace of glory and fortune. Turga long ago had cast hat and stick into the tonneau back of him. He was crouching in his seat at the chauffeur’s side. The wind gripped his face like a cold, wet towel, blinding and stifling him. Only occasionally now could he see the red spark that was luring them on — the fugitive curse of the winged dol- lar. And who could say where the curse would fall? They unreeled swift, disordered miles of wood and open meadow. The Frail country-place lay far up on the Hudson. It was obvious that this was the destination. It couldn’t be much farther now. There was a shrill discordance in the 16 ALL-STORY WEEKLY.. hurricane noise besetting them, a sud- den slackening of speed. Turga lifted himself slightly. He was sore and cramped. He was suddenly conscious that for several minutes the fitful red spark that they had been chasing had disappeared. They were in a heavily wooded coun- try. As their speed slackened still more, a tremendous silence seemed to deluge in upon them from the fright- ened trees. For the first time the chauf- feur spoke. “ Something’s happened.” “An accident?” “ Nothing else.” Turga experienced a pang at his straining heart. It was the ultimate test. It was no nightmare. He had heard a strange, old woman sing the doom of the Frails — in a warehouse with the Frail name on it, still redolent, of the spirits that had contributed so much to the Frail for- tune — and he had had his allotted share in the working out of fate. In the great stillness that had fallen the machine crept forward then round a turn. And by the light of their phares they saw the machine that they had been pursuing there, just ahead of them. It was turned half round. It was crumpled down, broken, spent, like an exhausted runner. CHAPTER IX. BROWN COTTAGE, BLUE EYES. They found him lying in a ditch at the side of the road a dozen yards far- ther on. There was a little blood on his face, but this might have come from a flying pebble during the run. He was breathing. One of his arms was twisted beneath him. But so far as they could discover from their first, hasty, nervous examination, there was nothing to indicate that his injuries would be fatal. He was unconscious, but his pulse was strong. A tangle of ■weeds and high grass had broken his fall. “ There’s a house near here,” said the chauffeur. “ We’ll get him to it.” “ Where?” “ Get him into our machine. It can’t be far.” They lifted him up as gently as possible. The twisted arm had been broken or dislocated ; they didn’t know which. Investigation just then would have done no good, anyway. “ I’ve got a little booze I keep for accidents,” the chauffeur suggested hopefully. “ He’s had enough as it is,” Turga answered. The chauffeur was right. Before they had traversed a quarter of a mile they came to a private driveway ser- pentining off among the trees through an opening in a low stone wall. Back from the road they made out the dim silhouette of a cottage. The chauffeur got down from the machine and went in to investigate. Turga, still in the machine, sup- porting the unconscious Frail, saw a yellow gleam of light, heard the bark- ing of a dog, then voices. Again he touched Frail’s pulse. He felt almost as though he had a share in murder. The chauffeur came running back and clambered into his seat. “ We’re lucky,” he said. “ The man who lives here is a doctor.” He swung the machine round and brought it daintily up the private driveway. Turga could see that they were in the precincts of one of those country homes which are found in the neighborhood of every great city — modest, yet luxurious in its perfect comfort, beautiful, exquisitely kept. It was a large brown cottage, and even in the gray darkness of the Octo- ber night there was a hint of scarlet oak and maple, of massed chrysanthe- mums and other autumn flowers. The air had a special fragrance — healing, aromatic, as though the master of the house had summoned nature to assist him in the practise of his art. THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 17 The front door was open. Turga saw a stout, rubicund old gentleman, with a -mass of disorderly white hair, standing there to receive them. He helped them carry Frail through the hall and into a leather-furnished and book-lined study. There they placed him on a broad divan. “ The end of a night’s frolic,” said the chauffeur, in quest of something to say. “ And the beginning of a career,” said the doctor gently enough. “ It’s Mr. Frail.” Both Turga and the chauffeur turned. A girl had entered, unheard until she spoke. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, but she appeared even younger — her heavy, pale, yellow hair hanging down her back in a sin- gle braid, her sloping shoulders deli- cate and almost childlike in the thin, light-blue kimono; a delicately chiseled face with a fine cheek-bone and a fine chin, and the softest, bluest eyes — so Turga thought — that man ever looked upon or that ever looked on man. There was something at once fairy- like and maternal in this soft entrance of hers. She was perfectly modest, but not the least nervous. “ Gentlemen,” said the physician, without interrupting his intent minis- trations to his patient, “ this is my daughter, Miss Carstairs. She gener- ally helps me in affairs like this.” Miss Carstairs acknowledged this somewhat summary presentation with a brief glance, a bare nod. Her alert sympathy was otherwise engaged. Already she was assisting her father. Frail opened his eyes. “ I came a cropper,” he murmured. His eyes met those of the girl lean- ing over him, and tarried there. “ And I’ve died,” he continued, “ and gone to heaven.” The doctor snorted, then delivered himself of a cheery little laugh. “ Not so bad as that,” he said. “ A dislocated shoulder, a broken collar- bone.” 2 S The girl helped him with steady hand; the doctor had stripped the in- jured shoulder. Turga, seeing that he could be of no assistance, and with a guilty desire to keep his presence un- known to Frail, had passed out into the hall, followed by the chauffeur. They heard Frail groan and expostu- late as the doctor performed his pain- ful service; then there was silence again. Presently Miss Carstairs came out to where they were waiting. “ Mr. Frail is a neighbor of ours. He is in good hands,” she added with a swift smile. “ If you don’t mind, I think that we had better keep him here for the night. He is rather unstrung — needs rest, you know.” The look of her blue eyes came back to Turga as he and the chauffeur drove back their lonely way to the city. CHAPTER X. HIS GUARDIAN ANGED. His surroundings were so wholly at variance with the way he felt that Hugh Frail groaned inwardly. His physical discomfort was sufficient, but the groan was intended to express his bitterness of spirit. He felt abomina- bly unworthy, unspeakably unclean. Everywhere he looked was the impec- cable chastity of pale blue and white. His headache was bad enough, and a stabbing pain came from the region of his right shoulder when he attempt- ed to move. But his remorse was worse than either of these things. He wasn’t yet quite sure where he was. He had but the haziest recollec- tion of what had happened after losing far more than he could afford at the Checker Club. Then, by slow degrees, his flight by motor returned to him — that he had started out for his fam- ily’s country-place at Cherry Hills, that some place along the road there had been an accident. Then he remembered dimly, as one recalls the phantasmagoria of a dream, 18 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. the ministration of the doctpr, the vision of a soft-handed, blue-eyed girl. It seemed to him that he had seen her before. He wondered where? Perhaps this was her room. It looked as though it might be. Again re- morse and a sense of unworthiriess submerged him. There were blue-silk curtains at the French windows. The wall - paper was blue and white. So was the up- holstery, as much as he could see of it. It all harmonized with the frag- ment of blue sky he could see through the white branches of a grove of beeches, thus accentuating the ethe- real, unearthly quality of the place. “ If I ever,” he reflected — “ if I ever — ” He paused to meditate an oath suf- ficiently solemn to bind himself for the rest of his natural life, when there was a faint tapping at the door. Then the latch clicked. He watched in si- lence, half suspecting who the visitor would be, fearful lest she be fright- ened away before he could look at her. He recognized her now — the daugh- ter of Dr. Carstairs — though he had never spoken to her. From a distance he had even noticed that she was good- looking, but he had never suspected her of being so downright beautiful. She noticed that his eyes were open, and her first expression of caution was dissolved in a smile of quick sympathy. “ How are you ? ” she asked. “ Wonderfully fine,” he managed to say; but the look of undisguisable misery on his face gave him the lie. Miss Carstairs had stepped forward with no more hesitancy than any trained nurse would have displayed and put a cool, smooth hand on his forehead. Young Frail closed his eyes and held his breath. “ A little fever,” she said ; “ not much.” “ Not when your hand’s there,” he told her. “ Katzen jammer! ” she diagnosed. “ And repentance,” he supplement- ed. “ Will you ever forgive me? ” “ It isn’t I who have anything to forgive,” she said. “ But it will help a lot — ” Her blue eyes were looking down upon him with fathomless serenity. Again there came in upon him pain- fully that feeling of wretched unwor- thiness that was so strong upon him when he first awoke. He had made a little effort at levity, but all levity went out of him. No sinner, dragging his soiled record to the footsteps of the throne, could have felt much more abased than he did. Those blue eyes above him were like two transparent fragments of the blue sky. “Gee,” he broke out, with a self- surprising tremor in his voice, “ but I do feel rotten ! ” " Poor boy!” Again that wonderfully cool, smooth hand resumed its place on his fore- head. Again Frail closed his eyes, but this time with some vague idea of not embarrassing her when he said what he had to say. “ Not the way you mean,” he ex- plained. “ You know, you look so altogether different from what I know I am.” He paused. There was no fluctua- tion of the hand on his forehead. He kept his eyes closed. He didn’t have to look to know that Miss Carstairs understood. “ We’ve sent Uncle Jerry, our gar- dener, over to your place for some clothes,” she said soberly. “ As soon as he comes back he’ll help you bathe and dress. Shall I bring you your breakfast now ? ” “ I could wash my own face,” said Frail. He demonstrated the possibility by moving his left hand over his face in an imaginary ablution. Without pre- meditation his hand came into contact with hers. It startled him so that for a moment he left it there— just barely touching it. Had the contact been electrical, the thrill of it couldn’t have been more THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 19 real. Miss Carstairs made no move to> draw her hand away. “ I’m a trained nurse/' she said with an excited little laugh like a child pro- posing a new game. “ I can help you — I really can.” With spontaneous enthusiasm for her self - imposed task, she had given his hand a tiny squeeze and was out of the room before he could object. When she appeared again, she had donned a long, white apron, had sur- mounted her fluffy yellow hair with a linen nurse’s cap. She carried a bowl of water. There was a towel over her arm. She tried to look very serious and dignified, but her blue eyes were sparkling and there was a little flush of excitement in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before. “ You’re my first regular patient,” she said, “though I have helped.” She took the business with the ut- most seriousness, although she could not quite keep from smiling. Frail surrendered himself utterly. He was willing now to imagine him- self even sicker than he was. He groaned. “ I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to get away from here for a long time.” “ Oh, wouldn’t it be lovely ! ” “ I’d let you practise on me so much ! ” This time it wasn’t mere excitement that flushed Miss Carstairs’s beauti- fully smooth cheek. “ You mustn’t speak,” she said, with the air of one who recalls a lesson from a text - book. “ The patient should avoid excitement.” CHAPTER XI. THE FRELINGHUYSEN “ THALER.” Mrs. Frail had a little thrill of sat- isfaction as she looked at herself in the long mirror. And well she might. The gorgeously embroidered mandarin- coat of Chinese-red made her posi- tively superb. Ordinarily, eleven o’clock in the morning was an hour of the day when she didn’t care to be seen. But this time she regretted that her visitor was somewhat aged and, so far as she could remember, not at all the type to be in- fluenced by feminine loveliness. Her dark hair was coiled about her small head in a single opulent braid. The cloudy darkness of it made her face very striking, with its dark brows and dark-fringed gray eyes. By some legerdemain known only to her maid and herself she had brought her lips to match perfectly the color of her Oriental robe — an alluring red stain harmonizing face and costume in a way which would have delighted an artist. She was a native of Southern Rus- sia. She was still the Princess Viatka. Ah, Dieii, if she were only a girl again! Gray, austere, spectacled and bearded, the typical European lawyer of the old school, Dr. Melnik couldn’t suppress a little gasp of delighted as- tonishment at sight of her — thus ren- dering his welcome certain. It wasn’t the first time that she had made men gasp like that, but coming from Dr. Melnik it was doubly welcome. He had leaped to his feet with al- most boyish impetuosity, had bent over her hand like a young courtier. “ This is indeed a most pleasant sur- prise,” she said in her softest Russian. “ How is everything in our beloved land? ” Dr. Melnik’s Russian was not so soft. He spoke with a sort of guttural, forceful hesitancy. It was as though the Princess Viatka’ s gray eyes, man- darin-coat and lips to match had some- what dazed him. Yet he was a man incapable of circumlocution. “If you speak of Russia, I know not,” he answered. “If you speak of Bohemia, more particularly of the Frelinghuysen estate, I must answer, not altogether good.” “ And you’ve come all the way across the ocean to bring bad news ? ” 20 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. “ Not precisely.” “ Yet not for the mere pleasure of—” She completed her sentence with a provoking smile and a toss of her beautifully coifed head. Dr. Melnik delivered himself of a Slight gesture of negation. “ Alas, that would be strange enough ; but my errand is stranger still.” “ I am very interested.” “ With your marriage into the Fre- linghuysen line, altesse, you assumed something more than a share in the name and fortune.” “Even under the name of Frail?” “ When the last Count von Freling- huysen thought that he could escape the historic curse of his line by chang- ing his name to Frail, thought that he could leave the curse behind him by coming to America, he was desperate; he grasped at a straw.” “ But he prospered.” Mrs. Frail shrugged her shoulders slightly, cast a glance at the damask- silk interior. “ Prosperity is not merely wine and silk. Surely, no man ever lived a life more a curse. I need not remind you of the story of his life — of their children and grandchildren — nor of the late Mr. Horace Frail, your hon- ored husband.” “ I know the story of the family curse. I know that most of the family have a penchant for tragedy, insanity, genius, suicide — oh, what you will — ” “ And the Frelinghuysen thaler! ” There was no affectation, this time, in Mrs. Frail’s start of surprise, her shudder of frightened recollection. “ The Frelinghuysen thaler'. I re- member — Horace had a marked dol- lar in his possession when he fell in the duel. And now — tell me. What do you know about it? ” Melnik delivered himself of a ges- ture of self-absolution — the gesture of a serious man who permits himself to speak of a subject which he does not understand and which might be absurd. “ The family archives mention it as far back as the sixteenth century, when there were no other thalers in Europe — only those J oacliims-thalers of our Bohemia, and the first count, a fugitive from Holland, was master of the mint. God knows what thing he did — something so horrible, in any case, that it was never set down in writing. But then it was that we find our first reference to the curse — stamped into one of the original thalers” “And the coin?” “ Ah, naturally, the original coin has long since disappeared. Would that this were also true of the legend- ary curse. It appears again and again — not in a J oachims-thaler but always somehow in a similar coin. As you say, when your honored hus- band fell, he had in his possession — But, why do you tremble?” “ An American dollar, curiously marked ! ” “ Precisely.” “ I have seen it — or one just like it. ” “Where? Not in the possession of—” “Of a young man — also a Bo- hemian, young and noble — Count Carlos Turga.” “ Turga — Turga — ” Dr. Melnik sought to place the name. “ Whence comes he? ” “ Oddly enough, from the same district as that of Schloss Freling- huysen — the mountains just to the north. So he has been told. He knows practically nothing of his family. He was brought up and educated here in America.” Dr. Melnik let his bearded chin rest on the bosom of his shirt. He twirled his thumbs one around the other and reflected. “ A friend of the family ? ” he asked. “ Almost.” Mrs. Frail, even now, could not re- sist letting her thought dwell, butter- fly-fashion, for just a moment on the THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 21 way that the young count had looked at her the night before. “ Beware of him,” said Dr. Melnik, with unrelieved austerity. “ These mountain-folk are a dangerous lot for the Frelinghuysen line. I do not mind telling you, princess, that your estates in Bohemia failed to realize all the money we had hoped for. All the bid- ders — and there were few enough of them, Heaven knows — acted as though they had been touched by the blight — cautious, penurious, mean — almost as though they had been warned that they were dealing with a danger- ous property.” Dr. Melnik laughed a hoarse, un- humorous laugh. He was speaking of a painful subject. “ This it was, largely, that brought me to New York — that and something else. A certain famous — or infamous, I know not which — sorceress of the mountain-tribe recently left the dis- trict of Frelinghuysen and came to America. And now, you speak of the marked dollar. “ I know I’m a fool — an old fool. But, you know, I’ve lived so long in the archives of the Frelinghuysens — I’ve seen so much of the tragedy of the Frails — that you can hardly blame me. Let me suggest, at any rate, that we keep this Turga at arm’s length. Keep the dollar out of the family.” They smiled at each other — she thinking of the handsome Turga, per- haps, and he of the tragic destiny of the line represented by the woman in Chinese red, when Mrs. Frail’s maid, Gabrielle, came in, paused, fluttering, with her hand on her heart — every- thing about her heralding bad news of some sort. “ Speak! What is it? ” Mrs. Frail exclaimed, leaning forward with sud- den agitation. Gabrielle essayed English, out of deference for the presence of the stranger. “Ah, madame,” she exclaimed, “ there is a accident of automobile. M. Hugh, he is e erase. ” “Not dead!” ’ “Non, non; mats — ” Chivvers, the butler, appeared with a card on a silver tray. He also showed traces of excitement. It was evident that he had heard the news. But he was a bringer of information as well. “ Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said, “ but the young gentleman says that he has seen Mr. Hugh, and he says, ma’am, that Mr. Hugh was not so badly hurt; that it isn’t much, ma’am, and that he would be happy to reas- sure you.” Melnik had been as spectator, solemn, open mouthed. Here was ad- ditional evidence, indeed, that one of the reasons that had inspired his trip across the Atlantic was not all tragic nonsense. Mrs. Frail had taken the card and scanned it, then held it out to Melnik with a frightened smile. “ This is delicious,” she said, with an affectation of gaiety, “ delicious or terrible.” Melnik took the card and frowned down at it in silence. It bore the name of Count Carlos Turga. CHAPTER XII. SPELLS AND CHARM. There was a good deal of the castle about the town house of the Frails. The Frelinghuysen fugitive who had built it had brought with him from the old country a good deal ' of the old country’s futile ideas of architecture. There was a dry moat instead of an areaway. The entrance - hall was an imposing place of carved sand- stone and marble, its baronial aspect augmented by its trophies of flags and arms and suits of armor. The only light that entered it came from a wide, .low, Gothic window at the first land- ing of the grand staircase. It was the first time that Turga had ever been there. He looked about him 22 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. with a curious mingling of unrest and elation. He was familiar enough with the homes of the mighty. He had been in many a hall as handsome as this. But never before had he felt that such a place was in any way intimately asso- ciated with his own destiny. He had hardly ever even thought of marriage; but he thought of it now * — thought of it with a quickening of the pulse. As if in answer to some unspoken petition in his heart, there appeared just then, against the opalescent glow of the Gothic window, the slight and graceful silhouette of Agatha Frail. She was dressed for the street in gray and black — the dove gray of her eyes, the blue black of her hair. Turga started forward with a half- stifled exclamation of pleasure, then checked himself. But Miss Frail had noticed him and swung over in his direction with her hand out. She noticed the quick wave of color that came, girl-like, to his cheeks, and gave it a correct interpretation. He had been thinking about her. It was very romantic. Several times on the preceding evening their eyes had met. Some sort of a mutual un- derstanding had already sprung up between them. A footman was already at the door ready to open it for her. But she turned back. She and Turga strolled side by side down the cloistral length and shadows of the hall. “You’ve come to see mama?” said Agatha. “ She’ll keep you waiting. She always does — and I believe some- body else is here to see her, anyway.” The butler returned. “ Mrs. Frail will be pleased to see you, sir,” he said. “ Very well, Chivvers,” Agatha an-- swered on Turga’s behalf. “ As I was saying — oh, as I was saying — ” Her voice trailed off into nothing. The dutiful Chivvers was again out /of ear-shot. “ You are looking wonderful this morning,” said Turga, with a slight quickening of his pulse. Miss Frail was very close to him. “Do you tell every one that?” “Not so truthfully,” he answered w T ith conviction. “ You weren’t a bit nice last night,” she accused him. “ I had stage-fright — your fault.” “ Why did you look at me like that ? ” Not only Turga’s pulse but also his respiration had quickened. “ I couldn’t help it,” he said in a stifled whisper. It must have been some feminine version of the old adage that every man is a king in his own house. Miss Frail was feeling very bold and reckless. They had come to the end of the hall — a grottolike recess under one of the flying archways of the stairs. She instinctively knew that they were out of sight of Chivvers and his cohorts. There she paused and faced Turga, her inscrutable gray eyes look- ing up into his luminous dark ones. “ I couldn’t help it,” he breathed in an almost inaudible whisper. There was something in the twilight that shut them in that recalled the chimera of the previous evening — an experience which even now, vivid as his memory of it was, he was half inclined to repudiate as a nightmare. But there was no doubt of that con- viction in his heart that he was master here; that he was the arbiter of the destinies of this girl who stood before him, of her mother and her brother. He also knew that they were out of sight of indiscreet eyes; that the girl herself had led him here. With a quick gesture he had placed his hands on her shoulders. He felt the tremor of her slight body, but she did not recoil. He kissed her on one of her closed eyes. A moment later they were strolling back into the hall as though, nothing had happened, perfectly calm, perfectly circumspect — so far as all outward THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 23 appearances were concerned, at any rate. The dutiful Chivvers was approach- ing. Said he : “ Mrs. Frail will be pleased to receive you now, sir.” CHAPTER XIII. ONE FLIGHT UP. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. Frail had decided to dispense with the proffered presence and advice of the austere Dr. Melnik in the forth- coming interview. She had taken an- other look at herself in the mirror; had decided that she was quite capable of taking care of herself in any combat where her antagonist would be so susceptible a person as the young Count Carlos Turga. Her Chinese red mandarin-coat, with lips to match, was, after all, mightier than much wisdom of a mere intellectual sort. Half-way up the grand staircase Turga met the severe-looking gentle- man of the beard and spectacles. They were just under the Gothic win- dow. Some trick of the. light coming through it, distorted by the leads and the colored glass, may have exaggera- ted the lawyer’s expression. A purple stain lay across his frowning brow. A red stain covered the rest of his face. Then the apparition smiled — a diabolical sort of smile. They had bowed to each other, after the manner of Europe when well-bred persons pass each other on the stairs. There was occasion for Dr. Melnik’s smile. He had had a glimpse of a handsome, dark-eyed youth in the full flush of health; had seen him pass a zone of light that had given his face the livid green of death, then almost instantly the scarlet of eternal fires. He was of imaginative stock, sprung from a visionary race. The momen- tary symbolism of the changing light had pleased him immensely. Mrs. Frail was still under the domi- nation of emotion when Turga was ushered in. He embraced her in a sweeping glance full of sympathy; had brought her fingers to his lips — and held them there for the fraction of a second longer than the ordinary so- cial protocol required. “ Dear boy — you bring me news ? ” “ Alas ! of a kind. But it isn’t serious.” “ So they just told me ; but I was so afraid that you were merely trying to allay my anxiety.” “ He is in good hands. That he isn’t badly hurt I know. I was taking a spin through the country last night - — after leaving you ” — Turga’s eyes rested on hers for a moment in a way that said that she might have been the cause of his riding far out into the country like that in the middle of the night — “ and I was lucky enough to be there just after the accident. A doctor was on the spot. Really, Hugh couldn’t have chosen a better place, especially as the doctor had a good- looking daughter. Dislocated arm, a broken collar-bone ; nothing worse than any one might get following hounds or on the polo-field. “ You’re a dear,” sighed Mrs. Frail. “ I was so alarmed ! ” Her red lips trembled. Her gray eyes were touched with self-pity and dawn- ing relief. Turga reached forward and took her hands in his. “ I have my motor at the door. The morning is so fine! I’d love — ” Again he completed the half-spoken sentence with a look. As Turga had said, the day was fine. The November sun had cofhe up and driven away the mists and cloud of the night just passed. Only the blue haze of Indian summer hung over the far places. The air was fragrant, crisp, and exhilarating, the crimson and russet trees were atremble in the sunlight There was that about the day which meant not only the mystery of life, but the zest of it as well. Any maternal anxiety which the 24 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. former Princess Viatka may have felt concerning the state of her offspring had long since disappeared. The chauffeur, being a student of human nature as well as a respecter of speed-laws when he had a lady aboard, was bowling along at only comfortable speed. The two passengers on the rear seat had ample opportunity to compare notes. It was Uncle Jerry, the Carstairses’ gardener, who received them at the gate of the brown cottage. He im- parted the cheerful information that nobody was home. The doctor was off for his regular walk through the woods. Miss Carstairs herself had driven the patient of the night before over to the adjoining Frail estate. “ If you drive right smart you might catch up with them,” said Uncle Jerry. “What consideration!” Mrs. Frail sighed. “Just that,” Turga replied, with a laugh. “ Now, if we were only forced to follow them on to Poughkeepsie ! ” Mrs. Frail looked her gratitude. The precocious warmth of their friendship had steadily increased. “We’ll have our revenge,” she said lightly. “ Have you any other en- gagement? You could stay out here for luncheon. We could make a day of it,” she said, with mounting enthu- siasm. “ Watch me break all other engage- ments,” Turga replied. Quite unconsciously his hand was again resting on hers. Quite as un- consciously she was leaving it there. Turga's thoughts again reverted for the hundredth time to the encounter with Agatha Frail in the hallway of the Frail town house that morning. Again Mrs. Frail’s thought reverted to the morning call of Dr. Melnik. It was very stupid of Dr. Melnik to think that a warning was even necessary. Turga was so manifestly ready to put himself entirely in her power. In a very leisurely way the motor was treading through a more than usually beautiful section of road, heavily wooded on both sides and fringed with rock and laurel. It was almost primitive, except that on one side — for mile after mile, it seemed — there appeared through occasional openings in the screening shrubbery the spear-headed pickets of a high iron fence. “ Cherry Hills,” said Mrs. Frail, with her eyes on the fence. “ Horace’s grandfather would have his deer- park.” “ Is the place open ? ” “ Unfortunately,” Mrs. Frail re- plied. She had thrown him an amused glance from the corner of her eyes. She saw the girl-like tinge of color that crept into Turga’s smooth cheek, and she gave a slight pressure to the hand resting against hers before in- dulging in the fiction of arranging a lock of hair. “ I forget just how many people there are on the place all the year round,” she continued. “ Some fright- ful number — seven or eight hundred, not including the children and old people. It’s the only form of charity the Frails have ever been noted for,” she concluded, with a little laugh. They came to a monumental gate of granite and wrought .iron, with a porter’s lodge of generous dimensions and sober architecture. A stout, rath- er flabby retainer appeared with the expression of a tired business man. He had already been forced to open the gate once that morning. But at sight of the woman in the automobile his expression of bored weariness gave way at once to one of anxious zeal. The gate swung open. They had entered a beautifully kept avenue that swept away ahead of them in graceful curves. The tall trees arched their multicolored branches overhead. The dark, shining green of cedar and rhododendron made each side of the road a frontier of alluring and unexplored mystery. THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 25 There is a sort of intoxication in the physical presence of great wealth combined with great beauty, especially when these things take the form of a noble park. At Turga’s side was the mistress of this place. She was sitting so close to him that he could feel the tepid vibrance of her body. She hadn’t resisted when he held her hand. “ A penny for your thoughts,” she said. Turga flashed upon her a dazzling smile. He leaned' very close to her. “I take you,” he said softly; “but I’ll have to whisper them.” CHAPTER XIV. 'l'HE GATE OPENS AGAIN. Feeling just as though she had had an early morning cocktail, Agatha Frail turned into the avenue with a light step and a sparkling eye. Gen- erally she looked on this affair of the morning constitutional as more or less of a bore. But it was at least useful in killing a part of the day, and it always held out a certain promise of adventure. She had received an abundant her- itage of romanticism from both father and mother. She had often thought of running away. She wasn’t sure in her mind that she wouldn’t do it yet. Her habitual mood was that of a young eaglet just fledged, with all the instincts of soaring flight, yet hemmed in by gilded bars. She had just reached the age when she could give a certain weight to her declarations of independence so far as tutors and dressmakers were con- cerned, but was still far from the greater liberty of a last year’s debutante. The day had auspiciously begun. There was adventure in the air. She had some vague idea of perhaps en- countering young Count Turga again, after his interview with her mother — - whatever that might be for. She had seen his motor at the door. She could imagine a glorious elopement, a thrill- ing dash into the unknown, with pieces in the paper, and everything like that. She was brought back to earth again by a cheery hail. A rather stout young man with broad shoulders and yellow hair had overhauled her — « Frederic Graw, 3rd. “ I say, Agatha,” he said cheerily as he swung into step at her side, “ how the deuce do you expect a fellow to get to work when you put obstacles like this into the road? ” Agatha’s first impulse was one of impatience, but his good nature domi- nated her. “ Are you really trying to work, Freddy?” she asked. “ Got in three whole days last week,” he asserted with righteous dignity. “ The governor’s having a new sign painted — * Graw & Graw, Brokers.’ Looks great.” “ Won’t he scold you if you’re late?” “ Feeling a bit seedy — can’t work if I’m sick,” he smiled down at her. “ By Jove, I’m a brute! Did you hear about Hugh ? ” Agatha hadn’t heard ; and when she did hear, what interested her most was the fact that the original disseminator of the news was Count Carlos Turga. It gave her a little thrill of pleasure that Turga could have seen her and talked to her — and made love to her — without having experienced the neces- sity of even mentioning the fact. She was a good deal of the Slav, was Agatha. “ And we could run out there in no time,” said Graw, breaking in on her reverie. “ I hate sick-rooms,” Agatha re- torted — “ dismal, smelly, subdued voices, and all that sort of thing.” “We wouldn’t have to stay long,” Frederic argued. “ It isn’t any of this sad business, you know. Great day for a run — bracing air, woods, good roads. And I have the greatest little old ma- chine — new one, just got it. Only 26 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. thing it lacks, you know, is that you haven’t ridden in it — hasn’t been christened, or haloed, or whatever they call it.” “ I — won’t — go,” said Agatha de- cisively. Freddy’s exuberance was beginning to get on her nerves. He was by way of spoiling everything that the morn- ing had promised by way of romance and adventure. She and Graw had grown up to- gether. For her he held out nothing of these things. She knew him too well. He was too healthy. “ By Jove, Agatha,” he said, undis- mayed, “ you look positively stunning when you snap your snow-white teeth like that. I feel like the fellow in a cage with a panther or a tigress, or something like that.” “A cat!” At that he had paid her the only kind of a compliment that she cared for. “ A bit cattish,” he cajoled. Then, with a change of intonation : “ Come on; it’ll do you good.” They strolled along together a con- siderable distance, stopping now and then to look into shop-windows like a couple of children. Graw was hang- ing on with good-natured persistence. He had even confronted the terror of a milliner’s shop, while Agatha hag- gled abominably over some trifle or other. She had quite despaired of getting rid of him by fair means, and was try- ing foul. Again they were out on the ave- nue. If Graw would only go! If Turga would only come along! The traffic-policeman at Thirty- Fourth Street lifted his hand as a sig- nal for the cross-town cars to pass. In the quick congestion of motor-cars and other vehicles in the avenue on the upper side of the street Agatha caught a glimpse of some one — of two people — whom she recognized. They were sitting together in an au- tomobile; were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not appear to care about anything else at all, least of all who might be looking at them from the sidewalk. It was Count Turga and her mother. After that first glance of hers Aga- tha looked straight ahead and quick- ened her pace. Graw had noticed nothing in par- ticular. There was only one person on the crowded avenue whom he could see anyway. “ I say, Agatha,” he was saying, “ we’ll lunch together, then do a mati- nee.” Her answer was a deluge of de- light. “ I’ve changed my mind,” she said without so much as looking at him. “ Get your car. We’ll go out to Cherry Hills.” CHAPTER XV. A FACE IN THE CROWD. Young Frail had negotiated a change of raiment. They found him reclining in a long chair of woven grass on the Cherry Hills terrace. He had succeeded in keeping Miss Car- stairs in attendance, and his greeting of Turga and his mother was not par- ticularly exuberant. Miss Carstairs was plainly embar- rassed, though Mrs. Frail hailed her as the preserver of her son’s life. Mrs. Frail belonged to that category of women who encouraged romance. By some devious psychology she took the presence of a pretty girl at her son’s side as a compliment to herself. She even glanced discreetly in an- other direction as Miss Carstairs bade Hugh good-by and assured him that her father would drive over in the afternoon to see that he was getting along all right. To Turga fell the acceptable task of accompanying the visitor to her wait- ing phaeton. Miss Carstairs’s hand had felt so slim and cool, so smooth THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 27 and pleasant, in his a little while be- fore, when he greeted her, that the memory of it lingered. It had been like the touch of a soothing lotion to a fever patient. And as he walked at her side now along the balustraded terrace which was one of the features of Cherry Hills, he knew that her hand symbolized her whole nature — in a way not generally taken into consideration by professional palmists. Miss Carstairs was just a bit dis- concerted. Eor years she and her fa- ther had lived under the shadow of the great Frail estate; but by no possible stretch of imagination had the Frails and Carstairs been neighbors. But, like most young girls, her fancy had been captured by the Frail tradition — there was so much of splendor and mystery in it, of magnificence and tragedy. The builder of the French chateau, which was the center of the Cherry Hills estate — the terrace of which she had just left — had left behind him a legend resembling that of Blue Beard. He was a very terrible man, this fugitive Count von Frelinghuysen, and terrible he had remained even as the plain Mr. Frail; terrible even when for year after year he no longer ap- peared driving his fiery black team and it became known that he was glooming his life away in a corner of his palace, the victim of some name- less malady. There had been several ladies in the household, according to all accounts, but they had disappeared even more completely. Then there was the tragedy of the Frail children. There had been an eldest son, heir not only to the name and fortunes of the Frails in America, but to a share of the historic Freling- huysen lands in Bohemia. They had found him smothered in the family safety-deposit vault — so tradition had it' — with a single coin clasped in his dead hand — a silver dollar peculiarly marked. There had also been a daughter, but she had disappeared — no one knew where. The only remaining child was Hor- ace, a profligate — according to all re- ports — 'whose folly had exiled him early from America. He it was who had married the Princess Viatka, had reached the climax of his career with a dueling-sword through his heart. And now, for the first time in her life. Miss Carstairs had spoken to a Frail; had stood on the legendary ter- race; had been kissed by the more or less fabulous Mrs. Frail, the former Princess Viatka. She had found them human. They had treated her as an equal — had insisted that she come to see them often, and her father was to continue his ministrations to the Frail heir. A groom, with immobile patience, was holding the Carstairs pony. “ Let’s walk a little way,” Turga suggested. “ Don’t leave me all alone. We must give mother and son a chance to talk it over in private. I can’t go back right away.” Miss Carstairs was tempted. Before them lay a sunken garden still tremu- lous with perfumed color, despite the lateness of the season. Both she and Turga knew that the entrance - road skirted the farther end of it. She looked at the garden, then back at Turga and smiled. He needed no other Authority, but instructed the groom to drive ahead and wait for them. “ I should really be hurrying home,” she said. “ ‘ While the rose blows along the river brink,’ ” Turga quoted. Again she flashed on him her blue- eyed smile. “ * With old Khayyam the ruby vintage drink,’ ” she supplement- ed. ” A bad preceptor.” “ An excellent one — with ‘ thou ’ and a day like this.” She tossed her head slightly; but Turga, watching her from the comer of his eyes, could see that she was not displeased. She seemed to be marvel- ously in her element — here in the cool sweetness of the garden — and he told 28 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. her so, then watched the heightened color, the flash of her eye, with a sense of perfect luxury. It seemed to him an abominable thing that she should already have passed so much time in the company of Hugh Frail. He wondered what had passed between them. But when he questioned her in a half - jocular, half-suggestive way, which most girls would have accepted as a mere chal- lenge to repartee, Miss Carstairs an- swered him with such frank innocence that he was disarmed. As Agatha Frail, with Frederic Graw, 3d, at her side proudly dem- onstrating the suppleness of his new car, spun past the sunken garden, she caught a glimpse of Turga bending over a chrysanthemum with his head very close to that of a woman. At first she thought the. -woman was her mother. Then she noticed that this particular person had yellow hair. She bit her lip. Then the car was out of sight. Turga received such an impression of having been looked at that he had turned almost instantly. But he was just too late. He heard the receding, whispering rush of the motor that had just passed. He wondered who could have been in it. He was very susceptible to impres- sions. He was still looking, still ab- sorbed in his new train of thought, al- though Miss Carstairs’s soft voice continued to caress his ears, when a group of laborers — a full score of them — passed along the road in the Avake of the automobile. Turga start- ed slightly. There was a face in the crowd that recalled his fantastic adventure in the old warehouse — the face of one who had surely been there. The man threw a single glance in his direction — cruel, alert, savagely content — then trudged on his way with the stolid company. “ You look,” said Miss Carstairs, “ as though you had seen a ghost.” Said Turga : “ I have.” “ This place is full of them,” she added softly, then bit her lip. She held out her hand. “ There’s the pony. I mustn’t keep you any longer.” “ Do you know how to lay ghosts ? ” he asked, clinging to her cool fingers. She started to speak, then checked herself. Hugh Frail had asked her that same question but half an hour before. CHARTER XVI. A LI, IN THE FAMILY. They were all on the terrace when Turga returned from his pleasant er- rand to the sunken garden — not only Hugh and Mrs. Frail, but Graw and Agatha. Graw saluted him coldly enough, so Turga thought, but the momentary twinge of unpleasantness was instantly obliterated by the smile that the former Princess Viatka gave him, by the thinly disguised pleasure that Agatha evidently experienced at seeing him again. It really mattered very little what Graw might think of him — or Hugh Frail either, for that matter — as long as he was persona grata to the chate- laine and her alluring daughter. Turga was perfectly at ease. Agatha had come forward to meet him, had held out her hand— a sort of delicate white lie meaning to indicate that they had not previously met that morning. “ Now that you have lost one guide,” she said, I volunteer to take her place.” She turned to her mother. “ Luncheon won’t be ready for half an hour yet, will it, mother dear? I’m going to show Count Turga about the places— some of grandfather’s Bohe- mian things.” Agatha was not lacking in audacity. Almost before any one had had time to object, Agatha was bearing him off, a perfectly willing captive. 'Graw had taken a step in their direction, as if to follow; had recognized the hope- lessness of it ; had subsided as grace- THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 29 fully as possible Into the company of Hugh and his mother. “ Something of a bounder, all the same,” Graw murmured, with his eyes on the Princess Viatka. “ Why, Freddy dear! ” The former Princess Viatka had shrugged her shoulder in negation. If she felt any resentment at Agatha’s venture in piracy she did not show it. After all, she found the situation just a bit amusing, especially in view of Graw’s ill-nature. “ And you’ll have to admit,” she went on, “ that he’s awfully hand- some.” “ Oh, he’s pretty enough ! ” Graw conceded; “but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a bounder. After what he did last night — ” “ What did he do last night? ” Mrs. Frail wanted to know. The conversa- tion had lagged until then. Graw looked at Frail. “ Go on and tell her,” counseled the invalid. “ Better now while she is sorry for me. She’ll have to dig up, anyway.” He looked up at his mother with a rueful smile. “More gambling debts?” queried Mrs. Frail with the ready intuition of long experience.. “ It was Turga’s fault,” Graw ex- plained. “ Hugh was ahead and every- thing was lovely, when this Turga person came along and egged him on.” “ How much was it this time ? ” asked the princess softly. “ A trifle of ten thousand.” Mrs. Frail caught her breath. It wasn’t altogether the money loss that made her do it — she was thinking of what Melnik had told her that morn- ing, of all the sinister memories which Turga himself had stirred in the back of her brain the evening before. “ And Turga won it? ” “ By gad, mater! ” Graw exclaimed. “ I’m glad you take it like that. I really am. But, really, one would think you were glad that Turga won.” “Hush, Hugh; don’t make yourself out to be a worse fool than you are.” She turned to Graw. “ Tell me about it. Give me the details.” “ Oh, come now, mater,” young Frail protested. “ Don’t make poor Freddy be the goat. I’ll admit that I was a bit tipsy — not in the least soused, or anything like that. No, really you couldn’t blame Turga for that, Freddy, old man. But he did put the jinx on me, mother dear — oh, a regular jinx, you know.” He began to fumble awkwardly in his pocket with his one free hand. The former Princess Viatka did not speak. She was watching him with tense expectancy. She had moments of really remarkable prescience. “ You see,” young Frail was ram- bling on, “ everything was going so lovely until Turga pulled this bally dollar on me. I swiped it from him. Did you ever see the like?” He held it up — that worn and shiny coin with the winged cross graved roughly on its face. “ Haunted! ” young Frail exclaimed, with some primitive instinct for hu- mor. “Jinx! Ah, you know; blessed if it doesn’t feel a bit queer to the touch even now. I noticed the same thing last night.” “ For the Lord’s sake, Hugh, talk sense ! ” Graw mumbled. As a matter of fact, there was some- thing so uncanny aboqt this youth sit- ting there after his recent misfortunes, here on the ancestral terrace which had been the scene of far greater mis- fortunes in the past — something so uncanny in his reference to the haunt- ed coin — that Graw had felt a qualm of uneasiness. “ I am talking sense,” Hugh retort- ed with lazy insistence. “ I’m a Frail, Didn’t you ever hear of the dollar — the dollar?” The former Princess Viatka had stood somewhat tense, yet somewhat withdrawn, her eyes on the coin, yet hardly listening to what was being said. She was listening instead to the hundred whispers of the past, remote 30 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. and recent, which had to do with a coin like this — with this selfsame coin she had no doubt. Very calmly she reached over and took it. “ I’ll keep this,” she said softly. “ I’ll pay your debt this time, but I can’t risk your getting in so deep an- other time.” “ A fair exchange,” laughed Graw. “ You’re a brick, mater" said Hugh. “If I weren’t wounded I’d slip you a little hug.” There was no great enthusiasm in the latter declaration. Nor did the former Princess Viatka display any enthusiasm so far as accepting the suggestion was concerned. “ You two boys stay here,” she said as she moved off. “ I’m going to call Agatha.” Turga had followed his volunteer guide into a lofty and somewhat bar- ren hallway — as gloomy and spectral as a cave. It would have seemed nat- ural had bats swarmed down from the remote comers, if a ghost or two had stalked forth from the dark oak pan- eling. “I just love this place,” Agatha confessed tremulously. “ So do I,” Turga asserted. He had slipped his arm through hers without creating any visible im- pression on the graven mask of a foot- man standing near. “ Let’s explore.” “ Let’s.” Turga accented somewhat the pressure of his arm. They passed from the hallway into a great library, only a little less gloomy. It thrilled Turga with pleas- ant anticipation as he sensed Agatha’s obvious purpose to lead him some- where, anywhere, away from prying eyes. She twisted open the espagnolette of a French window, and they found themselves on a little stone porch, commanding an exquisite view of park and garden. “ What did yott think of me this morning?” quavered Agatha, with her back turned, as she busied herself with the window. Turga’s hand trembled slightly as it touched her waist. The soft hair curling on the back of her neck was wonderfully attractive, he thought. The former Princess Viatka, once alone, with that dollar of ill - omen in her possession, was tremulous, excited. She had no definite purpose — only a vague idea of confronting Turga, of questioning him concerning it and his possession of it. She came at last to the French window through which Turga and her daughter had passed but a little while before. She stopped short, with her hand pressed to her heart — the hand that held the dollar. She had seen Agatha throw back her head with swooning abandonment, had seen Turga press his lips to hers. CHAPTER XVII. A FACE IN THE GLASS. Alone that night in his apartments, Turga again took thought of Paulo. It was as though there had been a death in the family — as though death had removed the only other member of the only family he had ever known. There was no word. The old servant had disappeared as completely as though he had never existed, although on every hand there was still abun- dant evidence of his long devotion. Yet how changed was the place! For the first time in years Turga dressed himself for the evening with- out assistance. Now that he had passed for a time at least from under the in- fluence of the interests that had en- thralled him during the day his con- science smote him. After all, he couldn’t desert poor old Paulo like that. Still wondering, still distraught, he strolled into the Checker Club. There was a letter there for him. It was a brief note from Hugh Frail and en- THE HAUNTED LEGACY. 31 closed was his check for ten thousand dollars. With the slip of paper in his hand Turga fell into a reverie. After a minute or two he went into a private room and got his banker on the tele- phone. The man had gone home for the night, but he could give Turga the information he desired. The usual date for his monthly remittance from Bohemia had passed almost a week ago, but the remittance this time had failed to materialize. He loitered through a portion of the evening at a theater, then went again to his apartments. Still no Paulo. Still no word. He summoned his chauffeur and asked him if he could recall the place where he had been guided by Paulo the night before. “ Sure thing,” said the man. “ Take me there.” They ran south once into the zone of loneliness beyond. Once more they made their way through those spirit-haunted streets. Then clamor broke out in the form of a fire-engine, hurtling through a street a couple of blocks ahead. It recalled the “ Walkiire ” of the night before. Turga could still see the sparks in the street, a few moments later, when the chauffeur brought the automobile to a stand at the corner where he had waited the night before. There was a glow of red to the east. That was the direction that Paulo had taken. With a slight quickening of his pulse, with snatches of the “ Wal- kure ” music alternately droning and throbbing through his head, Turga started off in that direction. He suspected the truth even before he had traversed half of the distance. Black hallways and dismal courts were vomiting their black froth of human misery. Fire was a spectacle, with always the possibility of loot. As Turga rounded the corner he was suddenly confronted with a near prospect of whirling flame, a pillar of dancing fire surmounted by a wallow- ing cloud of spark-shot smoke. In the fitful, sinister illumination thrown out by this tremendous torch, he could read the name on the burning building. It was W. G. Frail. In spite of his premonition, he ex- perienced a tightening of his tnroat, a catching of his breath. He seemed to hear again in the roar of the flames — We take again what was never sold. “Any lives lost ? ” he asked a police- man who was shooing back the crowd. “ Not yet,” the policeman answered. “Was no one in the building?” he persisted. The policeman glanced at him im- patiently, then glanced again with in- creased interest. “ Naw; that place hasn’t been in use for the past thirty years. Why ? ” “Oh, nothing; except that I know the owners.” He felt very small in the presence of that dancing giant of smoke and flame — as Aladdin might have felt in the presence of the Jinnee of the Lamp. Only he knew, did Turga, that he was not master but slave. As he turned to go he discovered that he had been standing in front of a cheap restaurant, long since closed for the night. There was a section of unclean mirror in the window, de- signed no doubt to conceal things still more unclean beyond. He caught a reflection of his face — • weirdly lighted, each feature distorted and accentuated by the light of the fire. He shuddered, then laughed. He hadn’t recognized himself. He looked older. He looked like M ephistopheles. CHAPTER XVIII. THE OPEN WINDOW. Turga wasn’t the only one who was reviewing just then the events of the 32 ALL-STORY WEEKLY. past twenty-four hours. Twice Mrs. Frail had snapped on the light at the side of her canopied bed, had coaxed calm and forgetfulness and possibly sleep with the suavest of Bosnian cigarettes. It was of no use. She swore softly under her breath in Russian, but she confessed to her- self that she wasn’t precisely unhappy. Ennui was the only thing she feared, and there was no immediate prospect of that, not with this renascence of old fears and superstitions, not with the young Count Turga as her latest play- thing. Not since her husband, Horace Frail, had been brought back to Schloss Frelinghuysen from the woody dueling - ground had she been so tremulous. For a long time she lay there look- ing at her dressing-table, as though half expecting some demonstration of the supernatural. It was so odd that the thaler should thus have come back into the family — doubly odd that this should have occurred on the very day that the dismal Melnik had called to croak his warning. At last she could stand the sensa- tion of unsatisfied expectancy no longer. She slid her pink feet out of bed and into a pair of wadded Turkish slippers. - She scurried over to the table and, opening a drawer, took out the shi- ning silver disk — the dollar which she had discovered that afternoon in her son’s possession, the same dollar, she made no doubt, that she had seen the night before in possession of the strange and disconcerting young Turga ; the same, she was equally sure, that shje had seen among her husband’s possessions that last day that they had carried him home. “The Frelinghuysen thaler !” She believed in curses. Her mind ran back over the old wives’ tales she had heard in the long winter evenings in southern Russia, stories of the frightful crimes and superstitions and witchcrafts which prevailed in that part of Europe during the close of the dark ages, during the religious wars, during the time that the ogres of the past were at death-grip with the young giants of the new era. That there still lived lost tribes of the old regime in various parts of cen- tral Europe she was convinced. Even after her marriage, and she and her handsome husband had gone to live in the historic Frelinghuysen Castle, she had heard stories about the “ cave- dwellers ’’ of the wild mountain neigh- borhood that made her shudder. Descendants and followers still were they of the great and terrible Munz- ner; all that was left of his earthly dream of becoming a second Moham- med; sharers still of some of the dark secrets and rituals that had at last brought him to the stake. Instead of distressing her, these* souvenirs brought to Mrs. Frail an exquisite thrill of fear and excitement. She had nurtured such sentiments ever since she was a very little girl. After a manner they had become nec- essary to her happiness. She caressed the sinister coin. Placed it against her cheek. Tried to imagine that she felt the pricking tin- gle of esoteric emanations. There are two explanations of what followed — there are for almost every event in life, whether the event be spiritual or physical. One explanation is that Mrs. Frail still carried her lighted cigarette in her fingers; that it was the coal of fire at the end of it that touched the delicate texture of her throat. The other explanation— and the one which she accepted — was that it was the coin that burned her; that she had felt the thrust of Belial’s red-hot claw. Her old nurse had told her about such things back in Russia. But this is certain. As she brought the coin down the side of her face it seemed to her lively imagination that it actually did carry with it a little trail of heat. She had brought it to that