--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Spencer, Josephine collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 16 number: 5 published: 1913-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Spencer, Josephine, "By Unmapped Paths. A Story," *Improvement Era* 16, no. 5 (March 1913): 467–480.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1605unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1605unse start_page: 467 end_page: 480 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1913-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1605unse publication_year: 1913 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1913, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # By Unmapped Paths. A Story By Unmapped Paths BY JOSEPHINE SPENCER The rows of typewriters in the big class room were cowled in their gray covers and the crowding footsteps on the stair had died away. One only of the class remained — a slight figure fronting the professor's desk. "What can I do for you, Giles?" "Nothing, sir, I guess." Prof. Farley looked up quickly at the boy's pale face and lips set in unusual bitter line, then drew him into the empty seat beside him. "You are in trouble. Tell me about it, Giles." The boy's proud -reserve broke under a ring of true interest in the other's tone. "I suppose you know the most of it," he said, presently — "about my father but you don't know about what it has meant ; for me — — the fight I've had the things put in my way. I wasn't in my 'teens when it happened, and it's seven years since, but not for a day or hour have they let me forget. It killed my mother, — and it looks as if it would kill me or end me some way. You've seen how it has been here it's like that everywhere. They seem ; to resent my trying to be decent — to wipe out what's gone before. — That's what I wanted to do to make my name stand for enough right here to make up for — father. They won't let me — that's all. I'm about ready to give up the fight." The man laid his arm tightly about the lad's bent frame. "It's only just begun, Giles, and the hindrances you've met are only hurdles. There's your whole lifetime before you to win out. These petty souls who fling cobbles and set up logs to trip you are not the real judges nor arbiters. You've made a good race so far. I've watched you, my boy, and know some of your trials. The boy groaned. "Eight years — he " faltered. "I know," interrupted the other, "it's time you had rest. Even the pugilists go into a corner, now and then, for breath. You — have given your home town a fair trial offered it recompense for a sin not your own, with the best endeavor a young life could give. Its cold shouder is a blot on its own fame, bigger than the one you are suffering for. I don't blame you for wanting to clear your shoes of its dust." 468 IMPROVEMENT ERA "I wanted to make it proud of me — seemed the only thing it that could right his wrong." "You can still do that, Giles but your race to your goal can ; be made on another track. I've a place for you with me, if you like. I'm starting" out west, when the school term's out. I can give you a position as assistant in my night school and out there ; where you're free from these purely local naggings, there will be other chances as well." The slender hand which grasped the professor's was trembling. "I guess you've saved me. It looked like there was nothing for me but the down way." "Never talk tobogganing, Giles. It's an out-of-date sport. This is the airship age, you know any of us can soar that has ; nerve and skill for the flight." "I'm ready to try, if—" "There are no ifs out there where the skies are mostly blue, and plains horizonless. Big spaces breed big people, lad. You'll have your chance out there, and it don't need much of prophecy to say you'll likely — fly." From a small side balcony two spectators watched the brilliant scene within — a ball-room bright with myriad lights, its waxed floor thronged with moving couples. "Have you counted the times those young people have danced together?" smiled the woman, as a pair, notably handsome and well dressed, drifted past the glass doors in front of the balcony retreat. "Every second turn," smiled the other. "Rather careless chaperonage. If I were the mother of a girl with a dowery of a half million in sight, I shouldn't want her cultivating quite such an open intimacy with a man of his prospects." "Oh, the Ramars are quite democratic, I understand. Knew poverty themselves once, you know, and believe in showing tolerance. Not, I imagine, that they would nourish the mere fortune hunter. They are all hard as steel when it comes to any kind of trickery. But Giles Clancy is a different proposition. His life has — been an open page since he came here a lad of seventeen. What he lacks in fortune he makes up in character. Besides, he is in a fair way to take good care of himself. Prof. Farley's death last year made him virtual head of the business college. It means a good living for a young fellow of his cleverness and grit." — "Good enough for the average girl but Lois Ramar — — "Hush here they come. Let's have this next waltz and give them a chance." BY UNMAPPED PATHS 469 The two slipped through one window as the young couple came through the other. "Just in time," smiled the girl. "This balcony seat is meant only for the very elect." "If I could believe myself in that category," said her companion, holding the eyes, raised to his with a moment's steady gaze, "I could ask nothing more of fate." "A seat in a side balcony is a small boon to ask at the hands of the benign goddess," protested the girl, ignoring his meaning glance. "Its importance in your estimation, implies that I must have tired you terribly in that last dance." "As if you could ever tire me, Lois !" He stopped abruptly, and turned from her with visible effort. "It at least gives me the opportunity I had hoped for tonight," he said, unsteadily, after a pause, "to say good by to you alone." "Good-by !" echoed Lois. "You are going away?" "Yes. must be "Good-by!" echoed Lois, 'You are that or — It going away? "But your work — "I have already transferred my share in the college," said Giles, a suspicious catch in his voice. "There are only the — — — the farewells." "But it has been so sudden you you "I have considered it for the past year, but I have been too loath, too cowardly to take the final stand. My resolution finally was taken in a moment's desperate strength. I knew that I must —there was no other way." do it "Giles — you are trouble — some deep cause underlies in this sudden Can you act. —to me know— try to help you trust let to ?" There was a moment's silence, then he turned to her, his face pale but set with sudden purpose. "Lois, I had hoped to leave you with your mind untainted by 470 IMPROVEMENT ERA doubt of me, as I believe it has been in the past. But I shall tell you my secret, so that you may know why I cannot dare not— speak to you of what is in my heart. I am the son of a felon, Lois. My father, in my early childhood, robbed a bank of which — he was a trusted employe, and left us my mother and me to — live down his shame. She died. I struggled against it unsuccessfully for years, back there where we were all known, then came to this far place for my rightful chance in the world. I thought I had it — till I met you. Then I knew that the past still held me. I could not ask you, or any other woman to share my life with that secret behind me. To live here in sight of you, with no hope of winning you, is impossible. I am giving up the goal that I have lived and worked for because it means nothing to me without you. In some other place I will take up the fight again live my life as best I can without you — "Giles !" Lois' hands clasped both of his, and her dark eyes looked at him through tears. "Do you think I shall let you make — this sacrifice you who have won more than my love — !" "Lois "Wait, dear, and listen to me. What you have told me belongs to us, alone— none other need know. My father likes, respects you. He is a hard man where personal honesty and integrity are concerned and he reveres courage, pluck, success. These — with him, are the prime credentials. You have all these I know — that with him they will pass — "For myself, perhaps but Lois, this secret is not ours. — Some day my father will be released, and then I No, Lois, I have spent wakeful nights with my bitter problem. Nothing can solve it but renunciation." "But if I am willing to face it ?" Giles pressed the white hands resting in his, to his lips. "It means more than life to me, that you can offer this sacrifice." "It is not that to me," she answered. "I count your long struggle as heroism. I myself will tell father. He shall judge and decide for us, if you wish." "If you go to him with my story and presumption in one breath—" The glass door opened, and John Barry, one of the guests of the night, came out on the little porch. "Cosy corner taken, I see," he smiled. "That's right. Cupid has first claim. I was going to monopolize it for a business talk with McCraig here. By the way, Giles, you're the topic I was about to discuss. McCraig's been left a fortune by some misguided relative over in the old country, and is leaving us next week. We heard you'd sold out the business college, and had you in mind for his place. Call in tomorrow at the bank, and have a BY UNMAPPED PATHS 471 talk — perhaps we can make it to your interest to stay here. can't afford to let a young fellow of your caliber quit town." We He withdrew, dragging McCraig after him, and the two, left alone, gazed at each other silently. "It is so sudden, and strange," breathed Lois. "It seems almost like a swift answer to my prayer." "It is the one chance in ten thousand," said Giles, "to prove myself, to make good what my father lost. If I succeed, then I — can go to your father myself, Lois ask what my heart craves. I must take this chance, as you have said, as a veritable gift from heaven, leading both to you and to the other prize which I have cherished." — "But you see, Giles, don't you that this secret of yours must be ours alone for awhile. You mustn't begin hampered by suspicion, or even doubt. You've won a fair field for your home stretch, the fairest odds. — As for me I shall wait for you — — year, a month or a day — as you choose. If you " But the rest was smothered on a lapel of black broadcloth, behind a friendly screen of palms. The Rev. Lee Ellis, walking rapidly toward the state's big penal institution, paused suddenly at sight of a figure shuffling toward him in the wintry dusk. "Out already, are you ?" he asked, taking the other's hand in a friendly clasp. "It's earlier than they expected, isn't it?" "The papers came this morning. I've spent the afternoon saying good-by to the boys." "I should have regretted not saying good-by, too," said the clergyman. "You've been a sort of light here in the midst of all this. I'm looking for good things from you. A man that can get such a reprieve from his term, for good behavior, ought to return some marked record to the world." A dark smile moved the other's set lips. "If the world will let him," he said. "The world is a better comrade than you think," came the reply. "It will lift or strike down as a man may deserve — that's all. Show your good will by it — respond in kind." it will His companion pointed back to the grated pile of brick behind him. "There's four men back there that went out some time after I went in. They all had good intentions, fine resolves. Now they are all inside again. Who's to blame ?" He smiled sardonically while the other looked at him in silence. '"You will not come back. You have conscience, pride, incentive — perhaps a wife, a child — "Neither. My wife died; my son disappeared died, too, — perhaps." 472 IMPROVEMENT ERA "You can go back to the home place, and make good." The man laughed loudly, derisively. "My home place skirts the Atlantic. My way is toward the far west— leagues from my native home. If things go well— who knows ? I have learned here to make no resolves. It takes two to make a bargain. The world is the best and biggest fellow of the pair. I am waiting to see its hand." He turned, and the clergyman, watching, saw his figure fade into the deepening twilight. — Westlake boasted a half dozen real magnates J. J. G. Perkins, who had cleaned up a half million in real estate when the town had its first boom Job Ramar, head of its first big-depart- ; ment store Melissa Briggs, who had come to Westlake in the ; beginning as a clerk in the same institution, but had been lucky in mining speculations, and had stayed on here "to show the people who had looked down on her then, that she was a mite better than the best of them she'd waited on ;" and last, but not least, three Barry brothers, owners of the biggest bank in Westlake, and whose rumored profits therefrom, raised their prestige to a point exceeding the other local magnates, as the sun ranks to mortal vision above stars. To be chosen first-hand to a position of trust with these men meant the highest voucher possible in the eyes of the community, and Giles Clancy, popular from the first for his geniality and good looks, sprang at once into social and business prominence. The sale of his interest in the private college, which had been made quietly, posed now as a logical forerunner of this important advancement, whose salary, as well as prestige, counted for much more than his holdings in the educational institution. The new incumbent of McCraig's important trusts therefore went to his duties with the feeling that new life had risen before him from figurative ashes of discouragement and hopelessness which had preceded its chance. Almost a year had passed since the sudden vista opened before him, and he had no doubt of his standing with the men who had made it. A distinct proof of it had arisen recently. It was nearing Christmas time, and the three brothers had resolved to make a trip to their old home in Wisconsin to spend the holiday with their parents, both now so aged that chances could but be well nigh over for their joint reunion. Separately they had journeyed back once or twice, but an urgent message had come pleading that they all meet too-ether once more beneath the home rooftree, and they had pledged themselves to this treat. Giles' elation at this proof of trust was tempered only with anxiety for its adequate fulfilment. With the three heads o- ne, BY UNMAPPED PATHS 473 responsibility rested inevitably upon himself, and when the time came he set himself a vigil which no circumstance save death might surprise into danger or defeat. This resolved itself into a personal daily surveillance of the bank's affairs, and a nightly watch of the premises, that no possible chance might betray the trust in his hands. It meant an actual waking vigil of four nights, and the last day found the young cashier feeling unmistakeable results of the unusual strain. It was Christmas, which in Westlake dawned mild almost as Indian summer. Giles, waking at noon from a two-hours' sleep after his long night's watch, felt ambition at first hinged to the tempting couch which had given him his scant rest. Remembrance, however, of his holiday engagements, which included a full afternoon with Lois, spurred him into quick activity. Leaving Watson in charge at the bank, he went to his near boarding house, and after a quick breakfast, was picked up by his auto party for the long country drive planned to precede a later dinner at the Ramar home, and evening at the theater. Watson, who had served as nightwatchman for the Barry brothers for fifteen years, took his own special trust in the absence of the "bosses" with much the same attitude as Giles. Sharing alone with Giles the exact knowledge of the rather extended absence, he made the most of its importance. Twice since dusk he had made rounds of the building in his holiday's special watch, and now entered again the Barry's private office, from whose cemented side wall opened the bank vaults. "It's funny," he muttered ; "that's the same sound I fancied I've heard two or three times this afternoon, and just after I'd left this room. I know the fastenings are all right. It must have been from outside. Them horses' hoofs on the pavement sound like hammers sometimes it's not the first time they've fooled me. ; I guess my nerves must have crossed wires with Mr. Clancy's about this night-watching business to set my imagination going this way. Think of his paying me extra for the week the bosses is away, and then taking the brunt of the watch himself. The responsibility must have gone to his brain. I'm not sorry, — though, his taking the last part o' the night for his turn it takes a heap of strain off me. Bank robberies don't occur much in a thoroughfare like this till the streets are clean of people, and if this institution was to be touched at all, it won't be till I'm safe at home. Ah there's Mr. Clancy now." ! The outer door opened as he spoke, and Giles entered. "Hullo, Watson. Everything ship-shape?" he asked. "So far, Mr. Clancy. If you'll pardon my saying it, there'll be no burglar in the bank tonight if your end of the job is as neat done as mine." 474 IMPROVEMENT ERA "Imust certainly try to emulate you, Watson," laughed Giles,"and here's a little extra for the holiday overtime." "Thank you, Mr. Clancy. You've been generous enough already without that, but I must say it hasn't been a cheerful afternoon here by myself." "We can congratulate ourselves that the special watches end tonight, Watson." "Bosses home tomorrow, Mr. Clancy?" "Yes, and the next holiday they take away from Westlake together, I hope will be in the millennium when we won't need extra watches set for burglars." "That sentiments mine, Mr. Clancy, provided it wouldn't let me out of a good job. I'll say good night, sir." "Good night," laughed Giles. He took off his overcoat and hat as Watson disappeared, then gazed for a moment longingly at the couch piled with cushions through Lois' insistence, for his supposed snatches of sleep through the night. "That couch is a temptation," he muttered. "Dear girl, I wonder what she would say, if she knew my head had not touched those cushions once in my four nights' watch." He took out his timepiece. "Twelve — o'clock that means six long hours to kill. Well, I'll straighten — out those Moseby accounts they're in a hard enough knot to keep me awake, if anything will." Going to the desk he took from its drawer a roll of foolscap, and then a revolver, and laying the latter aside at his elbow, sat down at the desk and began work at the papers. At the end of half an hour his head dropped, and he caught himself with a start. Figures, names, everything blurred together. "It's the big Christmas dinner, I guess," he muttered. "Makes my head heavy as lead." He rose, walked about the room, and came back with new determination. Twenty minutes' work — weary task. Again his head dropped, this time without notice. His eyes closed, his chin fell upon the arms outstretched upon the desk. A half hour passed — another. The clock from the neighboring town hall struck two. Then something strange happened. A block of tiling at the rear end of the room moved, rose, and swung back as if on hinges. A head appeared, to be quickly withdrawn then ; a figure crept through the opening, followed by another. They moved, softly, rapidly, toward the sleeping man at the desk. Giles roused to gaze dazedly into the muzzle of a revolver. "Hands up !" breathed the man. "Quicker I tell you — — What do you take us for? Walk out here away from the desk — farther, I tell you ! I see you've got your gun there, handy, but I'll spare you the trouble of using it. Jake, take your rope and tie him to the desk. Now, go through his pockets. Got everything? Now, my young friend, I've a business proposition to make, and if you're quick at figuring, you'll jump at the snap I'm going to BY UNMAPPED PATHS 475 put in your way. I've a litle box here, with some dangerous material inside and I'm going to make fireworks of you if you ; waste any time giving us the combination to that vault. Be good, my boy, and nothing worse shall happen to you than the ropes, there, and a mouthpiece to keep you still. Disoblige us, and we'll make a bonfire of the vault after we finish you. Don't believe me, I see. Think the noise is a little too much risk? Well, the explosion won't count. I'm an inventor, you see, and my little box is soundless. It's filled with dynamite, but its noise goes off in vapor. I'll give you a second's more time to tell, then I'll set this box at your feet, and light the fuse. Understand ?" Laying down his revolver, the man took from his pocket a small tin box, unrolling from around it a long fuse. Just then his companion came hastily forward with a scrap of paper which he had taken from Giles' pocketbook. "Here's something I found hid tight away in the lining of his purse. — Looks like a puzzle on it it might be just what we want. You're an expert at these things. See if you can pick sense out of that." The man took it eagerly. "Looks natural to me. We'll have a try at the vault with these figures." He ran quickly to the vault, and after a few dexterous turns, came back jubilantly to his partner. "It's a go," he whispered. "Here, take this and gag him. If anyone else turns up, shoot. I'll take care of the rest." Giles stood with set teeth, his face sculptured in the dim light into resemblance of white marble. "Wait," he breathed. "You were about to set fire to that fuse at my feet. I want you to do it, before you enter that vault." The elder man turned back for a curious look. "This little surprise party must have turned his brain," said the other. "Did we catch a remark from you ?" asked the elder, sarcastically. . "I ask you to kill me — blow me up, shoot, strangle anything ; so that I'm dead when you leave this place." "I say, Jake," said the elder. "We can't waste time on a lunatic. The asylum will get him in the morning." "Oh, I'm not insane," said Giles. "I'm asking you to show me fair play, that's all." The elder man stared a moment, then grinned. "Here's the situation, Jake," he said. "With a bank clerk left in charge of things, and the money gone on a tight little combination that nobody knows but him, who's to believe, when he's found next day with a rope tied just like he could tie it around himself, that there's anybody but him been in on the job? It lets us, or anybody else, out of so much as a suspicion !" 476 IMPROVEMENT ERA riles' teeth crimsoned with a line of ( red from his nether lip. "I want you men to hear me," he said. "If you were in court on trial for your life, you'd want a fair chance, wouldn't you you'd want everything possible done to keep you from the hangman !" The men looked at him with dawning interest, and Giles went rapidly on. "I'm in the selfsame fix. I'm on trial here tonightfor things that mean more to me than life— my good name, faith, integrity all the things I've worked for in years? Men, I want to tell you the story of my life." "Cut it," said the younger man, disgustedly. "We ain't got time for Sundav school spiels, tonight." "It won't take long," pleaded Giles. "Besides, there's no one to disturb you. The nightwatchman is gone for the night there's no one else to interfere. I'm frank with you, you see, because I want you to believe that I'm sincere." The younger man turned away sneering, but the other detained him. "It's sort of interesting," he jibed. "A new kind of enter- — — tainment and species in this life is something worth while — little while. Go ahead with your declamation, young man, but don't build up false hopes. We haven't spent three months getting through that floor to fluke the spoil now it's in hand." Giles took a long breath. Heaven itself could have been no dearer just then than this reprieve. "It's like this, men," he said. "You are dealing me the hardest sentence a man ever suffered worse than stripes, or prison ; bars —or the gallows. I've had a hard time, men ; I was started in lifewrong." The younger man for the first time showed signs of interest, coming to join his companion who sat with crossed legs on the desk. Giles took his chance eagerly, talking quietly, his quickdrawn breath now and then showing his desperate tension. "At the very beginning," he said, "my father cut me off from the chances most men are born with. I was respectably born, with a name above reproach. My father went back on the — chances those things gave. He did what you are doing tonight, but it was a worse crime than yours, for he was a trusted em- — ploye of the bank he robbed as I am now of this." The elder man moved nervously, his dark eyes devouring Giles' face. "He was caught, and went to prison. That was bad enough, but not all for his disgrace tainted us all ; — killed his wife, robbed his son of prestige, respect, his every chance in the community he knew and loved best. I faced life alone when I most needed protection and above everything hung the shadow of my blighted ; name. I lived under its cloud. It shut me from -every means of BY UNMAPPED PATHS 477 reputable livelihood. Employment, trust — for the son of a criminal ? Well, I won't tell it all. I made my fight with courage, God knows. I met rebuffs till the sound of them was a scourge a pes- — tilence that tainted every hope. I wanted to stay there in my native place, and build something that should live down my father's shame, a record that should help to whiten his. But its blight was too deadly, there, in my native home I had to leave Ches- ; ley." "Chesley!" repeated the elder man. His voice was a whisper —a gasp rather. He looked at Giles with glazed eyes. "Then I came out west," said Giles, his heart beating wildly at the gleam of hope in the others' interest. "Here, in a strange place, where none knew me, I took up the fight again. God knows how carefully I have worked Finally, I won this position of ! trust. It has been dearer to me than anything save my hope of — heaven for it means all that I've set stakes to win. Don't you see what it means — your work tonight ? It means that you are wiping out all that I've won. If this bank is robbed, nothing can — save me from blame suspicion. If you are men, you won't leave me alive here to bear that blight." The younger man laughed. "We're under a blight, too, my boy. We know just how you are goin' to feel eh, Red?" He — started toward the vault, but stopped at a sharp word from his companion. "Keep away from that vault." "What you say?" said the other, incredulously. "You heard what I said. Get back into the hole." The other reached for a rear pocket, but the elder quickly leveled his pistol. — "Drop that gun on the floor. Now go." The other began a slow retreat toward the opening in the tiled floor. "I'll be half-masted to a gallows' tree if you ain't clean off your head," he muttered."Do you know what you're doin' ? Pikin' from the neatest job that ever fell head over heels into a — mutt's way and all for a Sabbath school chin from a smoothtongued kid." "Thats' my affair. This is my job — I planned it, and if I — choose a way of my own for ending it's not your stunt to ask questions. Get down there, I said." The other looked at him ferociously, threateningly for a moment, then dropped from view through the floor. "You heard what he said ?" asked the elder. "Well, perhaps he's right. But I'm going to give you that chance you've been — working for: I've been a bad man but perhaps, if I'd thought — — it all out like — you've pictured it it might have been different. I think—you didn't look so see. I ahead. But there didn't far no use now. done, and no going back. You'll not it's forget —that this — It's I tried there's 478 IMPROVEMENT ERA "That yon saved me," interrupted Giles. "I shan't forget it through all my life." "That's all, except this. I want you to let it help you to wipe — out hard feelings against your against the man you told about in your story." For years I have treasured hatred for him, "It shall. but you have changed that. Good must be in him, too, since you — "Keep him in your mind as a creature like me who went— down maybe in an hour's strong temptation." "In five years my father will be released from prison. I shall know what to do. Your deed of tonight has taught me a new duty to him. Before, it was estrangement —retaliation. I am strong enough now to forgive, and to aid him." "No, not that. He don't deserve to come into your life again. It would only hurt you — and he's done enough. He must make his own atonement, and from what I know — of my own heart — he will do that. — He needed only to be shown how far how deadly sure a man's acts reach hands into the future. He'll not come back to pile up issues in your life. He will straigthen out his own by himself, for his own sake, and for yours. There, I'll cut those ropes. You can show them tomorrow to prove your story. That opening in the floor must be accounted for and closed. Don't let them put a trust like this on you again, as you value all you hold dear! No safeguards are sure against desperate men, nor against treachery. For — — — my don't let either pull you down from what you've won." He took a knife from his pocket and cut the ropes which bound Giles. As he did so a low voice reached them. "Red," it whispered, "there's a peeler outside. Looks like he has scented something. Be quick or you'll be pinched." Without a word the man turned, and in an instant disappeared in the tile trap. The next day, in the precincts of the Barry brothers' private room, Giles told the three brothers the details of his close escape, then went over the story of his own life, keeping nothing back. "I perhaps made a mistake in keeping this from you, but I — wanted my chance everything in life depended upon it and I — feared that once known, my secret might be the blight that it — was back there. Tonight I shall tell the father of the girl I love what I have told you. You all shall take me henceforth on my — own character if at all. If I lose out, it will be better than this life I live now, dreading each day's possible discovery. When my father is released it must be known, for I — "You say his term is up in five years?" questioned the elder Barry. "How do you know that he is not already released on — pardon ?" Giles turned pale. "I had not thought of that. I had counted so long on the time of respite from facing him." BY UNMAPPED PATHS 479 John Barry came and laid his arm about Giles' shoulders. — "Did it not occur to you last night? Don't start, my boy you — may be sure he is the true cause of your escape. I shall look into it, to make sure — but there is no doubt in my own mind that you owe your preservation to last night, you —your father. If he gave up all that, may be sure he will keep the pledges made to you that you will never see him again." Giles rose dazedly to his feet, wavered a moment, and fell back in his chair. "Fainted!" said John Barry. "And no wonder. What do you think of a man," he said, as he bathed Giles' face with the water the others had hastily brought, "who will keep a personal vigil of four nights, and ask for death rather than stand for the betrayal of his trust ? Here is the proof of it in a letter I received this morning, undoubtedly from the criminal himself. To me it is all the proof I want, aside from what we know of Giles' record, that we have chosen the right man for the place." And in one breath the others acquiesced. New Year's night came cold and clear, and against its purple sky bright lights gleaming from the Ramar home shone starlike in brilliancy. Indoors they lit a scene of radiant happiness. Quietly wedded during the day, Lois and Giles sat at the head of a banquet table spread in their honor, a smiling pair, facing a score of close friends bidden to share with them the celebration of the quickly planned event. For Henry Ramar, listening a week before with dim eyes to the young man's story, would brook no further delay. "You've been the man of my choice for my daughter since I eyes on you, and since I know the struggle you've made, first laid I'd pick you out of ten thousand for her husband. Besides, I need a young head to help in my finances. There's no reason why you shouldn't step right in and take the place my son would have taken, had I been blessed with one. I suppose I'll have a fuss with the Barrys. They sort of think they've got all the rights there are going about you. But any way, I don't want you and Lois to wait any longer.You've been courting her for two Besides, you need a holiday after years, and that's long enough. — your long siege of work and watching. I want you to take a lay-off for two weeks — a honeymoon in Southern California will be just the thing." And so it was that the New Year found Giles Clancy beginning life in a new way, with no haunting hate nor fear to darken his thought. And night after night, as months and years passed, went up his faithful prayer that the lonely one in places afar and unknown, might work out his reparation finally to meet with those other dear ones to whom his welfare was dear. So, he 480 IMPROVEMENT ERA believed it would be. For to each soul with self-purpose turned to redemption, shines out that star of promise which lit the shepherds' gaze one night in Galilee. To ourselves the fight, to a sure hereafter, the reward. "Build thee more stately mansions, oh, my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Quit thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free Leaving thine outgrown shell by Life's unresting sea."