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Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius), 1877-1942

"The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale"

"Well, so long, Wowzer--and
thanks again."
"S'long, Smarly," replied the Wowzer.


CHAPTER XXI

SILVER MAG
It was not far to the Sanctuary, only halfway down the short block to
the corner of the lane; but it seemed a distance interminable to Jimmie
Dale. His brain was whirling in a chaotic turmoil; and the turmoil
seemed barbed with a horrible fear that robbed him for the moment of his
mental poise. It was as a man dazed, unconscious of the physical process
by which he had arrived there, that he found himself standing in the
Sanctuary, leaning like a man spent with effort against the door which,
mechanically, he had closed behind him.
In hideous, baleful, jeering reiteration those words which she had
written were racing through his brain. "I am very happy to-night, and I
wanted to tell you so ... happy to-night ... happy to-night ... happy
to-night." Happy to-night--what depth of irony! Happy to-night--and they
had caught her--as the "way was clearing"----with the end of peril, with
the end of the miserable, hunted existence she had been forced to lead
just in sight! Silver Mag--the Tocsin! And he--he, who, too, had been
happy to-night, he, who had known that mighty uplift upon him, he, who
had dreamed that the morrow might bring life and love and sunshine--he
was facing now a blackness of despair that he had never known before.


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