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PAGE TEN THE OSHAWA DAILY TIMES, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1928 tt nt Gt int Jit Jt Je SE JT SS BARBERRY BUSH One Girl's Marriage Problems By KATHLEEN NORRIS The story thus far: Barbara Bush Atherton lives with her father and sister Amy in a dest little bungalow in Cot- d, Cal, Lincoln Mack zie, the richest young man in town and one of the nicest, is in- terested in Barbara, but she shows a preference for Barry du Spain, poet and dreamer. Mari- anne Scott, pretty and sophisti. cated, comes to Cottonwood on a visit. Link's wealth attracts her. Almost against his will he falls in love with her. At the thought of Marianne Scott's becoming Mrs. Lincoln Mackenzie Barbara finds herself unaccountably distressed. On an impulse she and Barry marry and go to his old ranch to live. Resolutely Barbara adapts herself to the hardships of life with her irresponsible husband Link's wedding is deferred, Mari- anne having revealed the exis. tence of a husband from whom she is getting a divorce. Finally Link, realizing that it is his money she wants, breaks their en- gagement. After two years of marriage Barbara is a tired, over- worked mother. And the restless Barry sceks amusement away from home. A rich woman in San Francisco offers to send Bar- ry to New York and pay his ex- penses there while he is getting his start as a playwright and he deserts, : Link helps Barbara through a long illness and wins from her an avowal of gratitude and love, but not her promise to divorce Barry. Then it is dis- covered that the clergyman who married them is an impostor, so that the marriage is not legal. Barbara is free to wed Link. On the eve of the wedding Barry re- turns. He insists that he had been trying to make good for Barbara and reproaches her for her lack of faith, INSTALMENT 30 "Barry," Amy began, goaded to desperation by the thought that this was actually "the wedding eve, and that further temporizing would per- haps cost Barbara her life's happi- ness. "It's too late now to argue and discuss, Whatever case you can make out for yourself, this whole town doesn't agree with you. This whole town," Amy went on, beginning to cry, but speaking angrily and deter- minedly through the tears she dashed away, "thinks you treated Barbara like a skunk. She was deathly ill; she almost died! She had to come back to life deeply in debt, with no home and no money and no one to help her. She got her old job at the school--" "I thought your father cleared everything up!" Barry interrupted suddenly. "Trust him to have found that out!" Amy said later, scornfully, to Ward. Now she aid, with a voice whose molli notes showed the cost of the fnegry overstatgment: "Well, if he did, you didn't help)" Strangely, except that it always happened where Barry was concern- ed, their position seemed to have been appreciably weakened and his strengihened } the last few phrases, "Barbara," he sorry about the tramp." She opened her eyes, shrugged faintly in her turn. all right--Link happened tp be coming down to the ranch," she id. "And he brought Kate and me id, gently, "I'm luck, to be able to do v1 do for you!" Barry commented an undertone, as if he were thinking aloud Suddenly he looked up, and his eves found cach one of them in turn. Surprisedly, simply, he faced Ward's serious and troubled face Amy's scornful glance, Barbara's blue, ac- cusing, weary eves "Why, but-- the fact that the man' wasn't really a clergyman cer- tainly doesn't make us any the less man and wife, docs it?" he asked, with - his baffling air of honesty and amazement. MOVING ANYWHERE HIGH GRADE EQUIP: MENT KEPT IN PER FECT CONDITION MEANS RELIABLE SERVICE Phone 193 W. J. SARGANT Yard--s89 Bloor Street E. Orders Promptly Delivered "It makes you absolutely nothing to cach other," Amy answered in silence. "Nonsense!" said Barry sharply. "What about Kate?" "You're the one," Barbara contri- buted in a tone she made dispassion- ate, "you're the one who used always to say that that very thing didn't matter--that to be born of parents who didn't love each other was the only real illegitimacy." Barry stared at her, stupefied. "But--but I always have loved you and always willl" he protested, after a pause, "You know that! There's never been any one else in the world for me," "Oh, no, Barry," Barbara said, un- convinced, and shaking her head, "You mustn't tell me that!" The rebuke lingered in the air; Amy's eyes watered, and she bit her lip. Ward shot the other man a chal- lenging and a triumphant glance, And they saw Barry's color change, Barbara alone seemed quite her- self, mistress of voice and manner, She 'twisted the beautiful green and white glitter of her engagement ring and watched, it, as they talked, "I went away to succeed for youl" Barry exclaimed, looking about for sympathy. "Amy," he pleaded, "Ward--tell her that the actual wed- ding ceremony didn't matter--that she and I are just. as much man and wife as if the whole college of bish- ops had married us!" Why, we've a child. Why, I left her less than a year ago, to try to make a living for us all! You know that, Barbara." Barbara, bowing her head forward, pressed all ten finger tips to her fore- head, pushed them up and down. When she took her hands away her hair was dishevelled and her eyes tortured, But she did not speak. It was Ward who presently spoke quickly and impatiently, rising from his chair, and going to the fireplace to stand, shoving tobacco into his pipe, staring down at the other three. "Barry, there's no sense in this-- there's no justice!" he burst out, "For God's sake, man, try to realize that she treated you far, far better than you ever deserved to be treat- ed. She stuck it out, down there at the ranch, long after ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have quit, She was ill, she hadn't a cent, still she hadn't an ugly word to say about you; You didn't write for--" "Because I had nothing but bad news to write)" Barry interpolated hotly, as Ward, quite unconscious of what he did, stopped to hold a match to the bowl and pull on his pipe. "Yes, I know. But a wife has a right to know even that! And even then," Ward went on, shaping his case with an eloquence that seemed periectly astonishing to Amy, as she breathlessly listened. "Even then," he said, "when every one in town-- or at least when her whole family was trying to persuade her to divorce vou--she wouldn't, on Kate's account. No, she'd married you, and that was all there was about it, and if you didn't succeed in New York, you'd probably come back here, and she'd wait for you. She took her old job "My God, Ward!" Barry exclaim- ed, looking up haggardly from be- tween the two long hands that had heen pressed against his fallen head, "don't rub-it in! It's all true! But haven't wonderful women always been forgiving rotters like me always heen taking them back, giving them another trial? That's all I ask. I want a trial! I want to show her," Barry rushed on, beginning to shake with sobs, "that I do love my wife, that I can take care of her and my baby, that I've learned the bitterest lesson a man ever learned in this life." Amy's eves were brimming with tears of most unwilling sympathy, Even Ward seemed shaken, and look- cd irresolute and scowling, at his wife, tfying to read her feeling. But Barbara was unmoved. "Barry," she said calmly, her quiet voice cutting across his high-keyed emotional utterances with an effect instantly stilling, "you have no right to come here and take this stand. I did love you, or I thought I did; I did fight to make our marriage a success." You were the one who sickened of it--" "Never!" Barry gasped passionate- ly, his dark head again fallen almost to the level of his knees, and clasped in his long white fingers shaking vio- lently with the denial. "Never!" "You. left me without a penny," Barbara went on inflexibly, "when I was not well and had a baby to care for and another coming--" "My God, my God," Barry burst forth, beside himself with despair and excitement, "I didn't have a penny! You knew that! Did I ever try to keep a cent back from you? I worried myself sick, I walked into town in shabby shoes and gambled, all to get enough to keep our souls and bodies together! And finally-- finally, when I had to watch you growing absolutely sick over money, | T made the break. I told you--I wrote you--that I'd be back. And now that I'm back," he went on, sud- denly beginning to sob bitterly, his voice cracked and deep with agony, "the news that meets me is that we are not married at all, and that you want to kick me out--to forbid me to see my baby girl again--to marry Link® Mackenzie!" ; There was a long, terrible silence in the room. The other three were young, after all, inexperienced, and they were affected in spite of them- selves. Try as she would, Amy could not keep her lip curled contempt- nously, or her eyes dry. p Ward shifted feet, cleared his throat, looked dubiously at Barbara, dubiously at Amy, looked back close- lv and attentively at his smoking pipe. "Do you think--you two, Ward and }. Amy," Barry exclaimed, aiter the long silence in which he was per- fectly able to estimate the effect he had made, "do you think I'll give her up?" . Again Ward cleared his throat: when he spoke. it was in a perfectly reasonable tone. "It isn't a question of your giving her-up, Barry. You haven't any claim on her. It's more as if you and Bar- bara," Ward floundered, conscious that his eloquence had suddenly de- serted him; it's more as if you and Barbara had been engaged--and you had gone away, and she had become engaged to another man, that's all;" "No claim!" Barry echoed, "except that she was my wife, and that we have a child! Why, suppose one of of the witnesses of a contract is proved to be a cheater--or a liar-- or not fit to testify to anything," he went on, with the fatal readiness of argument Barbara knew so well, "does that make honorable people--" "Oh, Barry, don't--don't!" Barbara pleaded, in a sort of weariness of despair, "It's all such a waste of breath." "You don't think," Amy interpo- lated sharply, "you can't think, that Barbara is going to consider your marriage valid." "No, but surely the only honorable thing is for us to make it sol" he countered instantly. Again Barbara smiled, her nervous, tired smile, and again she slowly and gently shook her head, without speaking, : "Ward says I have no .claim on i said patiently, his anger cooling. "Do you believe true," Barbara answered simply, "True! When I have a child that is your child!" "I don't think," Amy said disap- provingly, rising, as Barbara did not answer, "that we get anywhere hy this kind of talk. I want to ask you, Barry, not to worry Barbara any more tonight, Tomorrow, we can talk to-morrow!" "Just a minute," Barry delayed her, with a gesture of his hand. "I mar- ried Barbara in all good faith three years ago. I went away, as many a man has to do, to follow up a busi- ness opening, and left her a note, say- ing that I would be hack as soon as I could. What morc could I do? What didn't I do?" The three others exchanged glances. Barbara was on her feet now, she looked exhausted and white, and her eyes were heavy and apathetic. The girl flung up her head as if she were suffocating, her restless eyes moved here and there inconse- quently, she would not meet his look. "My dear Barry," she said breath- lessly, lightly, with a little miserable laugh that held no mirth. "We can't go on this way. Whoever's fault it was--it's over. I don't want to talk about it--I won't talk about it! You've arrived here the very day be- fore my marriage. Please imagine that you arrived instead on the day after: it, and that it's too late, I'm extremely tired," Barbara finished, blinking as she turned toward Amy, and speaking nervously, as 'she struggled with an inopportune ten- dency to tears, "I'm going upstairs, Amy--t" "Yes, I'll come with you!" Amy answered quickly, with a dagger look for Barry, whom she had never liked, Barry, watched them moodily, al- most menacingly, his handsome head slightly drooped forward, his hands in the side pockets of his shabby coat. "Is my little girl upstairs?" he asked, jerking his head backward. "She and I came over tonight from Mrs, Duffy's," Barbara answered. And Amy saw the terror that invaded her heart as if it had been a tangible thing, and saw the color ebb from her face until it looked gray. "May 1 sce her, Barbara?" Barry asked humbly, She hesitated, glanced irresolutely at Amy, cleared her throat, "Why--of course." "Tomorrow!" Her miserable eyes met his fairly. "I should think so." . Jarry seemed irresolute in tin, "You and Link--" he began in- credulously, "tomorrow?" he asked. "Does every one know it?" "Every one!" Barbara answered faintly. The man she had thought her hus-1dcad tired, Barry," he said in an | hints, band for two stormy years flushed nervously, spoke with a boyish sort of awkwardness and brusqueness, "I'm sorry," he said huskily, *I thought you felt that you were mar- ried to me. I saw something about Hutchinson not being really a clergy- man, in the papers, but I never im- agined it would affect us." He paused, and they were all si- lent, appreciating more and more the difficulties of the situation that faced them. "Of course, I'm thinking of my little girl--you can't blame me for that! I've not seen her since last Christmas," Barry offered simply. Again Amy gave him an annihila- ting look, He thinking of his little girl! He had never loved her until this instant, when she supplied him with an argument forceful beyond all opposition. The full helplessness of her sister's position in his hands made Aniy's heart feel weak and sick, and her eyes flash with impo- tent anger. "Could 1 have her for a few days, perhaps?" Barry asked. Barbara stirred herseli as if arousing from a hideous trance. "We'll arrange something tomor- row," she said. "You're not angry at me, Barberry Bush?" "No." "If, you want me to step aside, 1 will," Barry promised, "But I couldn't ive my little girl up to Link Maec- By he added, in a moderate reasoning tone. "No man would do that! Her mother and I may not have been legally married, but 1 did- n't know that. I acted in good faith, It was like a blow between the eyes to have a man in San Francisco tell me--only this morning !--that our marriage had heen annulled." "How could it be annulled," he went on, with sudden agitation in a dead silence, "without my knowing t:" "There was nothing to annul; it simply didn't exist," Ward told him. He touched his arm. "The girls are Do You Own Your Own Home HALLITT Real Estate Insurance and | | Loans, Phone 3254 LETT, NICHOLLS AND | | 11 King St, East, Oshawa | PHONE rpm W. J. SULIEY, Auctioneer Loans, Insurance Collection and Real Estate 346 Simcoe St, 85, Oshawa GARAGE urgent undertone, is a shoek--it changes everything. We'll have to leave the details until tomorrow. Where are you staying?" "I don't ow," Barry said blankly, SEE THIS BARGAIN Reduced to $6200.00 7 ROOMS AND FLOORED ATTIC EXTRA, DOUBLE Sunroom, open fireplace, 5 French. Doors, Cloak Room, Linen Closet, Built in cup- hoards. Beautiful brickwork Paved street in north emd, Phone 1550 for appointment "and of course this The Disney Real-Vistate mEm------ | REAL ESTATE, INSURANCE G4 King St. West Telephones 572. 293 Cutler & Preston Night Calls 510, 1300, NG 4% Prince St. do» Oshawa, Ont. of all Kinds sz | His old .attitude--he never _had any plans. "Maybe I could stay at Mrs Duffy's, That's near here, a room?" He would go to the very hoarding house from which Barbara had sent trunk and suitcase and wedding if she has a room." look tried to tell him what she bara nor Amy replied. thought of the matter, hut Barry, as always, was cntirely impervious to] "There'll be talk enougle about all; Has she | this," without your gong " Ward said. "We'll walk ower to Mrs. | Money to loas at 6% Watson's--I'll go with you and sec first mortgages. REGENT THEATRE BLK. | p-- -_ | I + Ierald and Weekly SL ave jn announced a special offer Bell Syn- ot rec "Good-night" Barry said obedient- gown for tomorrow's event! Amy's ly. following him. But neither Bar- (Copyright, 1928, By Fhe dicate, Inc.) (To be contiomed.) there," | REAL ESTATE Automobile and Five Insurance J. H. R. LUKE Phones 871, 0931, 687W. per scription for $2 ilue at tormer price, this | duction i ow place 1 y table in ( ELLA CINDERS--Some New Things DOS i 3 Alp Now SL) "Grice on a spending spree -- the owner oF theo show fo Ab that she LAARAALALLL 17.5 Pa. 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LONG INCLUDING THE TAIL. 475 FUR 15 A RICH BROWN. © 1928, by King Fhatures Syndicate, Ine. Creat Britain rights reserved. cervamny !! FROM DADDY'S PRETTY FURS | CHRISTMAS BONUS! CAME FROM [LETTER FROM | HE BOSS, TILLIE FikeM = YM NOT KEEM ABOUT IT, BUT THe BOSS SEEMS To THINK ERIE EXPERIENCE A 7 1 Fi 3 MONDAY FOR THE Ce 7, Coren Bria CRYING TLL BEAT LP THE GUN THAT MADE NOU ICRN- JUST TELL ME WHO IT WAS- IF IT'S THAT BOZO, RONCE, ITM GONG RIGHT IN AND CLEAN MM LP- ©7938 by King Fan turns Ss sudicare. dan TLLIE, NOU VE BEER TRG FACTS] ALL THE BOSS' FALILST, ple vee: veg THE BOSS, HUH? HE OLGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF TO MAKE A POOR LITTLE GIRL CR TILLIES DIARY | OH, DEAR - JueT AS EVERNTHING WAS GOING ALONG PEACHY, THE BOSS HAD TO SPOIL 1T- THIS MUST BE MN UNLUCKN DAN -. GOSH, NOW I'LL ONLY HANE LETTERS FROM BILL TO LOOK FORWARD TO, BUT THAT LY HELP SOME - POOR MAL, HE WAS S0 GCOD TO ME BUT ME DON'T KNOY WHAT 1T'S ALL ABOLT- GUESS I'LL 0 TO BZD NOW AND SLEEP ALL DAN TOMORROW: L GLESS T'S GONNA BE FIRST GEAR FOR ME NOW! UNTIL BILL. COMES BACK tr PB PEE PE. ™ 0 I A SNE Mandl 2 MANE ION: MOTE IM EB ad tl od dB PES es bts DO DIO ES 5 2 1 00 SORA tel PAA ai AE 2 CP Pwd mA APIS Are: BE Bm TMI DEM a TS rrr] AE PE MN MOTI MY BAY OO ras Pg ™ Phar piel ee me Bal Btw "2 rN TR -----