Page:Miss Madelyn Mack Detective.pdf/69

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

II

The Missing Bridegroom

I

Two million dollars and the most beautiful girl in the county were to be Norris Endicott's in another twenty-five minutes.

He was emphatically in love with Bertha Van Sutton, but cared nothing for her millions, in spite of the remembrance of his own uncertain income as a struggling architect. The next half hour was to bring him all that a reasonable man could ask in this uncertain world.

This was his position and outlook at the Van Sutton home at seven-forty p.m. Some one has said that a moment can change the course of a battle. Also it can revolutionize a man's life—perhaps end it altogether and pitchfork him into another. At five minutes past eight—the hour that Endicott was to have made Bertha Van Sutton his wife—he had vanished from "The Maples"

58

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.