Manslaughter

								


Produced by Tor Martin Kristiansen, Michael, Mary Meehan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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                            MANSLAUGHTER



                        BY ALICE DUER MILLER



               AUTHOR OF COME OUT OF THE KITCHEN, Etc.

    ILLUSTRATED BY

    F. R. GRUGER

    AND WITH

    SCENES PROM THE PHOTOPLAY

    A PARAMOUNT PICTURE



    GROSSET & DUNLAP

    PUBLISHERS    NEW YORK



    Made in the United States of America



    COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

    ALICE DUER MILLER



    First Printing, Oct., 1921

    Second Printing, Oct., 1921

    Third Printing, Nov., 1921

    Fourth Printing, Nov., 1921

    Fifth Printing, Dec., 1921

    Sixth Printing, Jan., 1922

    Seventh Printing, Feb., 1922



    Printed in U. S. A.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SHE FELT HIS HAND, FIRM AND CONFIDENT ON HER SHOULDER.
LYDIA LITTLE REALIZES WHAT A TEMPTATION SHE IS PLACING BEFORE EVANS.
O'BANNON BEGINS HIS INVESTIGATION OF THE THEFT.
IT WAS A VERY TERRIFYING MOMENT FOR LYDIA.
LYDIA HAD SEEN THE BRACELET AND SHRUNK FROM IT.
SHE FLUNG HERSELF FACE DOWNWARD ON THE SOFA AND SOBBED.

MANSLAUGHTER

CHAPTER I

Whenever she and Lydia had a scene Miss Bennett thought of the first
scene she had witnessed in the Thorne household. She saw before her a
vermillion carpet on a mottled marble stair between high,
polished-marble walls. There was gilt in the railing, and tall lanky
palms stood about in majolica pots. Up this stairway an angry man was
carrying an angrier child. Miss Bennett could see that broad back in its
heavy blue overcoat, and his neck, above which the hair was still black,
crimsoning with fury and exertion. On one side of him she could see the
thin arms and clutching hands of the little girl, and on the other the
slender kicking legs, expressing passionate rebellion in every spasmodic
motion. The clutching hands caught the tip of a palm in passing, and the
china pot went rolling down the stairs and crashed to bits, startling
the two immense great Dane puppies which had been the occasion of the
whole trouble.
The two figures, swaying and struggling, went on up; for though the man
was strong, a writhing child of ten is no light burden; and the stairs,
for all their grandeur, were steep, and the carpet so thick that the
foot sank into it as into new-fallen snow. Just as they passed out of
sight Miss Bennett saw the hands of the child, now clenched fists, begin
to beat on the man's arms, and she heard the clear, defiant young voice
repeating, "I will keep them! I will!" The man's "You won't" was not
spoken, but was none the less understood. Miss Bennett knew that when
the heads of the stairs was reached the blows would be returned with
interest.
Usually in the long struggle between these two indomitable wills Miss
Bennett had been on Joe Thorne's side, coarse, violent man though he