The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-08-07
wILLIR,s WIFE.
CONCLUDED.

~ CONCLUDED.
He put her down gently, still hold
ing her hand. She stood quite still
and passives rs if frozen. the two
fixed, bright eyes staring from her
death-white face. The man looked
from one to the other in frightened
way.
"Do you think I've frightened her
out Of her wits?" he asked, in an
uneasy whisper, as she stood with
her eyes riveted on his face.
''I dare say you have" I blurted
out, CURLY, as L turned to Mrs.
Robinson. "Mary, my dear, what
is it?" taking her passive hands in
mine. She made no motion, not
even shifting her eyes. "Won't you
speak to me, Mary?" The eyes
turned on me. and slipping her
hands from mine, she groped in the
air like blind person. It was terri
BILE to see. ''Mary," I said, despe-
rately, sit is your husband come
back to YOU anything, L thought,
to rouse her-''won't you speak to
him!'
eyes," said Mr.. Robinson, eager
ly, II am your husband; don't you
know me, Mary? Amt you glad to
see me, my dearp" The tears stood
in his eyes, and although they could
not soften the look of the SCARED
one, still I could see a dina very
dim-likeness to the picture over the
mantel-piece, and could no longer
doubt his identity. Deep lines seem
ed to grow in the little woman's face
as he spoke to her; the very round
ness appeared to fall into sharp
angles, such as long years of sorrow
had failed to produce.
"Send him away; tell the man
to go away. Cannot he go away?"
she said, piteously.
''No, my DEAR" said her husband,
81 have come to stay, and 1 thought
you'd be glad to see me-" His
rough voice trembled little. ssSee,
I've carried your picture with me
through thick and thin. When we was
shipwrecked, thought about it, and
tied it up water proof, SO that should
have that any way; and all them
long years, when Tom Bright and
George Griffith and me used to sit in
our huts O. night, and talk over our
wives and homes, your picture used
to look SO hopeful -like-just like you
used to look them first two months
I almost forgot I was a shipwrecked
sailor, thousands of miles away. Oh,
Mary, the long days and the dreary
nights, and the weeks, and the
months, and the years, all stretching
out, one after the other! Yes, child,
it was awful dreary. like, and your
picture got dim and blurred, and
grew old and gray afore my time;
and George, poor fellow, he died of
queer kind of fever, and we
buried him decent as we could, under
the big palm just above the hut.
Then Tom and l led o rough kind of
life; we got savage-like, and didn't
seem to care much about anything"
There he paused and looked at
Mary, sitting motionless. 'I thought
sometimes, if I ever did get back, it
would be kind O. hard for you to get
use to me and my ways, and I'd feel
awkward with decent folks. It was
nigh on to twenty years. I think,
before we was found; but I thought
may be you'd be kind O. glad to see
me, any way" And the poor fellow
broke down, and looked wistfully at
his wife.
But the little woman mind seemed
quite gone. She did not answer him
word, and had again fallen into
that fixed, unnatural stare. Thought
l might rouse her by calling her
thoughts back to daily things.
"Mary, DEAR" I said, Mr.. Robinson
must be hungry after his journey;
won't you get him some supper?"
She left the room without word,
moving mechanically, like one in o
ing which Robinson had given me q
sketch of his shipwreck. It was the
old story-the same, with variations,
that De Foe and Tennyson and
Adelaide Proctor had told. He and
his two companions had been washed
on an island, rich in beautiful veee-
tation, but infinitely dreary in its
solitude through the long, long years
of watching to which the castaways
were doomed. He told me how hope
had almost died out, when one morn.