Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-05-04

were her first words when the burning,
singing pain restored her to conscious.
ness: 81 will write myself in day OF
two"
A battle was impending. No officer
nor man could leave his pest without dis
honor, and she would not have her hero'f
heart unnerved, his thoughts distracted.
bv anxious care for her. So, amidst all
the terrible pain of the burning, when II
might almost have been said OF her that
having eyes she saw not. and having ears
she heard not, with poor scorched and
blistered hands that could hardly hold
the pen, day after day che wrote to him
CHEEKY little notes = bright, sparkling
missives-tender, loving words that in.
spired and strengthened him. She told
him she was not quite well, to be sure
she had burned her hand-this last as an
apology for bad penmanship-but the
unlucky fingers would heal in due time
But she did not tell him-for she
scarcely noticed it herself-that the doc
tor and her cousin, Mrs. Morgan, looked
at her with strangely plying chances
She did not tell him that the position Of
the mirror had been changed 80 that she
could not see it as she lay upon her bed
She did not tell him that as her strength
returned, and she began to sit up little
it was surreptitiously removed from hel
cham Der, and that, although she spoke Of
its absence time and again, no one could
ever remember to bring it back.
But at length the bitter truth forced
itself upon her. She was permanently
disfgured- disfgured for life. When al
last she exchanged entreaties for com.
mands, and her cousin, with streaming
ewes, hung the mirror in it's accustomed
place, Agnes Chester gazed upon the i'm
age of herself for a moment, and then
sank to the floor in dead faint. She was
changed almost beyond the possibility of
recognition.
"Send for DR. Agnew I want DIR. Ag-
new" she said, half an hour afterward,
during which Mrs. Morgan had tried to
speak few consoling platitudes, and
had stopped short, struck dumb by a sud
den sense of their utter feebleness.
DIR. Agnew came, with a world OF
trouble in his benevolent face. He saw
in a moment that bis patient had tasted
the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge.
as thisthe end of it ?" she asked. as he
approached her cam to be like this all
my life, doctor ?" And then she covered
her face with her hands, as il fain to hide
it even from his kindly. sympathetic eyes.
"Why, really now, Mrs. Chester, you
have taken me quite unawares L
there, there, my poor child do not take ii
so to heart. Time works wonders, you
know, and perhaps
III. h. M
peace where there is no peace, doctor,
she said, quickly. II want to know the
truth-the whole truth. Is there moth
ing that can be done? Must I carry this
dreadful face, this body of death, with
me to the grave? Forget that I am a
woman. and deal with me as you would
deal with a man under like circum-
stance"
He met her now On her own ground.
"The redness, the discoloration, will
disappear after a WHILE" he said. "But
the scars will remain. I have done my
best, Mrs. Chester. I exhausted all my
skill and al the wisdom of the schools in
the endeavor to prevent the soaring.
But it was all in vain. It seems like
mockery to say how deeply I sorrow for
this.
"Tben there is no hope?" Her voice
was keen and clear now-sharply stung
as if by inward agony.
"Very little, fear, my poor child.
Some of the deep scars will grow less dis
tinct after while"
Then may God help us both !" she
cried. "But Hugh Chester shall never
look upon my face again !"
She did not speak another word, but
sat like a statue-cold, silent, fearless,
impassive. No prayers, no entreaties
moved her. She did not seem TO hear
them. At last DIR. Agnew and Mrs. Nor
gan would have carried her back to her
bed. But she quietly put them away
from her, walked to her couch, and laid
herself down. In her Utmost heart she
hoped she might never rise again.
Her thoughts were not so much of
herself. She felt such an unutterable
pity for Hugh Chester. He had said he
should take her image with him to the
field; she remembered his very words,
and repeated them despairingly as she lay
there, with closed eyes drawing such bit
ter contrasts.
"Not line nor shadow altered" Alb,
if she could only die, that he might keep
her as then in his memory, while she
waited beyond the stars for his coming.
But the days wore on, and she did not
die. Death seldom comes to those who
long for him. She still wrote daily let
tiers to Captain Chester-that was no
more than any friend might debut she
ceased to call him her husband. She
dreaded the approach of the furlough for
which she had prayed so long. When it
came she would bid him go free. She
had been his wife in name only, for these
months, Now she had changed
so utterly that if he were to meet her,
Agnes Darlington-she began with
strange, sad pity to think of herself by
the old name again-in the sire ets, be
would not know her, and could she hold
him to the old vows Any court would
break the legal tie that bound them, and
he should go out into the world uufet-
tered.
He had said that she and beauty were
one, but they were one no longer. And
with solemn vows of self-ren uuciation,
the woman knelt, night after night, in the
starlight and asked God to make her firm
of heart and resolute of will, that she
might not bring her poor, SCARED. distort-
wife's place in bis bosom.
At length there came an eager. hurried
scrawl that was hardly legible. A months
Through at last He must stop in New
York for day or two on business Connect
ed with the regiment. Would Agnes
Join him there?
The trial hour had come at last. II
Hugh Chester's heart were unnerved and
his arm weakened now, no great public
interests were at stake; no lives hung in
the balance. She must write to him at
once.
And she wrote-ao7dt, no mortal save
her husband ever knew. The words were
sacred to himself and God and so was
the agony of those long hours during
which he waited for the dawn to break.
Then, contrary TO Agnes command, be
started at once for Hazlehnrst
She saw him afar off, and for moment
or two her eyes dwelt lingeringly on the
form that was so inexpressibly dear Then
n