Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-11-06

D any great guilt upon her; for she was oftel
joyous-nay, even full of fun. She wa
hasty and impetuous, it is true; but sh
! was also very full of tender feeling ant
kindness. Perhaps the guilt was some
T., ether PERSONS, and not hers at all? Why
then, had she never told him so? IL she
, had only done this, all would have come
right. But supposing there were no guilt
either on her side, or on that OF anybody
else. how then? But she herself had said
there was something she could never tel
him. And then how about that foreign
skipper she was 50 afraid OF? How was
it? In the name Of goodness, how was 1t:
All. had she been still alive, he would still
have tormented her This thought moved
him deeply, and made him refoach and
despise himself hey ond measure.
Still he began again: Perhaps she was
not so guilty as she herself believed; OF
perhaps not so guilty as others might nave
thought? How often did we do wrong
quite innocently, and only through igRor-
ance, though so few could understand that
Thus Aasta had thought that he; who was
always full of suspicion, would not under
stand it. Out of one clear, simple answer,
he would have found matter for hundred
suspicious questions, and so she had chosen
to confide herself to death rather than to
him. Why could he never leave her III
peace? She had fled from the things OF
her past life, and sought refuge with him;
and then he, forsooth, must constantly
drag them forward and fling them III her
face! She was truly attached TO him, and
showed him all love and tenderness; what
right had he, then, to concern himself
about her past? And if he had any such
right, why did he not say so in the begin
ming? Whereas, the more her affection
had grown the more his disquiet had grown
likewise-when she, not merely through
admiration and gratitude, but also through
love. had become wholly his own, then,
forsooth, he must begin to wish to know
I all about what she had done and been in
days gone by. The more, too, she had
pleaded for herself, the worse he had
thought Of her, and the more he had in
sisted that there was something he ought
/ to be told.
Then, for the first time, arose the ques-
ton. had he told her everything? Would
it really be right for husband and wife to
tell each other everything? Would all be
understood if it were told. Most certainly
not.
He heard two children playing, and he
looked around. He was sitting in the
green inclosure Aasta had spoken Of lit
tie while ago, but he had not been aware
Of it till now. Five hours had passed; he
thought it was a few minutes. The chill
dren had most likely been playing there for
long; but he heard them now for the first
time.
What! was not one of them Agnes, the
clergyman's little daughter of eight years,
whom Aasta had loved even to idolatry,
and who was SO like her! Good Heavens!
how like she was!
Agnes had just set her little brother
upon a great stone, where he had to be in
school, while she was schoolmaster.
3 ''Say now just what I say" she COM
manded: '''Our Father"
'Ou' Farver."
"sWho art in heaven"
''Eb'm.'
s''Hallowed be thy name -"
"'Arvid be name"
E'EThy kingdom come.'"
mop
's1'hy will be DONE"
"No; s'an't7'
Botof crept away; not, however, be-
cause the prayer had touched him; indeed,
he had not marked that it was a prayer;
but while he locked at and listened to the
children, he became, in his OWL eyes, Il
horrible wild beast, unfit to come near
either God or man. He dragged himself
behind some bushes, so that the children
might not discover him; he was more
afraid of them than he had ever been of
any one in all his life. He skunk into the
forest, fur away from the high road.
Where should he go? To the now empty
house he had bought and furnished for
Aasta? Or should he go somewhere fur
ther away? 1t mattered nothing; for
wherever he thought of going, he saw
| Aasta standing there. 1t is said that
when folks are dying, the last object they
see is pictured upon their eyes; so, too,
when a man aWazes to consciousness after
doing a wicked deed, the first object he
sees is pictured upon his eyes, and he can
never get rid Of it. Thus, when Botolf
now saw Aasta, she no longer appeared to
him as she had upon the mountain slope SO
short time before, but she seemed to be
little innocent girl-in fact, to be Agnes.
Even the picture he retained Of her figure
while she was sinking down the steep was
| that Of Agnes. with her little hands up
lifted. In whatever direction he turned
| his thoughts and remembrances of the suf-
fering woman whom he had so suspected,
they were met by this innocent child
whom he had just heard repeating the
Lords Prayer. In every scene of his life
with Aasta-from the night of the ship
wreck to this Sunday morning-the child's
face appeared. Tne thought of this mys-
FERROUS transformation so proved upon
him, in both mind and bodyAShat in the
course of few days he became unable to
| take his necessary food, and little while
after he was compelled to take his bed.
Soon every one could see he was ap-
preaching death. He whose mind is bur-
dened by some great life-enigma acquires
peculiar manner, through which he him
self becomes an enigma to others. Even
from the day Botolf and Aasta first came
to live in that parish, ais gloomy tacitur-
nifty, her beauty, and the loneliness Of the
life of both, had been the subject of fire.
qaent gossip among the neighbors; and
now, when Aasta all at once disappeared,