The Morning herald., 1876-10-21

"What is the good of more" she asks,
her voice dead now with sort Of weary
despair. ITO have been false is enough.
Would excuses make it better? I would
not have met you at all if I had been
braver-more unselfsh. I ought to have
written; and I tried, butt could not"
II do not wonder at it," he breaks in,
harshly. 'You were not cold-blooded
enough for that, it seems"
ut would have been BETTER" she an
swers, finching under his tone; 1T would
have spared you pain; and since l could
not receive you in nv husbands house, l
doubt if I should have met you here"
And why"
"He might be angry"
"Angry! Who has the better right to
be angry, he or II Mizpah, do you love
this man, or are you afraid of him? By
heaven believe you are, and think that
you were forced into this treachey.
He would have caught her hands, but
she drew back, whittier than ever.
"No one forced me, and am not afraid
Of him. He is most kind and lovable-
Oh, Geraldp las he interrupts by an oath
wrung from him in sheer desperation) "for
heavens sake for PHYS sake, 60" What
talking can undo the wrong that has been
done you? Ionly ask you to forget me,
nothing more; not even forgiveness unless
when you are happy with some one more
worthy of you, you may care"-
"Never!" he breaks in, crushing her
faltering voice with the blaze Of scorn in
his honest eyes not if were dying would
forgive you you who have deceived me
so long, and brought me back across the
wide Atlantic to find you married to an
other-false to me. Forgive you! No,
but I forgive your husband"
The crimson has faded out of the sky
The gold is dead upon the tree tops. Long
gray shadows float up from the valley. A
faint, whitish mist is building an lmpalpa-
BILE wall between those two, once so near,
now so wide apart. Even the birds are
gone to roost, and the gay refrain Of
y eanot and Seanneton" has ceased to echo
among the hills.
Then Gerald Dacres goes, too. Without
another word, without last glance at the
girl who had wronged him, he turns from
| her and strides away among the trees.
| Only one little star peeping through the
blue above sees Mizpah's agony Of weep
| ing, as, with face hidden in her hands,
she returns to her husbands house-alone.
CHAPTER II.
Night in sick room room where the
red freight leaps up in weird flashing
forms against the pictured wall where the
heavy damask curtains are drawn closely
| across the windows, as if to shut out all
sound, even of the rain beating wildly
against the panes without.
"Mizpah, are you there"
eyes, John"
"I am near the end now."
"Do you feel better, John"
"No, but feel-dying. Come closer to
me. my wife. want to talk to you."
She ia seated between the bed and the
! fire, a woman still young and strangely
beautiful, but with the patient gravity Of
middle age settled like waxen mask over
her fair, pale face Her movements, too,
are softer and more quiet than usual at her
age, as she rises, and, going to the bed,
stoops down above the face, wrinkled and
worn, deeply lined and fringed with thin
gray hairs, which lies there upon the pill
\ low. =.
'You have been crying" he says, his
keen anxious eyes peering clriousiy into
her face, his nervous, withered hand tight
ening on hers.
"Yes," she says simply, ut is SO hard to
see YOU suffer-"
my dear, the bodily suffering is moth
| ing TO that which has tortured me for the
last six years. Torture! wonder ! have
lived so long under it." .
She makes no answer. He often atters
these ambiguous illusions; but Mizpah is
not an inquisitive woman. Perhaps she
has had secrets Of her own. -,
"Mizpah," he says suddenly, "do you re-
member why you married me?, -,
"Why talk Of that now, JohnT she
asks, flushing tlmidly.
| To BE coNcLUpED.1