Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1877-02-14

foremost carriages flew off the line, and
with a terrific oscillation the whole
train followed it down steep embank-
ment, and came crashing on low wall
at the bottom.
Then the sunshine seemed to fade
out of the landscape, shrieks of agony
and low means filed the startled air,
and the fair white snow was pityfully
stained with blood.
Ruth Darnel and her mother lived in
quiet cottage not far from the scene
of this accident, which took place
near little village, and to Mrs. OAR
ners one of the sufferers, q man sorely
injured, who could be moved no far
Their, was conveyed. Many house in
the village had a strange inmate that
night, and the people We'd with each
other in offering shelter to the unfortu-
nate victims of the accident.
Ten years have elapsed since we saw
Ruth Darnel dismiss her tickle lover,
and those years have been very bitter
ones to her. For hers was one of those
intense natures which do not readily
forget, and the iron had entered deeply
into her soul. She had loved well and
fervently, and that love, she told her.
self, had been scorned. So she had re-
solved to steel her heart against love
in the future; and though several men
had evinced disposition to make love
to her, they very soon found out that
her buried hopes barred them from
Ruth Darnels heart.
And how did she feel toward Regi-
Maid Tremaine? The most passionate
resentment softens to some extent with
the lapse of years, and certainly she
did not feel so bitterly towards him
now as she had done just after that ter
rible interview in the old days. But,
nevertheless, deep in her heart there
were at times very hard and very re.
vengeful feelings towards him, feelings
which she tried to stif1e and keep down,
but which would spring up and sway
her like the suggestions of an evil
spirit. There is nothing so easy to
preach and 80 hard to practice as for
giveness for injuries, and in certain
moods, as she confessed to herself with
shame, Ruth Darnel had not forgiven
Reginald Iremaine.
On the day of the terrible railway &C
cident Ruth Darnel was away from
home on q visit, but was to return in a
few days. Before that time Mrs. OAR
mel had made a strange discovery and
taken a. resolution.
AS the reader will probably have
guessed, the injured passenger who
had been Thrown upon Mrs. Darneps
hands was none other than Reginald
Tremaine. After all these years he
had, by the irony of Fate, returned to
them in this fashion. He was uncon-
scious, and so severely injured about
his head that the doctors feared he
would lose his sight, while one leg was
broken.
Mrs. Darnel was much startled at
first, but, of course, she took the patient
in, and when the surgeons had put him
to bed she resolved upon two things.
In the first place, she determined not to
let Reginald Tremaine know whose
house he was in; and there was true
woman charity In that, for the know
ledge would most probably have pre-
cluded all possibility of his recovery.
In the second place, she settled not to
tell Ruth whom chance had cast in their
way until she returned. Surely any re-
vengeful feelings would die out of her
heart when she saw her former lover in
SO sore a plight.
Ruth Darnel came home, and her
first question was naturally regarding
the new inmate Of her mothers cottage.
"Well, mamma" she said, "and how
is your poor patient? By the way, you
never told me his name. What 8 ter.
rible business it must have been |"
81 never told you his name, Ruth, as
I did not want to shock you, for it is
some one you know"
"What one of our neighbors ?"
"I ought rather to say, some one you
once knew"
Mamma p Ruth Darnel's lips part
ed, and her face turned pale, and hen
she said very quietly, 'May [ go up and
see him ?"
off you wish it," said her mother; and
Ruth went up stairs.
Reginald Tremaine lay, curtained
from the light, at the point of death.
He was still only partially sensible, and
his mind wandered g. great deal, while
the doctors could not yet give any de.
cisive opinion IS to his eyesight. His
bruised and battered face was covered
up, and he WAS moaning in ftful
sleep.
Ruth Darnel advanced to the bed,
drew aside the curtain, and gazed upon
the man who had deserted her, and
whom, she told herself, she hated. At
first she startled back in horror at the
terrible picture he presented, with the
bloodstains and the surgical bandages,
and then strange revulsion of feeling
came over her.
Was this the man she had hated
was this the man she had left in scorn?
Where was her hatred now, so near, as
it seemed, to the presence of death ?
She did not ask herself whether he had
ever married, nor why he had been
content to leave her all these years.
She only knew that he was stricken
down, and from that moment Ruth
Darnel took upon herself the task of
nursing Reginald Tremaine.
How unwearingly and how devotedly
she did it, only she herself could have
told. She was the means, under Provi-