The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1877-04-13

f'1f'hiin for moment that he might have let
him sink and swum on himself all The more
easily Tor his it.endinwreck, Ia be n new
- guardiau protector, aod hero TO Ethel a.
son and consolation to the old man. Had
cr any one ever suggested such course to
him he would have been for knocking him
down as a sort Of "muscularly Christian
81 y. version Of the text "Is thy servant dog
that be should do this thing?' No, 1t was
inevitable Ethel's own words, "who that
-i was worth dnyihiag would think of HIMSELF
would have been a confirmation of his pnr-
nose had any been needed. None was,
however; and yet-and yet-Oh! God, ii
was very bard
"NIy darlingl Ny darling!" he kept say
ing TO himself as he sat with his face hid
e den in the folded arms on the table, "My
beautiful, fair innocent darlingl Or
Heavens, how have loved you and Aa
leye you knew IT, That look in your purc,
sweet face II believe you did ; and III
SEAL. So ,ohat must you think me! Ny God, sh u
never see you again, and tell you how it
was-never." And then the thought of what
AZ I Garsfeld had said of his fathers fmil ten
ure on life recurred to him. and dis
missed with slight shiver. 1t seemed
- :. mean TO calculate on the chances of poor
old mans death and yet it and another
idea, still more angrly repulsed that the
truth might even come out by some
= l other means and he be cleared, would re-
turn to him aud perhaps neryed him though
all uncon.eou,ly to the wretched little prac-
tical detail, packing. settling his bill,
aud making poor attempt at swallowing
some breakfast before starting in the morn
tyTT lug 1t is often the merciful inability to
realize the irrerocdbleness of our loss in the
.9F5T frat hours of an overwhelming grief which
enables us to bear it even as we do. Cyr
svg Granger was as brave soldier as any IN
the army list. His friends were indeed
fond of boasting of a medal won by him
when. as a m ere boy with only ten men be-
.s-,r,' hind him, he attacked and carried by as
sault n st0ckade defended by nearly FIVE
times As many well-armed natives in the
Abyssinian war; but the courage needfnl
for this. was as drop OF, water beside the
mighty ocean compared with that requisite
for passing the hotel where she lodged and
the window behind which he could fancy
~ her sleeping. without delaying for the too
perilou. consolation ofa last iarewcll,-
last look into those sweet, brown eyes, IN
whose liquid depths he had almost ioncied,
for one mad moment on the previous even
'N
love shining in and irradiating his own
Had he only turned his fixed, despairing
raze from the building where she lodged
.efT to a solitary female figure seated on one of
the benches overlooking the sea had he on
" known that those dear eyes, swollen with
weeping aud glazed with sleeplessness, were
even then gazing drearily the turbid,
-.sv. tumbug waves, to which she had come out
rf to escape from her own thoughts had he
only guessed at the bitter grief and more
bitter disappointment of that young heart
in its first betrayal at the agony of girfsh
shame for the love and worship freel y
wasted on man who already married
a man so utterly unworthy as to have
dared to insult her by an affection which
had almost from her a betrayal
of her own secret-he had never gone; but
her back was turned to him and he amDs!
brushed against her while his eyes were ga
zing in the opposite direction without eth
er OF them ever thinking how near, for ont
moment they had come on that first bitter
morning of their sundered lives. Ten min
utes later and he was in the train en- rout
for London.
Ten weeks later and he had got his pro
motion, and was half way to India with hi:
new regiment and so it came TO pass tina
eFigi Ethel glancing down the first column o
the Times one morning-Ethel sadly palei
and more heavy.eyed than she had beer
wont to look before that fatal visit to Brigh
ton-came to the following advertisements
"On the 9TH instant, at Aden, on board
II. NJ. troop-shp .lbercromlbie Cyril Vim
cent Granger, Captain in II. Nth Ri
s14e- fes, of typhus fever caught in attendance
some OF his men,
Only one of She thousand and one unfn'
i,.g'$, ished romances blown into life like the sal
spray on the sunny panking of the
al West Pier, broken ike the waves in bubbles
upon the Brighton beach . Only one of the
myriad "might.have-heens" which swell
TAeg the spoiltchances and wasted lives of thi;
worlds history Only a girls faith shaker
and true love toied a mans life freely
given and nobly spent; and "a woman who
would have counted it as shame to drop
tear upon his grave