Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-10-19
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glObe-nOble as music, surfing rs us
cord. touching as silence, as if here, in
the trusting place of the strong elements
of our planet. sound and silence united
their destnies.
lyon would have liked one glimpse of
the Falls tonight" said Maxwell, as they
entered the quaint halfway.
.'Oh, so much !" said Zaidee.
But at that late hour the gate of the
park inclosing Point View and the bridge
TO Goat Island was fastened. The hotel
clerk came TO their help. IL can give YOU
a view OF the rapids" he said; and he
led them by intricate passages to piazza
from which a causeway terminated by a
little pavilion which had been built into
the flood and promising a few moments
of unlocked doors to return through, he
left them alone there.
In the dead of night. in the magic of
moonlight, alone with those wonderful
rapids
tremulous causeway over the rushing
food to the quivering pavilion. There up
on the fragile bench that seemed divided
only by a breath from the mad maelstrom
they knelt in awe. They both were pale
with excitement; but the indescribable
scene. the indescribable torrent the beau
ty, the terror, affected them both-how diff
ferently
Theodore Maxwell was in sympathy with
the rapids. His heart responded with a
wild accord to this swift onslaught upon
peril this herd of tossed waters rushing
TO the brink. and yet lifting their proud
crests. white as the stars themselves
above the black chaos, in eternal protest
against Fate. doomed and daring, desper-
ate yet dauntless.
Little Zaidee felt as the ng-hearted
Charles Dickens says he felt at Niagara.
And she glanced upward from the flying
tempest of waters to the quiet sky, the Sc
rem satellite of earth, and the peaceful
stars.
Then drawn back by the impetuous fas-
cination of the torrent, she looked again,
as her companion had looked without
ceasing, into the plunging food. till, dizzy
with excess of emotion. they turned to
each other, and, seized bv an irresistible
impulse, an irresistible yielding to impulse
that would not have happened if Zaidee
had been five years older, or if Theodore
Maxwell at the moment had been less
fully moved by sympathetic eptome of
his life's experience, and precipitated upon
his fate, Zaidee outstreched her hands,
and the strong man seized them. Zaidee
looked up to him as if to say, care YOU
coming to be good to me and | think
you are. Then let me have refuge in
stantly."
And he answered by folding her in his
arms. and by sealing with one iervant kiss
upon her sanity little lit forehead a
VOW that his heart made.
Silently, and pale yet with excitement,
and hand in hand. they went back across
the quivering bridge to the reposeful
house. Zaidee in her simplicity feeling
herself, by the pledge Of that one kiss, as
surely betrothed as il already marriage
bells were ringing It'll death us do part"
And Theodore Maxwell in his duplicity
for the dual being, the conflicting strug-
gle of faith and despair, of hope and scorn,
of love and hate, was not ended yet in his
proud breast-led Zadee across the foam
ing rapids, with one deep determination
81 will win her TO be my wife. so help
me Heaven! | will be her protector
against the world. and she shall be my
guardian angel"
Midway he paused, as though he would
have spoken; but he depressed the sem
tence that arose to his lips, held it in ST.
lence, and did not say il aloud until weeks
afterward.
In the meantime, not too late for Aunt
Clarence, who appeared on the morrow.
urged by dispatches soon as Maxwell's
night telegram could reach her, to claim
Zaidee--in the meantime there was day at
Niagara what a heirloom to lovers. And
they were lovers now. A journey to Cal
ifornia, and a thrilling test day, when
Maxwell's invention passed into upward,
and for the present uppermost, success in
its special province.
Weeks after the moon lit midnight at
Niagara, in the words born there, and on
ly strengthened by the silence in which
they had been for an interval iniolded
did Theodore Maxwell say to the beauti-
full child, the soulful woman, the darling
morsel of humanity, who, as his bride,
was placed at the altar under his manly
protection for long. long journey, and
who came freighted to him with faith
and hope and love and undying devotion,
Little Zaidee, will you take me in your
care JorDer,s WeeLI,t