St. Landry democrat., 1879-08-16

ing frozen to stone as she had started
from her chair, and the open hearted
and gay youth had become taciturn
and gloomy man, without word tc
spare, ready for any dangerous service
and never half SO pleased as when some
black tempest followed them, and the
thick darkness shut them in like the
curtain of death and judgment that
they were just about to lift.
Yet when twelve month had passed,
his bitterness began to be something less
in degree; occasionally ray of sense
would break upon his gloom, and the
thought would come to him that, after
all, he had never once spoken Of mar
riage to Emily Travers In SO many
words; he had taken everything for
granted; he had left the way open for
any other beggar that chose to come
along. Why, he asked, had he ever
doubted EmilyG She loved him to-day
like brother, as she had always done.
Loved him like brotherl Not she, he
would reply to himself, when he had
felled her lover to the ground, and had
flung her from him, like snake. She
had reason to hate him, he said; of
course she did hate him.
Life looked dark enough to Norman
Macpherson at that time, and you may
be sure he made no effort to set things
right; but, with the persistency of his
Scottish race, he fitted his back to bear
the burden; and when the three y"ars'
cruise was over, he made no visit to his
home at all, but got another term of sea
service. much to the relief of some one
else who wished to stay ashore.
AS for Emily, she had not been quite
sure that night that she was not
beside herself Talking to the young
naval officer who was going to marry
sophy-s secret she had kept at sophy's
requirement, and concerning which she
had often drawn on her fancy for Nor
mans pleasure and surprise when she
should be allowed to tell h1m-address-
ing him affectionstely, as she felt toward
one so soon to be her brother, and an-
swering his threat OF taking Sophy
away by begging him not to part her
from her sister, suddenly white maniac
with blazing eyes had appeared in the
window, and an uplitted arm had fallen,
the shrieking sophy had run to lift the
head of her senseless lover, and Norman
was gone. What it all meant she could
not conjecture, and she was too stunned
to make the effort. She went about as
If she were moving statuess Every
thing seemed to 60 on long, long way
beyond her view; she was eNsiting for a
word that did not come; and, when day
alter day and week after week crept b
and no explanation came from Norman.
and she knew nothing of his where,
abouts except the official statement, she
realized that her world had collapsed
like pricked bubble, and she collapsed
with it,
When Emily came up from that sick
ness it was like one emerging from the
dark valley of the shadow OF death, and
some of the shadow still clung to her:
there was look on her pale face as if
she were gazing into a land beyond.
Sophy was married and went away; her
mother closed the house and took Emily
to Europe, sitting down at last in little
town on the Mediterranean shores, where
they could pick up their scattered
threads, and see if they were still Amer>
leans; and the days went by so quietly,
with the slow rising and falling of the
blue water of the tideless sea like an
indolent breath beside them, that they
hardly knew how many of them passed.
Ii they were not happy days to Emily,
neither were they entirely unhappy ;
only there seemed to be nothing to look
forward to, and, except her mother.
nothing to live for. She used to 90
among the people little, to take long
walks along the seaswall at sunrise and |
st sunset to watch the white wings of |
The ships as they went in and out: and |
one day was just as monotonous as an. |
other, and she did not care whether they |
staid in this place or went on toward |
she simply felt that she could |
not 60 home to that hateful house where |
Ill the misery happened.
NOR was there any very giddy variety |
in Norman's days-eut of sight of shore, |
me sun coming up and going down as if |
" machinery, and he only glad to be in
'arbor for the sake of putting to sea
gain. Indeed, it sometimes made him
urious to see the eagerness of the Young
men for the pleasures of the shore, and it
vas SO seldom that he Joined them that
le earned mention with the commander
Is the most morose man afoat
One day, being in Asiatic waters, the
Ulcers of the Attaseck, that had paused
N her way from a more southerly har.
'or, came ON board, and as they stepped
n the oeck, almost the first person that
Norman saw was tall, dark, handsome
elbow with q scar across his forehead.
n an instant he had turned upon his
eel and was suriding to another
art OF the ship, before he know what he
'as doing, or could make up his bewil.
cred mind to action in relation to @his
IAN, who must long since have been