Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-02-07
NO. 81.
Gales ano skettbes.
JOHN SINCLAIR.
CONTINUED from yesterday. }

Good is my Judge, Ollie, that / have
sinned innocently. Ionly gave expression
to the true sentiments of my heart when
told YOU that loved you; | only gratified
the sincerest desire of my life when |
asked you to be my wife and need tell
YOU now, that the happiest moment Of my
life, replcte with the most bewilderine
ecStacy of enjoyment, was the moment
when | awoke to the happy realization
that you Were all my own. Every hope.
every joy, and every aspiration that ami
mated my heart with an influence pure
and sanctifying, seemed but spontaneous
illusions from the great fountain of love
that suddenly welled up in my heart. 1t
was no delusion. loved yoti-loved YOU
with all the strength of my being. Alas
the mutability Of the heart is beyond the
reach of human intervention or control.
What II depth of humiliation and remorse
| suffered when aware of the disagreeable
conviction that my heart had changed, no
one can ever know but He whose all-see-
ing eye divines the secrets of all hearts
Now have told you all. Forgive me if
you can. hope, at least, that you will
do me the Justice to believe that my ac-
tions have been governed by my most ex-
alted conceptions Of honor. To say more
will only add pain. | will go"
He arose and stood before the beautiful
girl, who sat rs palid and immovable as
corpse, her fearless eyes still ablaze with
strange, wild light. He stopped and
took one of her cold white hands in his
so cold. he almost shrank from the touch
as from the presence of death. Tears
sprang into his eyes as he almost sobbed:
''lIeaven bless YOU, Ollie. Good-bv.''
.C IL ba 1atf ha Ia
had scarcely gained the gravel walk, when
a low, despairing wall, that seemed to
freeze the very blood in his veins fell up
on his ear. lnstinctively he paused as if
about to return.
"No, no, ;" he murmured Il cannot 90
back. The sight would be more than |
can endure
With one last lingering look backward
he hurried onward as if fleeing from some
deadly peril.
by heavens. - he calculated as he
reached his room; "such an ordeal would
have discoucerted one less infeXible in
purpose than John Sinclair.
The cold glitter of her blue eyes! Ye
gods it almost makes me shiver. knew
she loved me, and expected some little
demonstration, tears and caustic epithets
of reproof. But, no. was disappointed.
No tears. no harsh language--only rigid.
stony face, and wild, glaring eyes Jupi-
ter. | wouldn't undergo another such trial
for all the gold of California
At length he drew chair near the open
window. and proceeded to beguile the
tagging moments with his invariabe anti
dote for all perplexities-a choice Havana.
After some time, taking the cigar from be-
tween his lips, he calculated a white vol
ume OF smoke through the open window
and watched 1t disappear in fantastic
wreath>. on the evening air.
well, | have it," he soliloquized.
when the circumstances of this affair are
known and bruited about by mouths of
public gossip, shall, if remain here, be
placed in IA most unenviable position, III
let them talk to their hearts content, but
I'll not stop to hear it. | have been think
ing for some time of going to New Or
leans, and this little episode has furnished
me Il preteNt. I'll arrange my business
and start tomorrow evening"
With this hasty resolution fixed in his
mind he retired early to bed only to dream
of white, cold face, hopeless and des-
pairing i'll its expression, and strange blue
eyes that stared at him in way that sent
the blood. in currents of ice, TO his heart
in way that caused him to sit bolt up
right in bed and stare about him into the
darkness rs if some horrible appariton
had but recently stood before him.
"To-day, | have been absent from home
two years, seeking, as votary of pleas
ure to dispel the disagreeabe memories
of the by-gone. Vain, vain Despite
every effort to forget it, the sweet despair
~, ,f
some vengeful Nemesis of retrbution.
Can it be that love her? Yes. yes; God
knows love her only too well''
The speaker, as the reader already
divnes, is John Sinclair. For two years,
by a round of fashionable dissipation, he
had yaiHly sought to forget the past-the
gloomy past within whose fathomess
depths lay sepulchered the brightest hopes
of his short life-the cheerless, foreboding
past from ont of whose dark confines Il
ceaseless train of bitter memories throng
that Danish happiness like the breath of
some foul pestlence.
After some time spent in silent medita-
ton, he continued:
I'm 90 to Ollie and tell her how much
have suffered-how my stricken heart is
lamishing for the love which no other can
bestow. AT her feet, I'll humble myself
in sackcloth and ashes, and plead, with the
eloquence of despair, to be reinstated in
her affections What if" his face grew
deathly pale. What if she is dead! All,
worse. what il she is wife of anotherr'
The very thought was maddening--tor-
turing. He bowed his face in his hands
while his strong frame shook with the
very excess of emotion. Long. long, he
sat in the silent attitude of hopeless dejec-
ton. At length he started up and gazed
abstractedly out of his window. His face
had gained its old composure; only his
eyes, into which had crept n strange, pain
ful light, gave any evidence of the terri
Bile storm that had surged through his
bosom like some deadly element of de-
struction. At length his thoughts found
audible expression.
Heaven only knows how much have
suffered for the one great sin of my life;