The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-07-14

to make you understand. Let me be
something more than a charnel-house
memory when all is over for us. There
is another side to death, Mark That
will fit itself naturally to the best life
we can live here" From that time no
direct allusion to her approaching death
was ever made, but in thousand and
one nameless ways he was aware that
the thought of it was never absent from
her mind, and that she constantly
labored and planned with it in vain.
Yet she seemed very, very happy. A
quiet look of sweetness and voice and
manner grew upon her, charm that
everyone felt lighted her eye and rested
on her lip with each smile. And Mark
Devine loved her with q very agony of
love. 1t tore his gay, proud heart with
storms of passionate sorrow when away
from her, ard sent him hungering and
despairing to learn the Joy of her dear
presence anew, and add yet keener
pangs to the consciousness of his ap-
preaching wreck.
The last day Of the two months came
and passed. The last day of the two
weeks that were to have seen the end
was over. The full three months had
drifted into the abyss of time, and still
Selma Birney lived. More than that,
the color had come into hersoft cheeks,
and strength she had not known for
years into her fair round limbs. Mark,
trembling in hope, was shocked to find
a shadow of another sort falling upon
his path. Enthusiastically she had changed
toward him. Their close and happy
intercourse was sadly marred by a
reserve he strove in vain to surmount.
At last, in passion of hurt feelings,
disappointed hopes and vague tortures,
he burst out one evening:
"Selma, can bear it no longer.
must speak in spite of your wish. What
has happened? Now that I almost dare
to hope, now that you have been
spared to me even little longer, oh,
my darling, what has turned our
friendship into pain to you?"
She did not speak, but he saw her
knit her fingers in close clasp, and he
felt her tremble as he leaned upon her
chair.
"Listen to me, then, since you will
not speak outw he cried, almost
to love you as never a man loved woman
yes L am sure of it, for never did
man learn the sweetest of lessons with
| such fate impending and unavoidable.
L have not dared to tell you lest 1 dis
turb your so much-needed calmness,
but cannot, cannot bear it in silence.
Unless you hate me it cannot pain you
to know L love you. And, oh, Selma,
you do not, you surely do not hate me
you must love me little 2"
Then she rose up quickly, and turned
toward him flushing, paling, trembling
III tears and laughter, and crying,
softly:
"Oh, Mark Mark, why did you not
tell me sooner? How could you help
it? How could you keepit? For love
you-I love you with my whole heart,
and-and I am not to die, after ALL"
There is goodly number of people
in this world who will conjecture at
once what was done upon such an
avowal. There is no one out of heaven,
perhaps, who can realize what was fell.
When Mark Devine folded her to his
passionate, so long-tortured heart, when
he looked into her sweet face, with no
keen arrow of ranking fear tearing the
depths of his love, there were no words
to tell his happiness. For her, she gave
one long sigh of perfect content and
rested.
"You do not ask me what has taken
away my certainty of DEATH" she said,
looking at him with the fondest eyes he
ever imagined.
"Love, it is gone. care for nothing
besides," he answered, stopping to kiss
the soft white lids. "You are mine, and
| am content
eyes, that is like you. But, for my
own sake, if not now, then in the future,
| wish you to go to Doctor Henson, and
he will tell you the truth"
every we'll, 1 will go. Tonight, let
me think only of the future"
Doctor Henson listened to his request
next day with grim smile. He was
stern old man, whose fiat no one ever
disputed, and he at once admitted he
had told Miss Birney six months before
that, according to the judgment of man,
her days were numbered.
"AIiss Birney, sir, has been my pa
tient for years. Hers is peculiar or
ganization, highly susceptible and ner-
vous in the extreme. For some time
she has been bearing burden of some
description entirely too heavy for her
powers. Latent disease of the nerves
nothing else-came to the surface, and
l could see her dying by inches, with
no power to save her. 1 probed the
wound in vain. One day she came to
me, and asked me in all seriousness and
earnestness to tell her the exact truth
with regard to herself. She assured
me, in her own inimitable manner, that
her happiness for time and eternity de-
pended upon it. Sir, told the truth.
talked plainly to her, and expressed nv
firm conviction that nothing short of a
miracle could save her. That miracle
you have wrought. What the difficulty
was between you, you know and 1 do
want to know. Returning
happiness, with nature such as hers,
means health and life. 1 see now no
reason to apprehend an earlier death
than the average. She will always be a
frail casket of a strong soul. Take care
of her, sir. She is worth it. Good
Mark bowed himself out and went to
Selma. His questions were answered
now. She had loved him call this
time" With tenderness inexpressible,
with gratitude, and what evidences of
his own love he told her all he knew,
and thanked God for it, and for her
courage in sending for him.
''Mark, could not help it! And
everything else seemed so worthless, SO