News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-06-15
Then for the first time the visitor saw

| SIdId-MIS. ASE6I-lS Ii YOU!
She motioned him to a seat, and
passed handkerchief slowly across her
mouth, as though to hide an involun-
tary trembling there.
" am not looking we'll, she man
aged to say. sin fact, neither-ueither
MIR. Asher nor have been very well
lately. He would come down to see
you, but he has a dreadful headache,
ard know you will excuse him to-day,
DR.. Lisner."
Her former lover gazed upon her for
moment with inexpressible compass
sion made up his mind quickly, and
said
"Clara, studied every phase in your
nature too thoroughly, in the days that
are past, to deserve that you should
treat ne as You would treat the world
at large. You are suffering from secret
griefs you tell no one. They are weigh
ing you down and eating your soul
away. You may not know It, but you
are walking rapidly to your grave under
dare not ask you to confide in me. I
can only ssk you, before you make up
your mind to go on the rest Of that
journey alone, to pause one instant and
remember that if there is friend on
earth who will keep your secret, what
ever it may be, and do all that::can be done
for you, even unto death, that friend is
here, waiting for you t. speak
She had sat with her fingers inter
locked, gazing at him with compressed
lips and set teeth, and white, ex-
pressionless face. But he, knowing her
nature, and how intense was the in
stinct that urged her to screen and save
her husband, had watched her narrowly,
and detected two or three involuntary
swallowings in the throat and almost
imperceptible twitches Of the head, due
to the brave restraint her will asserted
over shattered nervous system. She
had thought that she could hear him
with pretended calmness to the end;
could TRANQUILITY shake hands with him,
and so preserve her secret until she had
seen him go. But she had overestimated
her strength. The mind may do much
in commanding the body and enforcing
obedience; but there is point at which
the body rebels, and the mind, in its
terror, succumbs. With Clara that
point was reached now. She had
schooled her nature for six long months,
and made it bear, without shrinking,
rude touches at which its first delicate
impulse was to shrivel mp and scroll
itself away. But now the poor nerves,
stretched to their utmost tension,
snapped beneath the touch of a kind
word, and the divine agency of tears
rushed to the eyes before which she
clasped her hands.
"I know that my secret is safe with |
you," she said, when he rose to go, and
ne did not prolong an interview SO pitt
IDLY painful. "I know you will let no
one share it. But do not think i'll of |
my poor husband. He cannot help it ;
it is madness with him. My friends |
were right-it is in his family blood. |
He loves me with all the devotion OF his
soul, as much as I love him; so that, if
this were not madness, you see he would
have broken himself of it long ere this.
He may be able to see you tomorrow,
and then you will be careful not to let
him see in moment of weakness be-
trayed him ?"
And so she smiled him good-by. But
as he rode along he murmured to him.
self. "Poor Clara that man is drink
ing her into the grave. II brain fever
does not set in. she will drop dead some
day OF broken heart :"
Almost all the rest of the day he rode
about the country, for he was out on a
summers iaunt, and had intended, after
visiting the Ashers, to extent his trip
West. But now he resolved to bide his
time for few days and await results.
He did not have to wait long.
Toward midnight he was aroused
from his sleep in his room at the hotel
by the landlord, who informed him that
one of Mrs. Asher's servants had come
in quest of him, with the information
that Mrs. Asher had been taken i'll in
the evening, with all the symptoms of
an approaching delirium, and that MIR.
Asher was nowhere to be found.
In ten minutes DIR. Lisner was in his
friends house. His afternoons prophecy
had been too true. Fever of the brain
had already commenced its work, and
Clara no longer recognized her old lover.
Until the crisis approached, during
the days and nights that Life and Death
fought in that dim chamber, dealing
each other deadly blows, he scarcely
left her side. Her husband had re-
turned next day, but in such dreadful
condition that it was only after many
hours stupor reason enough returned
for him to understand what had taken
place. Then be, too, watched at the
bedside, with the look of an abject
criminal awaiting the execution of his
doom. But he obeyed DIR. Lisner and
the nurse who had been engaged like a
frightened child; ard, when they led
him away, followed without a word or
question of resistance.
So it happened that one morning,
when Clara awoke from that profound
sleep which was to be either the sleep
of life or the sleep of death, she found
herself alone with DIR. Lisner and the
nurse, whom she heard talking in a low
tone together, They had not seen her
open her eyes, and she heard the doctor
say:
"When she wakes--for L feel that she
will wake, and get well-she is to take
teaspoonful of this every hour" and
now she heard the sound of liquids being
poured.
Soon after this, when the news that
she was awake had spread through the
house, DR.. Lisner held teaspoonful of
something to her lips. She gave a
beseeching look, which caused him to
remove it again and bend his ear very
low to hear what she said. In her weak
state it took her many minutes to utter
it in the lowest of low whispers, but it
amounted to this:
"I don't care how weak am. | don
care so very much now whether get
we'll or not. For l have done all could
for him. I have lived for him; and, ii