The Indianapolis journal., 1885-10-18

crushing: the reproaches of her mother so Bit
ter and perhaps Charles would answer hotly,
and perhaps cause estrangement till death
There had obviously been no alarm about her at
ST. Mary's, or somebody would have sailed across
to inquire for her. She had, in letter written
at the beginning of the week, spoken of the hour
at which she intended to leave her country
school house: and from this her friends had
probably perceived that by such timing she
would run risk of losing the Saturday boat
She had missed it, and as consequence sat
here on the shore Mrs. Charles Stow.
This brought her to the present, and she
turned from the outline of st. Mchael's Mount
to look up for her husbands form He was, as
far as she could discover, no longer in the sea.
Then he was dressing By moving few steps
she could see where his clothes lay But Charles
was not beside them.
Baptista looked back again at the water in be-
wilderment, as if her senses were the victim of
some seight of hand. Not speck or spot resem-
bling mans head or face showed anywhere. By
this time she was alarmed, and her alarm intensi-
fed when she preceived a little beyond the scene
of her husbands bathing small area of water,
the quality of whose surface differed from that
of the surrounding expanse as the coarse vegeta-
tion of some foul patch in a mead differs from
the fine green of the remainder. Elsewhere 1T
looked feXuous here it looked vermlculated and
lumpy, and her marine experiences suggested to
her in a moment that two currents met and
caused turmoil at this place.
She descended as hastily as her trembling
limbs would allow. The way down was terribly
long, and before reaching the heap of clothes it
occurred to her that, after all. 1t would be best
to run first fer help. Fastening along in a lat
eral direction, she proceeded inland till she met
a man, and soon afterwards two others; to them
she exclaimed, II think gentleman who was
bathing is in some danger. / cannot sec him as
could Will you please run and help him, at
once, if you will be so knd!'
She did not think of turning to show them the
exact in0catipo If vapuau w ia dirpc tjON
of her hand, and still going on her way with the
idea of gaining assistance. When she
deemed. in her faintness, that she had carried
the alarm far enough. she faced about and
dragged herself back again Before reaching the
now dreaded spot she met one of the men.
1--WE can see nothing at all, miss, he declared
Having gained the beach, she found the tide
in, and no sign of Charleys clothes The other
men whom she had besought to come had disap-
peared, it must have been in some other direc-
ton, for she had not met them going away.
They, finding nothing, had probably thought her
alarm mere conjecture, and given up the
quest.
Baptista sank down upon the stones near at
hand Where Charley had undressed was now
sea. There could not be the least doubt that he
was drowned and his body sucked under by the
current, while his clothes, lying within high
water-mark, had probably been carried away by
the rising tide.
She remained in a stupor for some minutes,
till strange sensation succeeded the aforesaid
perceptions, mystifying her intelligence and
leaving her physically almost inert With his
personal disappearance, the last three days of
her life with him seemed to be swallowed up,
also his image in her minds eye, waned cur
lously, receded far away, grew stranger and
stranger, less and less real. Their meeting and
marriage had been so sudden, unpremedltated
adventurous, that she could hardly believe that
she had played her part in such reckless drama
Of all the few hours of her life with Charles the
portion that most insisted in coming back to
memory was their fortuitous encounter on the
previous Saturday, and those bitter reprimands
with which he had begun the attack, as it nigh
be called, which had piqued her to an uexpected
consummation.
sort of cruelty an imperiousness, even in
his warmth, had characterized Charles Stow
AS "a lover he had ever been bit of a tyrant;
and it might pretty truly have been said that he
had stung her into marriage with him at last
Still more alien from her life did these rehec
tions operate to make him; and then they would
be chased away by an interval of passionate weep
ing and mad regret. Finally there returned
upon the confused mind of the young wife the
recollection that she on her way homeward,
and that the packet would sail in three quarters
of an hour
Except the parasol in her hand, all she pos
sessed was at the station waiting her onward
journey.
She looked in that direction; and entering one
OF those undemonstratiye phases, SO common
with her, walked quietly ON.
AL nrSG she Induo S.rdlSnC TOT LDo railway; Dut
suddenly turning she went to shop and wrote
an anonymous line announcing his death by
drowning to the only person she had ever heard
Charles mention as relative. Posting this
steathlly, and with fearful look around her
she seemed to acquire terror of the late events
pursuing her way to the station as if followed
by spectre.
When she got to the office she asked for the
luggage that she had left there the Saturday.
as well as the trunk left on the morning just
= Al
self followed. Quickly as these things had been
done, the whole proceeding nevertheless, had
been almost automatic on Baptista's part, ere
she had come to any definite conclusion on her
course.
Just before the bell rang she heard CONVEX
sation OIL the pier, which removed the last shade
of doubt from her mind, if any had existed. that
she was Charles Slows widow. The sentences
were but fragmentary, but she could easily
piece them out
IA man drowned-swam out too far-was a
stranger to the pace-people in boat-saw him
60 down-couldn't get there in time"
The news was little more definite than this as
yet; though it may we'll be stated once for all
that the statement was true. Charley, with the
over-cOnidence of his nature, had ventured out
too far for his strength and succumbed in the
absence of assistance, his lifeless body being at
that moment suspended in the transparent mid
depths of the bay His clothes, however, he'd
merely beer gently lifted by the rising tide. and
foated into nook hard by where they lay out
of sight OF the passers-by till a day two
after
~
In ten minutes they were steaming out of the
harbor for their voyage of four or five hours. at
whose ending she would have to tell her strange
story.
AS Penzance and all it's environing scenes dis
appeared behind Mousehole and ST. Clements
Isle. Baptistas ephemera meteor-like husband
impressed her yet more fantasy. She was
still in such trancelike state that she had been
an hour on the little packet-boat before she be-
came aware of the agltating fact that Mr.. He'd
degan on board with her.
'Hee hee! Well, the truth is, I wouldn't in
terrupt ye. 4 reckon she don't see me, or
won't me- I said, and what's the hurry?
She'll see enough O me soonn l hope ye be well,
NEE deer?"
He was hale, well-conditioned man of about
five and fifty. of the complexion common to
those whose lives are passed on the bluffs and