Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-18

back presently, touching him upon the
, shoulder, and whispering, She is ready"
Pale as the ghost he was going to per-
senate, the young man rose and followed
through the door which, since boyood, had
| seemed to him heavenly entrance. As
he approached the beautiful room, in
which fingered no faint of sickness or
! death, he paused with bated breath, see
ing beyond the parted portiere. on a low,
reclining chair, vision of spiritual love-
! illness IN misty robes of white, smiling and
stretching forth a hand through whose
! clear transparency the declining sun shone
with pure Illuminating glow
Il knew that you would come DEAR
she said, with contentment, as he sank on
his knees beside her, all human passion
stllled in that serene atmosphere. To her,
John Elwood was as a spirit freed, as she
soon would be, from the trammeI of earthly
conditions. And in her presence he felt
that the life he had lost was found again.
His soul had stayed with her. Only his
sense had wandered off
Il am wearing the wedding gown, DEAR"
she said, at length, lifting herself slightly
from his breast, where he had silently
gathered her. Have you the ring, sweet
heart ?'
He had been carrying it for months in
his pocket-book, under daily orders from
Amy to leave at the jewelers. for enlarge
ment, her finger, with its waxing plump
ness, having outgrown its fairy proportions
But the errand had been postponed through
strange aversion to its accomplishment,
and he now drew the golden circle from
concealment, and dreamily placed on the
marriage-finger of the hand for which it
had been designed before that fatal slip of
memory and terrible coincidence of initials
had led to its proclamation. Should not its
pure purpose be at last fulfilled, and the
soil of its dissertation sanctifed by burial
with her dust?
Tie bride of death smiled divinely,
with eyes upturned to the face brooding
tenderly above her, while she lapsed with
out struggle, into an Inconsistencies
from which she would rouse, to whisper
family:
Hold me closer, dear; the waves are
cold" And again: "See - love - the
heavenly light is breaking
In the gray of evening the white-robed
figure, whose breath had vanished in the
rosy sunset air, was laid gently down by
the lover in whose arms the beautiful life
had passed away, and who felt that the di-
viner part of himself had departed with it
into the silent realm of spirit. But what
remained for the material man but to re-
turn to the duties he had assumed, blindly
enough, when his soul had escaped with
all his memory of the past, and left him a
helpless captive to the charms of sense?
1t was at least a comfort to believe that,
through all that void of memory he had
been in spirit true to Agnes, and that she
would still hold him inviolably to herself,
while he strove Loyalty to sustain his rela-
tions with the woman to whom he haC,
honestly pledged his earthly faith. And
if Amy never knew the story of his past,
she was happy, after the manner of wo-
men, in the devotion of the husband, who
came back to her in time silent regarding
the secret of his absence, and subject to
moods which she could never enter into or
understand, yet always tender, considerable
and kind" The best husband in the
world" she averred.