San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-10-21
The Gypsie's Curse;
BY THE AUTHOR OF GUILTY WITHOUT
CRIME" THE "WREcKERs OF
ERNER Doom" ETC.
First Chapter began October 18th

sat quite silent, listening to the roar Of the
weir, her eyes dim with binding tears;
but her face quite turned from her COM
panion, so that he could not see it.
"Don't trouble your bonnie head, lima
DEAR" he said half lightly, half caressing-
ly, as one might speak to child. 81 am
so grieved that l caused you even q pass
ing trouble! But the sound came on me
suddenly and unnerved me; for l was for
getting the shadows in the sunshine, and
needed . reminder, L suppose. Hank
there is ROland's shout! Shall we make .
detour round the bracken yonder and join
them?"
lima made no answer, but silently loosed
her bride and rode off again, Sir Philip
by her side. She could not have spoken
one word. She still kept her face away
from him, though now there was an added
pain that yet helped Rer to gain self-cOn-
troll. She was q child to him then-only q
child? Well, and did not she behave like
. child? What else could he think her?
She was not seventeen yet, not for another
week; SO it was only kindness when he
said that nothing was trouble that was
done for her. He only wanted to tease
her, when he Knocked her about the flow-
ers; and-why, Of course he would not
have given her Zuleika, if he had thought
she was more than child! Well, here
were the others; and how vexed Roland
was looking, though he laughed and called
out "Truantsw Then the girls came up,
and there was q good deal Of laughter and
banter; and lima laughed as much as any
one; but she was conscious all the time
that Roland was anything but pleased
She did not care in the least about that,
and was as far as ever from imagining why
lie should be vexed, except that he had
not wanted her to leap the ditch. She let
him keep her by his side however, and
talked and laughed, and seemed in fine
spirits.
Roland proposed crossing the Coslmere,
and returning home by the Mill; and Is
no one objected to the idea, they made for
q narrow bridge, that spanned the river
three or four miles above Scsrth Abbot
Only two horses abreast could cross this
bridge, and here 1t happened that Sir Phil
ip Darrell and lima were side by side
again.
"What a rapid current the river has -
said the girl, afraid that he should think
she had been annoyed when he had last
spoken to her.
"Ay," he answered, glancing over the
low parapet, with strange thought Of
what that swift stream might be bearing
away before many days were past; ''and it
will be running six miles an hour or more
before long"
Ilma's words were hardly relevant to
this remark.
'.Sir Philip, is it all true-reaIIy true,"
she said in low tohe.
'sSceptical still, young America-after
what showed you the other day too, and
the dreadful stories told you?"
lima did not know that his jesting tone
was refuge for hlmself; in her tones
there was not doubt, but an inefabIe
dread,a yearning after . possibility, the
wild effort to grasp at some means Of es-
cape, but the feeling thus uncOnsciOusly
expressed might not really have taken .
bold on the girls inner life. She could not
be Indifferent to his fate; but it need not
influence her whole existence.
"DOn't laugh at me, please" said lima,
trembling; it is not 0nly-only the curse 1
mean, but the other-what they say about
the floods this year."
THAT the rains will come early have
no doubt, lima; but as to the rest, it may
or may not be; indeed, the 'needful sacri-
ficing' must be brought about quickly, or
another victim must be found, for shall
not be here to give up my life for some one
as yet unknown"
The girl drew long deep breath-it
might have been of relief, or of pain, or
both.
Sir Philips hand was on her bride
again, on her hand which trembled under
the touch, yet not more than his, which
rested there so lightly, yet lingeringly.
'.Ilma," said the sweet low voice, reso-
lutely controlled, "answer me. There is
no testing now. Do you believe in the
curse that is on my house?"
81 cannot but believe it, Sir Philip; aud
yet-yet-"
"Yet what?"-as she paused.
The girl flushed and paled in u breath.
"Ah, do not ask mew
Her eyes fell and her bosom heayed--
How could she say to him that she believ-
ed a noble life could not be doomed for ey-
er for sin not his, that noble love given
and received must be a savior and not .
destroyer? She might have said it three
days befOre-even perhaps yesterday; but
now she shrank from the very subject.
Sir Philip dropped his hand, and turned
away. She believed in the curse, believed
that there were woe and death in loving
him, and yet did not not fear him; then it
was not too late-She did not love him.
Nay, in so short time how could she?-
And yet in the very moment that he re-
jOiced that he could save her, his heart
was crying out, beating wildly against its
prison bars, "Oh, lima, lima, my soul,
were thousand years of life to be mine,
l would give them all for the bliss of one
brief Monochrome moment to hold thee in
these arms, to feel thy heart throb an an