The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-02-13

loves ner. am nOlnlng 10 MIN DuL per
son who is in the way; who prevents him
from marrying her. who incumbers his
! life and draws down unpleasant COM
ments on him from the world. You can
not alter that. There is nothing to touch
or to appeal to in it.
Il think that you mistake-that you ex-
aggerate. Look in your mirror. and see
! If you are a woman to whom a man so
susceptible to female charms as he is, can
ever be wholly indifferent"
She smiled sadly, with that premature
knowledge of the world which had so en-
bittered her life with its disillusions.
"If were a stranger or a mere ac-
quaintance l should have charm for him
perhaps. Surely, my friend, you must
understand that. being what l am to him,
l have none"
He looked at her again; they were walk
ing by the edge of the cliff behind the
! house in one of the rare hours in which
he permitted himself to visit her. 1t was
rough, rude day, with boisterous winds
and high sea tumbling black and frothy
far down below them. The mists hung
heavily over the inland landscape, and all
the northern horizon, where the woods of
Ladysrood were, was hidden by white,
thick fog But on the tableland of the
cliffs the breeze was blowing strongly,
and it gave warmth to her cheeks and
brilliancy to her ewes, and blew some of
the short waves of her hair in disorder
upon her forehead. The wind and the
cold and the air from the sea lent her a
vividnesS OF coloring and OF expression
which for the moment banished the gloom
and sadness which were now habituaI on
] her face.
"It he could see her now" thought Au-
| ho- Aoo1 ~
He turned his own eyes from her and
gazed out over the stormy sea, afraid of
the emotions into which he might be hur-
ried.
His position grew daily more and more
difficult as sole counsellor and friend of
the deserted wife of his own cousin; more
and more painful to himself and invidious
before others. Though passion had had
! little place in his life, mis- nature was far
! from passionless and he realized that the
| time might come when it would be inn
| possible for him to preserve this attitude
of calm, paternal affection toward her.
With all the Inconsistencies of a
woman whose thoughts and feelings are
| centered elsewhere, she unwittingly
| tempted him and tortured him hundred
times an hour. The very pleasure with
which she welcomed him; the very sense
|
her one consolation and protection, the
very instinct of confidence in which she
! turned to and leaned on him in her lone
| illness, appealed more than any other
| thing could have done to a man of his
wide and magnanimous temperament
| But they also tried his self-control more
| cruelty than any other thing, and often
made him dread that his voluntarily ac-
cepted Office would be one beyond his
| force.
All the public obligations and national
| interests with which his life was filled,
although they gave him that hold on duty
and on honor which it would have been a
crime to relax, his position before the
country being the conspicuous one which
! it was, they yet coulS not still in him
either the rebellion OF chained passions or
| the natural yearnings OF the heart.
He was q man of higher principle and
! stronger force of self-denial than most; but
! he was also a man of warmer feeling than
most, and his love had never been weak
| ened bv being divided and frittered away
| in such innumerable amours as had
| swayed in their turn the fancies of Guide
row. All the grave and absorbing claims
| upon his life from his party and his coun-
| try could not prevent his unspoken at
! tachment to his cousins wife growing
daily and hourly in influence on him.
! But he had strength to keep IT untold, for
! he felt that any expression OF it would de-
! stroy the serenity of trust with which
she looked to him in all things, and would
alarm her, dismay her, and leave her ut
| terly alone.
He was her only friend; for all others
whom she knew had fallen from her. Her
| life was dreary and dangerous as it was
| With none to whom she could show her
| aching heart, it would become to her, he
! knew, a solitude beyond the strength of
| any woman so young to endure. She
herself had that oblivion of possible ca
! lumny and of the imputation Of low mo-
tives which is at once the strength and
the feebleness of noble natures, and leaves
! them exposed to the false constructions of
| those who, unheeded by them, observe
them with malevolence and coarseness;
| such malevolence and such coarseness as
are always the foundations of the super
fetal judgments of society. She did not
| think for moment of any possible mis-
construction of that kindly and honest
affection which Aubrey had shown her
| ever since he had first met her in the little
! Watteau cabinet at Guilderoy house the
| day after her first drawing-room. He had
! been always there to serve her in any
| difficulty. to counsel her in any distress;
| it was natural that he should come to her
now in her solitude.
1t seemed to her strange that he came
| so little; it seemed even unkind and un-
! Just. She accused him in her thoughts of
| leaning to his cousins side, of being so
| swayed by family considerations of pride
and sympathy of kindred that he paliated
and excused his cousins conduct to an
extent which was injustice to herself.
Woman-like, she required in her friend
unlimited approval and undivided senti-
ment; she wanted to hear him tell her
that she had done wholly right, was
wholly to be pitied and esteemed. The
! slightest reservation in sympathy struck
on her aching heart as with the cold Sc
! verify of censure.
! 1t made him afraid tor her sake to as
sumo any prominence in her affairs or to
take that part on her behalf with his
! cousin which it would have been his
natural impulse to take. Neither Gull
/ deroy nor the world would ever have
credited him with the unselish feelings
which would have been his only motive
power. He saw no way in which he could
| assist without more greatly iniuring her.
He knew, too, that it was likely enough
they would associate his own name with
the cause of her voluntary retirement;
| and he was conscious that every step he
took. and every word he spoke in her
protection defense, would only create