Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1889-03-24
WHEELING REGISTER, SUNDAY, MARCH a. 1899

INJURED to his request to see Miss Brother
ION ''The doctor says, sir, that at home
she must keep quiet; she has not seen any
visitors lust lately But Kendall persist
ed. and his card was taken in, while he
waited the result. The servant hurried
along the ground floor passage, knocked
at the door at the further end, went in for
q moment, and came out reckoning 10
him. He obsyed with a beating heart,
and she threw open the door for him.
Inside stood Isabel Bretherton, with
eager surprise and pleasure in her whole
attitude. She had just risen from
her chair and was coming forward;
soft white cashmere shawl hung
around her; her dress, OF some dark, rich
stuff, fell with the flowing, stately
lines peculiar to it, her face was slightly
flushed, and the brilliancy of her color, OF
her hair, of her white, Outstretched hand,
seemed to Kendall to take all the chill and
gloom out of the winter sir. She held
some proof sheets of a Few play in her
hand, and the rest lay piled beside her Oh
little table
'How kind of you Mr. Kendall" she
said, advancing with her quick, impulsive
step towards him. 81 thought you mad
forgotten Us, and I have been wanting
your advice so badly! 1 have just been
complaining of you a little in a letter to
Nine. de Chateauvieuxl She'-
Then she suddenly stopped, checked and
startled by his face He was always col
orless and thin, but the two nights he had
Just passed through had given him an ex-
preston of haggard exhaustion. His
black eyes seemed to have lost the keen
ness which was so remarkable in them, and
his prematurely gray hair gave him al
most a look of aye IL spite Of the Gghtnesa
and pliancy of lis figure.
lie came forward and took her hand
uervOusly and clO.ely in his own.
81 have come to bring you sad news,
he said gently, aud seeking anxiOCsly word
by word how ne might soften what after
all could not be sOftened. M de Chat
eauvieux sent me to you at once that you
should not hear in any other way. But it
must be 8 shock to you-fOr YOU loved
her.
"Oh,' she cried, interrupting him,
speaking IN short, gssping words, and
answering not so much his words as his
look. one Is lll-1Lt ~ III QaIECA
something has happened"
81 was summoned on Wednesday, said
Kendall, helpless, after all, in the grip Of
tee truth, which would not be managed oI
controlled.
'When I got there she had been two
days i'll, and there was no hope"
He paused; her eyes Of agcnizsd ques-
tiouing implored him to 90 on. Il was
with her six hours-sftsr l came she had
no pain it was quite peaceful, and-she
died in tins evening"
She hai been watching him opsn-eyed,
every vestige of color fading from cheek
and lip; when he stopped, she gave little
cry. he let 20 her hand, snd she sunk
into q chair near, so white and breathless
that he was alarmed.
"Shall l ges you watar?" he asked after
q moment OF two, bending over her.
No, " she whispered with difficulty;
let me alone-iust for minute"
He left her side and stood leaning
against the mantelpiece, waiting anxious
". She struggled against the physical OPP
preston which had seized upon her, and
fought it down bravely But he noticed
with Dang, now that the flush was gone,
that she looked fragile and worn, and as
his thought went back for q moment 10
the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded
beauty among the spring green, he could
have cried out in useless rebellion against
the unyielding physical conditions which
press uD0n and imprison the fl ME OF life.
At last the faintness passed off, and she
sat up, her hands clssped round her knees,
and the tears running fast over her checks.
Her grief was like herself-frank, simple,
expressive.
"W,ll you tell me more abCdt it? Oh,
Icannot believe it, Why, only last week.
when I was i'll, she talked of coming to mt
have inst been writing to hev-there is
my letter. feel as if I could not bear it;
she vas like q mother to me in Paris. On,
if I could have seen her .'
'You we're one of her chief thoughts at
the last, " said Kendall, much moved. And
ne went on to tell her the story OF Marie's
diving hours, describing that gentle with
drawal from life with a manly tenderness
of feeling and g quick memory for all that
could soften the impression OF 1t to the lis
tener. And then he brought out the min
iature snd COVE it 20 her, and she accepted
IL witha fresh burst of sorrow, putting i
20 her lips, studying IT, and weeping over
10 with an absolute spantaneity and sell
abandonment, which was lovely because 1t
was so true.
"Oh, poor N. de ChsteauvieuxW she
cried, after a long pause, looking up to
him. "How viii be live without her? He
will feel himself SC forsaken'
Eyes, " said Kendall huskily, he will
be very lonely, but-One must learn to
bear IT,"
She gazed at him with quick, startled
sympathy, and all her wOmanly nature
seemed to rise into her upturned face and
yearuiug eyes. 1t was as though her at
fention had been specially recalled to him;
rs though his particular loss and sorrow
we're brusquely brought home to her. And
then she was struck by the strangeness s1d
unexpectedness Of such a meeting between
them. He had been to her q judge, an
: authority, an embodied standard. His
high-mindedness had won her confidence;
his affection for her sister had touched and
charmed her. But she had never been
conscious of any intimacy with him. Still
. less hdu she ever uIeauueu Vi suaIAhB
common grief with him, Of weeping az
mis- side. And the contrast between
her old relation with him and this new
solemn experience rushing in upon her
filed her with emotion. The memory OF
the Nunehsm day woke again in her-Oi
the shock between her nature and his, OF
her overwhelming sense Of the intellectual
difference between them, and then of the
thrill which his verdict upon "Elvira'
had stirred in her. The relation which she
had regarded as q mere intellectual and
friendly one, but which had bsen far more
real and important to her than even she
herself had ever guessed seemed to have
transformed itself since he had entered the
room into something close and personal.
rr-- loot words had rallied mn in her q sbarr