San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-14
| NOT. PROVEN;
OR
ESTHER HILLS SECRET.
BY GEoRGIANA NJ. CRAIK.

II am going away on Monday. Oh,
wait till after Monday" she said be-
seemingly.
De you still want to go on Monday
them" he asked her. 'EDoes tonight
make no difference"
mo, mol" she hurrie dly said.
IF the others knew you could not
go. Only let me do it, and l will 60
this moment and tell them"
Tell them-thiss" she cried, with
startled eyes.
"Yes-tell them,"h he said, shat you
are going to be my wife"
She gave him a strange wiStful look
at this answer; then said sadly
You could not tell them that" And
after moment-'I shall never be your
wife"
At this he began to make some i'm
petuous reply to her, but after a few
words he suddenly arrested himself,
and instead of saying more drew her ST.
lently and passionately to his breast. 1t
was little wonder if, as he held her so,
he did not believe that she would never
marry him: he felt too strong to make
such belief possible.
He was well enough satisfied when
she had left him with the result of his
evenings work, even though--as was
only natural-the thought of her secret
fretted and fevered him tonight to an
extent that it had never done before;
for though he would not have confessed
to any fear of it, yet he wanted vehem-
emily to know it, that he might get rid
of it once for all; he wanted to free
himself from the mystery of it, and to
free her from its oppression. Now that
he had brought her so near to him he
could hardly endure to have this thing
standing between them, even for few
more hours. He wanted to know it and
make an end of it. 1t was like thorn
in his flesh, that CALLED him; but yet,
chafed by it as he was, he was infinitely
happier than she was, who, when she had
left him, felt like one who, under sudden
temptation, had stolen great treasure,
which she might indeed clasp for the
moment if she liked to her heart, but
GUi nor man, and neither to God nor
man could turn for blessing or SYM
pathy.
For she had said to herself from the
first moment when she knew that it
had begun to be sweet to them to be to-
gether-"I will never let him marry
me" and with passionate, sad reitera-
ton, even in the midst of all her i'm
measurable love for him, she said the
same thing now. She said-"He would
marry me perhaps even after he knew
all my story, if l would let him do it;
but, if he were to do it, slowly, day af-
ter day, sense of humiliation of what
he had done would creep upon him, like
a dark shadow stealing over him; and
then when he had once begun to love
me less, would not time come at the
laSt--oh my Godl" the poor thing cried,
"surely it would come-when even he
would begin to doubt and watch me-"
This was what she thought; and
though her fears might be delusive. yet,
as they rose before her, she only knew
that she had no strength to face them:
he might marry her, and never cease to
love and trust her, but against this
divine possibility what weight upon
the other side was there not to set!
With hopeless, unutterable pain, after
she had left him she began to think
how she was to tell her story to him.
All, was it not hard that she must tell
it?-hard that she could not die tonight
before she ever saw his face again? As
she lay presently awake in bed she be-
gan to feel as if to tell it to him with
her own lips would almost kill her. She
had half promised him that she would
do it, but she could not do it, she said;
she could write it to him, but she could
not speak it to him.
She lay thinking-awake nearly all
the night; till during those long hours
at last she made plan of what she
would do,-a wild sad plan, over which
she wept the most heart broken tears
of all her life.