San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-04

rnen, ne VIII tel II TO Jne oUners, ana
/ shall be driven away. What shall
do to keep him from telling it? Ought
| to go away before anybody can know
itp Oh, | do not want to go awayl'' she
cried. 1T would be better to stay, and
bear everything, and die here, rather
than be hunted like a wild creature
from place to place. ] cannot do that!
/ cannot go from the only spot in all
the world in which there seems to be
some little human warmth"
With her heart throbbing and aching
she sat all through the summer evening
thinking what she should do. If what
Mr.. Gilbert had said was true; one of
three things she must do, as it seemed
to her; she must go away (but she said
she could not go away, or she must stay
and face the consequences of having her
story known land how could she find
strength to do that?), or she must speak
to George Gilbert. and make an appeal
to him, from the thought of which her
very soul shrank. To resign the rest
that she had found, or to run the risk
of every one coming to know what she
was struggling so desperately to con-
ceal, or to tell her fear to stranger and
throw herself upon his merey-one of
these things she had to do. Which of
them should she do?-which of them
would be least impossible?
They all seemed barely possible; but
at last she said to herself that she would
speak to George Gilbert. She said-"If
he is as good as they say he is, he will
have pity on me. He will not drive a
mis- CRADLE woman who appeals to him
from the only refuge that she has,"
And when she thought this she felt
comforted. But then, almost in the next
moment, came this other thought
Suppose he were to think it right to
make me go? Suppose, for the Dun
stanS' sake, he were to think it his duty
to tell the truth to them?" And then
the unhappy woman bent down her face
upon her knees, with bitter, broken
hearted burst of tears.
But still in the end she returned
again to her first decision, and said that
she would speak to George Gilbert. Let
the worst that was possible come from
that-let her find that he knew her
secret, and that he would not keep it
even then, terrible as it would be, it
would be less terrible than to live day
after day, and week after week, with
the fear of discovery hanging over her;
to live, watching George Gilbert's face,
which she feared even already, and
watching the others faces, which she
loved now, and did not fear yet, but
which she should fear then with con-
slant sickening miserable dread of the
coming of the hour when they should
begin to change to her. "They trust me
now,n she said to herself, "but how
could any of them trust me if stran-
ger were to tell my story to them2 How
could they do it, even if were to tell it
to them myself? All, this is the misery
of it-this is the cruelty worse than all
the rest! / think l could 60 and cry it
all aloud from the housetop if, by doing
that, out of all the crowd who would
stand round and shake their heads at
me, L could find one creature who would
believe me, But l should not!-nOt one
who would trust me as other women
are trusted. Those four would try, l
think, for little while; but they might
try with their whole hearts to do it
wholly-and they could not do it," ..
1t seemed to this poor soul during
these last quiet weeks if, after all that
she had suffered, there had opened to
her in this place hope, which was like
q salvation TO her, OF rest and peace. If
you knew what she had gone through
you would be able to understand the
utter faintness of heart with which she
tried to face the thought that this hope,
SO lately gained, was already perhaps
about to be taken from her; that, weary
and deSolate as she came, she was about
to be driven once more from this place
that had been so kind to her. Once, as
she sat thinking with impotent misery
of the past, and with passionate pain of
the present, her power of endurance
failed her, and she cried out bitterly
"What have | done that God should
make me suffer like this? He Furnishes
me as Cain was punished. was begin
ming to believe again in His justice
hut now do not believe in it any morel
He has treated me all along as a cruel
man might treat me-not as If He was
God, who knewl" She said this with
the wild passion of woman become
almost desperate-with the bitterness
of forsaken woman who felt that God
and man alike had Joined together
against her, to crush her. 1t was not
the first time that she had believed this;
she had been desperate enough and
faithless enough on other days than
this one-moTe desperate even than she
was now. "If can but stay and rest
here-if God will but let me stay here!"
she began to sob pitifully at the last.
1t seemed so small thing to ask
only the boon of a little peace, rest
the hope of not being hunted like a wild
creature. She looked so utterly weary
and heart-broken as she sat there all
alone, with eyes-that saw nothing that
they rested on-stretching out into the
growing darkness, that you might well
have thought the hardest-hearted hui
man being would have been moved to
some sort of pity at the sight of her
if it had been only to so much pity as to