San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-14

SOulu VIC ilOb iOlScI IucSc bWO ldoU
days, and go on as if you had not spok-
EN- to me? Would it be so impossible?
If you could care for me only little
less, and be content-as l should be, I
think"
But he had interrupted her here, with
an interruption that closed her lips,
once for ALL
You might be content with many
thing us far as l am concerned, he had
answered, but 1 can be content with
one thing only, and that one thing is to
have no part of yOu-body or soul
separate from me. | must have that,
or give you up altogether. 1t may
suit you to love me and live apart
from me, but 1 am not fitted for that
arrangement. | must have you here
the life of my life,-not shadow of my
life only, that cannot grasp"
And then after that she had said no
more. But-"Oh, my dearest, you do
not know what you are doing!" she had
thought silently and bitterly again and
again to herself. IF you knew, would
you not have more mercy on me than
this?"
She reused herself after time. and
forced herself to set about her task,
and take the first step on the hard way
that she had resolved to follow. How
hard even this beginning was no words
could say. AS she sat down at her desk,
and placed paper before her, and took
up her pen to begin to write the first
sentence of her letter, the thought that
with her own hands she was forced to
do this cruel thing, seemed as if it
would burst her heart. She could write
nothing for little while; she sat over
whelmed with the passionate sense of
her own sorrow,-with the thought that
by her own act she had to take her own
life away.
She said presently to herself, when she
had become calmer-"I will tell him the
bare facts, and nothing more: cannot
plead my own cause with him, nor try
to tell him what have suffered" and
so she began to write at last in words
that should convey to him, when he
should read them, no comprehension of
the anguish with which they had been
written.
She wrote slowly, with infinite pain,
more than once burning full sheet,
and writing it afresh; more than once
breaking down, and falling into an out
burst of passionate weeping. When her
candles were burning low in their sock
Gus, anu lltl lllC udu CtitlUSb L,
her letter was still unfinished; and then
finish it tonight" She had tried and
could not. He had told her that he
would come for it tomorrow, insisting
on doing that, he might be sure of see
ing her alone; and she had wanted to
get it ready for him this evening, but
she had to give the effort up at last.
Weary and worn out she went to bed;
and, weary enough still, she ended her
task next morning. ..
1t had been settled that she was re-
turn to her original early hours, and go
again to Helen, as she had done at the
beginning at twelve o'clock. This morn
ing, as she left the house. George Gill
bert, standing in the garden, spoke to
her, and she answered his greeting.
How ill she looksl" he thought to him.
self, startled as he saw her into mo-
mentary painful pity for her Though
his heart had been hard enough toward
her during these last daysG and at
WreXham, when she got there, they all
said to her too-"Why do you look SO
ill?n
They took away her pallor and brought
the color to her face, by asking that.
II sat up late, and l did not sleep
well, and my head is aching little,* she
answered i'll excuse of herself, and then
they petted her and scolded her.
You never looked so ill all the time
you were with u.s." Gabrielle told her.
you see what comes of having your
own waym
Tell me when you are going" Mr..
Dunstan said frankly to her at lunch
con, in the hearing of the others, land
I'll walk home with YOU" And accord
ingly, when she had said good-by to the
others, he went with her.
They had walked that half mile to
Mrs. Coulson's together more than once
before this; she said to herself now-"I
shall never walk like this with him
again" But yet, though she said this,
she hardly believed it; it was too hard
to believe.
There was little CLEAN of winter
sunset shining on them as they walked
with their faces to the west. The sun
was going down behind network Of
bare branches, with little break of
clear blue sky above, all pallid and pure
and cold, as winter skies are, yet
beautiful with a peaceful light. She
said once
II think some trees when they are
bare, in certain lights, are so beautiful
that they are like things to dream Of"
And then they talked about the trees.
She wanted to talk of something that
did not touch her nearly, to keep other
talk away. .....
When they were near the house he
said to her--"It is little past four
o'clock; | am going to make you keep
me till Six" -.
And then, at faint objection that
she made he laughed, and
You are afraid of Mrs. Coulson." he
said; but am not afraid of Mrs. Coul-