San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-03

BILE on myself, and I suppose l deserved
TO suffer as | did, for l had encourages
him out of vanity and idleness; l had
never had one spark of love for him; /
had done-what you are doing; and with
me 1T did not end as in your case it tciE
end, l suppose, by your throwing off
your lover when you have played with
him long enough. was too young to
dare do that. If any creature had given
help to me l might. but | had no help
and so at last / married him.
They had been sitting side by side
while Mrs. Hill was speaking, with Ga
brielle's ayes fixed in growing amaze
ment on her face. When she paused,
as she did after these last words, the
girls bewilderment began to manifest
itself in a sudden dropping out of dis
jointed sentences.
"But l don't understand-you don't
mean surely-I always thought" she
said-'I thought that you were SO much
attached to your husband?"
"Yes-I know you have thought that;
and-do you seer" Mrs. Hill said quiet
ly, II have told you this partly to un-
deceive you, because, though / cannot
tell you all the truth about me, at least
l can do what / want most-I can pre-
vent your believing a lie. No." she
said in a low, cold voice. ~ did not love
my husband. 1 married him without
love, and lived with him for six years.
All my married life was one long re-
pentance of what / had done. As /
grew older l knew that, in spite of all
that had been said to me, l had been
wrong to marry him,-that / should
have been wrong, let the pressure that
had been brought upon me have been
what it might; and, Gabrielle, if yms
needed any such advice, l would say to
you-suffer anything rather than IN
vert las I did) what had begun by being
merely folly into a sin. Only l do not
think you want advice of that kind-for
you are not likely to sacrifice yourself.
You are only. likely to sacrifice Mr..
Warrington. You see," she added after
amoment or two, Tin a case of this sort
some one must always suffer; in my
case 1 suffered, because I Vas weak: IN
yours, you mean to throw whatever
there may be to bear off your own
shoulders whenever the time shall
come when you are tired of amusing
YOURSELF
1t was not the first occasion-though
with respect to this especial matter it
was the iirst-on which Esther Hill had
spoken plainly to Gabrielle. She had
told her some home truths before now,
and Gabrielle had borne the telling Of
them from her lips with more patience
than she would have done perhaps from
the lips of any other woman. She would
have been very angry just now if Aunt
Susan or her sister Helen had made this
speech to her that Mrs. Hill had made;
but, as it was. she only colored hOtly,
and looked half pathetic and half
ashamed, and after two or three mo-
ments' silence
II think you are very hard to mel
don't think | deserve to be so spoken
to- she said. II am sure / never meant
- Oh, Mrs. Hill, it is all such non
sense!-everybody knows that / don't
mean anything! l am sure if / thought
it was really wrong But, you see,
one gets so tired and stupid sometimes"
the girl said half crying" and it seems
hard not to have something to amase
one."
"Does that seem hard to you? All,
my dear, you had better bear it, how
aver hard it seems" the widow said
quickly. Better live in total stagna-
ton than amuse yourself by playing
WIN mems neaTCSl
And then there was a sudden pause,
and Gabrielle sat looking at the sun
shine and the Pickering shadows of the
leaves upon the floor, and there was Ne
more said about Mr.. Warrington. The
silence lasted for several minutes, and
during these minutes Gabrielle's
thoughts travelled away from her W
misdemeanors back again to the story
A.. nan haI tA1I hnr nn1 Of lo0f
abruptly she began once more to speak
of it.
IL don't quite understand. Do yoa
mean" she said in her amazed voice,
''that you neUer got to care for himp"
The widow had been thinking her
own thoughts too. She gave almost n
startled look at Gabrielle's question.
"And then after a moment-"NO, L
never got to care for him" she said, in
a cold suppressed voice.
"Was-was he not kind to you?"
"He was not ukind 10 me-"
"And yet you never got to love himl'
This was said as q sort of ejaculation;
and then Gabrielle began to look at the
shadows of the leaves again, and as she
looked at them she thought to herself
81 suppose then that she loved some
body else-and that is her secreti-
some body, very likely, who is married
now, or perhaps dead, or perhaps has
left off caring for her." And she was
musing rather sentimentally over this
new view of the case when the widow,
as if she guessed what she was doing,
quietly began to speak again.
81 do not want you to think that my
life while L was married was harder
than many another wOman's," she said.
ut was not that. 1t was only hard in
the sort of way in which it would he
hard to live always in the twilight when
you loved the sunshine. Nobody was