San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-05

from a vlolenJ neauacne, ana c0uIu not
come.
"She will never allow that she is deli
cate, but | know she is" Helen said
when she had read the note. And then
she. took it up, and looked at it again.
II never saw her writing before. How
good it is" she said.
Mr.. Dunstan came into Helen's room
at five o'clock, and asked almost in
Startly-
Where is Mrs. Hill? Has she gone?n
And then, when they told him that she
had not come to-day, he too took up the
little note and read it.
That is capital hand for a wo-
man" he said. Il wish she could teach
the rest of you to write as WE'LL"
Gabrielle, on finding that Esther was
i'll, had put her bonnet on and gone to
see her, and-with more tenderness than
might have been expected from her
had insisted on staying with the widow
throughout the afternoon.
Il can't do any good to you-no, 1
know that" she said to Esther, but L
can't bear to think Of you being all
alone here when you are ill. Won't you
let me stay to please myself?"
And then, though she had tried to
resist at first, Mrs. Hill had let her stay.
She would rather have been left alone
perhaps, but she had got to care good
deal by this time for Gabrielle's kind
ness; and the ministry of these soft
hands about her, and the touch upon
her cheek of the young lips, had become
a sweet enough medicine to this lonely
woman. Once during the afternoon,
when the girl came and knelt down be-
side her, she put her arms about her,
and, with a sudden fervent impulse,
for two or three moments pressed her
to her bosom. She did it in a kind of
despair-for she had no one else to love,
and how could she live without loving
some onep
And yet, even while she clasped her
in her arms. and kissed her, and asked
her for kisses, she felt deeply and Bit
terly that perhaps she had no right to
do these things-that she had no right
to try and make place for herself in
any human heart. For could such right
be hers, when the truth always forced
her to say to herself-"If they knew my
story they would turn away from me.
If were to tell it to Gabrielle, she would
never kiss me again as she kisses me
now" How could it be right in her to
try to win the girls affection when she
knew this, and was aware that one lit
tie sentence spoken in her ears would
part her from her forever?
1t was a curious and dreadful tempta-
ton that, once or twice during this
afternoon, came over the widow to
utter that sentence and end it all. She
had come home after her interview with
George Gilbert in state of bitter
and violent conflict. She had seemed
tolerably calm while the interview last
ed, but on her return to her own room
her sense of the shame of it had over
whelmed her, and she had burst into a
great storm of passionate tears that had
left her wholly broken down and un-
strung. 1t was no wonder that in such
y state some wild thought OF giving the
struggle up. and voluntarily telling the
secret that she had struggled with such
humiliation to keep, should come to the
poor WORKOUT mind, and torture it in
its weakness and exhaustion. 1.-THE
world is too hard for me; why should l
try to battle with it any longerp" she
said to herself, land go on struggling
and fighting for what cannot winp Is
it worth all the misery? Had not bet
ter tell the truth and die?" And then
the words in which she might tell the
truth came to her lips, and if only she
could have died when they had been
said, l think she would have spoken
them. ~
She had tried painfully to reason out
the matter long before to-day. She had
asked herself a hundred times already
-"Have any right to let people be
kind to me who do not know my secret?"
and she had never been able to give
final answer to her question. She had
come to this place saying to herself-"I
will try to live here, but l will keep
aloof from every one; will work and
take whatever payment can earn, but
will make no friends, and give no one
any right to accuse me afterward OF
having deceived them, 4" and she had be-
gun her life here trying to do this; but
as you know she had not been able to
dc it. And now for weeks past she had
been restlessly and remOrsefully asking
herself this weary question day after
day-'Ought to let them be kind to
me when they do not know my stOryp"
and often she had tried to reject their
kindness; she had let herself love them,
but she had not let their love for her
bring peace to her: a certain lnyOlun-
tary happiness it had indeed given her,
but that happiness had been bitterly
mixed with distrust and uneasiness and
self-reproach. Week after week-in
spite of her own will, as it seemed.-she
had become little more intimate with
them; sometimes almost imperceptibly,
sometimes consciously and suddenly the
barriers that she placed between herself
and them had got broken down; she
was no longer now what she had told
herself at first that she would be, and
secret. self-reproachful pain had been
haunting her for many day before the
fear and misery of til s day had forced
If at last into an anguish that was