Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-05-10
CHAPTER XVI.
pAIsY's DIARY IN SORROW.


When I wrote the last line in this book
think must have been the happiest girl in the
world There was hardly cloud upon my
sky-yes one cloud. the fact that the man
whom 1 thought my friend and benefactor was
| out of health and unhappy. Yet in spite of
| that one cloud was utterly happy, selfshly
absorbed in my new happiness.
Today l take up my pen in fear and trem-
bling. dark and terrible cloud has closed
over my life.
/ thank God that cloud does not rest upon
my lovers head. l must think of others now.
This dark discovery forces my thoughts into
other grooves. / must remember that am my
mothers daughter as we'll as Gilbert's affianced
wife.
Oh, it is all so sad, SO awful, such a cruel rev.
elation. changing the whole color of life, strip
ping off the mask from face that was once
honored and beloved, opening a deep well of
baseness and inlquity in the howery garden
world where was so happy.
Sometimes, for few moments, l doubt and
ask myself if / am not deluded, if that hideous
suspicion which grew in an hour into absolute
conviction might not after all be groundless-
and then l go over the facts slowly. in cold
blood, one by one. slowly putting them to-
gether again like the pieces in a puzzle. and
there the awful fact appears i'll unmistakabe
certainty
Oh, father, father, how that trusting, open
nature. that generous heart of yours was
lessly your life was plotted away by the man
who sat at your table, and smiled beside your
hearth and was to you almost brother. 1t
was your own familiar friend who planned
your murder.
1 must 60 back to tine moment when this
hideous secret revealed itself. 1t was natural
that as Gilbert's tiance l should tell him every
thing that had happened to me in all my life,
and indeed fear that must have bored him
terribly since we were engaged by prattling to
him about every Insignificant detail of my
colOress existence.
Two days ago he came into the drawing room
just as it was growing dusk. He had been to
London again and we had had another parting
and l had felt very mopy all the afternoon. 1
did not expect to see Gilbert until dinner time,
and oh, how my foolish heart thrilled with
delight when heard his step in the hall just
after the clock struck five.
1t is not very often that have the privilege
Of making tea for Gilbert, and on this occasion
am sorry TO say made it SO strong that il
was hardly drnkable i saw he made wry
face at every sp-though he declared it was
quite the incest tea he had ever tasted
How gay we were We sat and talked and
laughed in the growing dusk. How proud l
felt of my lover and how blessed in the assur-
ance that he was all my own; that L had left no
corner Of his heart unexplored, no secret
hidden from my prying eyes.
We talked and talked not from grave to gay,
but from gay to grave; and presently told my
dearest the single secre. of my life, the one
act of mine which | had hidden from the best
of mothers.
/ told him how, when first went to London,
was haunted by the ghastly vision of my
fathers murder. and how a morbid longing to
see the room where that dark deed was done
took possession of my mind and would not be
driven away.
told him how / crept out of the house in
the summer twilight and every step in that
dismal pilgrimage till l came to Church street
or my way home: and then told him of that
intolerable Frenchman's insoence and of the
/ good soul in the hansom to whom | should so
like to leave legacy when am old enough to
make will, if l only knew his honorable name.
Il know my enemys name well enough. "
said 1. for, the cab was driving off with me,
his friends called out to him, 'Hola, Duver-
| der"