The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1890-12-25

80 nder any circumstances. | began.
waiily, real. deep love-
''Oh, and how do love! God knows
how deep and pure ia tie passion that
makes me forget all bonds and almost all
proprieties! What else could excuse my
being able to sf.~z.A . . it now-to you:
You know l am pledged unwillingly to
another
''To what" almost shrieked.
''To Mr.. Goodwin. whom I-yes, whom
l hate" the girl answered, with ten times
the spirit thought in her.
"And you don't-it isn't-you don't
mean it's Goodwin you care for?' STAN
mered in confusion.
Goodwin! Oh, how can you jest with
me at such moment? You know whom
You have long guessed even before
confessed my love for-for-anotherr'
Again the purple food dyed her brow
and neck, and then died quickly out. l
felt deuced queer. Here was alone at
midnight with tinid White Mouse,
who had suddenly asserted herself, and
told me she did not love the man she was
engaged to, and "did so" love somebody
else. There was nobody else except Tom
. Jones, now talking terrier with the
groom up stairs, and-myself! Great
heavens! conld the girl mean me? No,
nonsense! l must be mistaken. smiled
sickly smile to reassure myself Then
| said, 81 don't-that is, you know-I-
could not-you would not suspect me Of
testing about a-um-your sacred feel
ings." She seized my hand impulsively
and pressed it.
"They are sacred" she cried-"sacred
as the first worship of a pure girls heart
must ever be. Oh, you know, you must
feel how strong and all absorbing is the
passion that can change me into a self
asserting woman! that can make me
defy prejudice and custom, as you see l
do, when l say that l will give up home
and friends-that l will face all the
world and tell them boldly, as l now do
you, that from the bottom of my heart l
lover
She dropped her face into her hands as
she spoke the last word, but all the rest
she had said with her eye fixed un-
swervingly upon mine and looking down
into my very soul. | am considered by
most of my friends to be rather modest
man. On this particular occasion l must
confess that l was rather taken aback
and became rather misty in the mind.
But there could be no doubt as to what
the girl meant. Driven to desperation
by her forced engagement, feeling the
unbearable grasp of hated fate tight
ening on her, she was-yes, there was no
room for doubt-she was making love
to me!
For second the base idea crept into
my mind, Revenge! Bette Blythe, the
jilt, the shameless firt, cannot triumph
over me if | marry the heiress of SHADY
nook" instead of the poor lawyers daugh-
ter! For second l was on the eve Of
clasping the White Mouse in my arms,
and blacl,ening my soul with the per-
jury that | adOred her-that | never had
loved but her!
Thank heaven! it was only for Sec
Ond, when the unnatural, the frightful
want of modesty stood naked in my
sight. Much as l had despised the girl
before, actually loathed her now. But
to tell her SO? There was the rub.
appeal to any young lawyer who has
had an heiress make love to him at mid
night if it isn't a little awkward to re-
fuse her?
Miss Belton," said at last, looking
into the fire, Il make every allowance
for Your trials TOR vour unusual excite
Ilent that has driven you to oily things to
me you may wish unSaiI to-,nGlrow'-
''To-morrow | shall glory in them
even more than now
I
tinued, needless Of the interruption,
chat you said them to me-
You are the sole man on earth to
whom l would ever dream of speaking
so!' she broke in hastily: "to no one else
could I be SO immodest as to-to"-
Here she melted into perfect cataract
of tears. don't like tears They wash
all the manhood ont of me: they dissolve
me as if We're beet root sugar. | began
at once to regret the accident that had
made the young woman care for me;
and, to try and be little more gentle,
l put myself through strict cross-ex-
animation as to whether had ever given
her any cause to believe cared for her,
any encouragement, any reason. But
hastily impaneled jury of conscience,
habit and memory acquitted me mem.
con.
Then, panoplied in the triple conscious
ness of right, l turned once more upon
the young woman before me.
Miss Belton," l said, with an arctic
frigidity in my tone, you will permit
me to say that l am astonished and"-
"Astonished! Your
The invariable recurrence of that pro-
noun and the dreadful emphasis upon it
were beginning to wear my patience out.
! continued rather hastily;
.'Astonished. surely; and l may say
panied at the-a-the confession of what
l cannot but consider a passing-a-
caprice"
The White Mouse flashed round at me.
She seemed to expand and dilate in the
Pickering light, and her lips were COM
pressed till they seemed very white in the
reflection.
May l remind you such suspicion is
injurious to my modesty?' she said, cold
ly; 'but l know in my heart will prove
to you by my whole future that my love
is part of my being-will end only with
my life!'
Did ever a modest man meet such per-
1istence? Icould not strike that girl and
crush her where she stood. Oh how l
lDnged for a man in her place! for had
Ehe been the Benicia Boy should have
pounded him then and there. Morally
certain that the white haired young crea-
1ure was dying of love for me, half per-
shaded that she was going to marry me
then and there by force. what could
say? l stared blankly at her, while
smile of wonderful sweetness stole round
her lips, as she murmured, half to herself:
-'Let the world say what it will: love
like mine purifes all. We will be very,
very happy"
Tender of heart, 1 began to pity the
young woman. Laboring under terri
BILE hallucination about the future as she
was. there was still something almost
S,,blime in the faith she held in the power