The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1890-11-05

these visits to the GENE terry, through
| the melancholy of the thick woods to
! the eternal stirring of the same
thoughts, the tears of Claudine by de-
grees ceased to flow.
They arrived soon at talking freely,
then at reveries, walking slowly,
picturing, perhaps, the awakening OF
new possibilities. The weight seemed
to lift from the breast of the young
woman, the horizon so long closed
about her to widen and open, and in
the trembling dawn of the rising future
there was a new, an indefinable charm.
growing and deepening in these mutual
silences. Sorrow had run itself out and
as the spring sap mounts in the flores
Of the tree trunks, new love-of
which as yet they did not speak out of
Difference to this tomb before which
they wandered and which had brought
them ogether-grew with the passing
moments.
E'Claudine," said Pierre at last, 'swhy
should we not marry each other?''
''It is not two months yet," she an
swered, suddenly saddened.
Il know that. but 1 would not
hurry you. | spoke to be in time.
What say you, CIaudine? Yes or MOP"
Yes" sighed she later on"
1t was close to evening; Claudine and
Pierre as usual rambled among the
stones of the quarry.
All at once singular sound arrested
their footsteps. 1t was the soil beneath
them, the scratching or moving of
some beast, doubtless, at the end of his
hole. They bent above the crevasse
by which they stood; there the sound
was palmer, more distinct, like the de-
spairing struggle of something in a
narrow place, the rattling volley of
rolling debris.
A strange, sudden terror nailed them
motionless, then at the same moment
the same thought came to both; the
quarrymen inclosed in their living
tomb were not all dead; some one was
mining through the mountain.
And from the depths now came a
feeble call, faint, smothered, scarcely
more than a gasping sigh.
1T is-it is hep breathed Claudine,
her knees knocking together.
Pierre leaped to his feet, livid also.
He! The dead, already so far away,
already lost in the gulf of irremediabie
things! This return was for him,
Pierre, a shattered love, a broken
future, that smiling broken future over
which the six hundred francs of his
Claudine spread a radiance like the
sparkle of fortune!
What right had he to return, this
dead man, whose face no longer ap-
peared to him irradiated with friendli-
ness and grateful memories, but as
menacing spectre erecting itself from
a crumbled dream?
Meanwhile, new call came from the
depths, in which one plainly read the
torture of that imprisoned wretch,
trapped under the earth for two long
months, supporting life on roots and
water, grovelling in blacklist night,
but stimulated, urged to the battle for
existence by the perfume of the sunny
woods that, doubtless reached him
through the crevices of the crevasse.
Pierre uttered responsive cry and
threw himself backward, the prey of
poignant struggle. But the call came
again-lamentable, sinister, pleading;
he could bear it no longer; a wave of
pity flooded his soul.
Waltz he cried; ''wait but little; /
will run; will return at once with
cord; the hole is just big enough; wait,
wait!"
And Pierre, without single word or
glance at Claudine-did he fear that
his purpose would fail him?-took the
hill at mad run.
Left alone-with -Claudine's
eyes clung as if glued to a heavy
boulder that overhung the edge of the
crevasse; yes, the very edge, poised like
a bird ready to spring. She trembled
convulsively; a breath almost would
detach that stone, would send it crash
ing to the bottom of that fiume whence
came that wailing moan; the cry of
man for succor.
God in heaven her mani
Swiftly as Pierre had 1eaped she,
Claudine, now leaped; but how she
staggered, how her legs bent under
her as if she were drunk! But no
matter; she must reach that boulder;
she had reached tit stirred, turned,
engulfcd itself in the hole. There was
a thud. a strangled cry. then-silence;
blank, dead silence, soundless as the
quarried stone.
Silence and solitude both, for Pierre
had not had time to return from his
errand of mercy, and Claudine-with
clasped hand and eagerly listening
ears-Claudine was now in truth
alone.