Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-07-12
OUT or THE DEEpS.

now she is 10 nelp you get well again.
There were four people in the room: ST
William Parton, the great doctor, his con
frere, DR.. James, with whom he met in con
sultation, Mrs. Fawcett, and the patient
her only daughter, girl of twenty-one.
The girl looked up inquisitively, nerv
ously, with tremulous fear in her fac.
and voice.
Sam lam Very ill?"
Sir William looked at her face, at the
shining eyes, with the dilated pupils, the
quivering, sensitive mouth, then he took
both hands in his, with pity, he did not
show, in his heart
s'Not so i'll as you might be, my child
but when we have finished our talk, and
are going to tell Mrs. Fawcett how to take
care of you and prevent you doing your
self harm, we mustn't have you listening,
for you are nervous enough to fancy you
have every illness under the sum-"
'Then l shall get well-soon"
"You must do as you are told them
answered Sir William lightly, sas he left
the room.
Keen observer as he was, he did not
notice how more terrible fear had grown
In the girls eyes as she found he avoided
direct answers. She saw, if the truth
were bad, it was no use to try and force it
from between those thin lips if their owner
deemed it better concealed. She and her
mother sat silent in suspense, as though
each dreaded to hear the other speak, but
when Mrs. Fawcett had been summoned
to join the doctors, Helen burst out wildly
to herself, They are deceiving me, know
they think ! shall die. Oh, God, can't.
/ can'tp
She sat in that sckening terrible dread,
with her hands pressed tensely against her
forehead. The moments seemed to drag
out their slow length like hours till she
could bear it no longer. The resolve. 81
will know" was fierce in her heart; she
stole softly to the smaller drawing-room on
the other side of the staircase-the room
opened into the boudoir where she knew
her mother and the doctors were and was
screened from it by heavy velvet cur
tain, through which Helen could hear her
mothers sobs.
Passionate and uncontrolled, and In
them the girl knew her doom; but with
the wild terror and anguish within her,
there awoke a more piteous sorrow for
her mothers grief, love-oh, how dear
how near for that mother who must
lose her, whom she must leave.
"No hope?" she heard Mrs. Fawcett
ask in broken, imploring tone; then Sir
Williams voice in answer:
Il wish l could give it you, but the
disease is so far advanced-she may live
little longer or little shorter per iod
than l expect"
There was silence in the room, adeath-
like silence in the girls heart as she list
ened. At last her mother spoke again,
her voice kept resolutely quiet
''How long can she live%
"a few months-six or eight, perhaps.
Mrs. Fawcett, if you knew how / feel for
you, you would not think me cruel you
must know the truth-if you wish to keep
that poor girl with you as long as posi-
bic. she must not know it-you must keep
her mind quiet and happy. Do you think
you cam"
A faint sob that meant Eyes"
"And don't drag her from home; it can
do no good-all the Madeiras or Egypts
in the world won't save her, but quietness
and freedom from trouble may give her a
few weeks more-that is why she must not
know"
"But she has hardly any cough" sobbed
Mrs. Fawcett. "And people do live with
consumption for years and years. can't
lose her-they do live"
"Not in cases like hers-I wish | could
say otherwise"
Helen heard no more; the impulse to
comfort her mother with the sad comfort
of clinging arms and bitter tears was so
strong she felt she should yield to it if she
staid. There seemed to be two Helens in
her; the girl who felt the chill shadows of
the valley of death closing. round the life
which had been so dear and fair. and the
girl whose impulse was to help the mother
who had no husband to help her bear her
grief whose only daughter she was
''What would she do without HEREWITH no
girl left only the boys; one wrapped up
in his wife and two children, the other
away in India?" Helen knew her loss
would break her mothers life; did she
realize that the bitterness of death would
have been yet worse had she thought her
dying would be no enduring pain to that
mother?
She crept away silently. She met a
servant on the staircase; her voice sound
ed strange and hollow to herself as she
said:
TELL mamma, when the doctors have
gone, that | am so tired have gone to lie
down"
Then she went up to her room and
locked herself in; as she turned round
she saw her face in the glass with a wild
hopelessness in it. How CHASTITY it was
this face Of girl who had to die She
hid it in her hands. afraid to meet it,
look, and a dull stupor came over her
she was no longer able to realize this
stern fate which faced her, yelled, but
real.
At last she reused herself; one thing
was certain, her mother must not CUES.
that she knew this. Their last moments
together-at all events till the end drew
very near-must be as happy, or rather a:
calm, as they could be. And Helen felt
she could bear the darkness better alone,
this strange darkness that had suddenly
/. yelled the world. She feared even hel
mothers sympathy and sorrow; what helI
or healing could avail her?
There was only one help she yearned
for, one hand, the touch of which could
Eave made her brave; one voice, loving
tone of which could have given her cour-
age, even if they had trebled her sense OF
passionate loss of sweet life
As she thought this, she opened hel
locked dressing case and took therefrom a
framed photograph; for one minute sh,
looked at il as though to draw life from i
through her eyes, and then she kissed i
wildly, closely pressing her poor dry lip
against the cold glass, then holding i
nestled against her cheek 1t had many
a time been clasped close to her heart
when she slept she had looked at it 81
often and 50 long that she knew ever,
faintest aud finest line OF the pictured fac,
of this photograph, offered careiessly, ac
cepted apparently as lightly, but treasured
as some faint type or memory of the on
who seemed to Helen Fawcett to be tn,
whole meaning of her life.
Helen dearp'