Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-18

day when Pierre returned from the adj
iacent city to tell her that the widows
were truly to be cared for-that she
was down for six hundred francs.
Then without occupation and in the
patient waiting for the relief TO come
she every day returned to the quarry.
Frequently Pierre accompanied her,
always with his gentle courtesy, and
there they talked together in lowered
tones as if respecting a tomb. In
these visits to the GENE terry, through
the melancholy of the thick woods to
the eternal stirring of the same
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 new, an indefnahle Charm.
growing and deepening in these mutual
silences. Sorrow had run itself out and
as the spring sap mounts III the flores
Of the tree trunks, a 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 gether-greW with the passing
moments.
'Claudine.n said Pierre at last, why
should we not marry each other?"
ut is not two months YETI she an.
swered, suddenly saddened.
Il know that, but I would not
hurry you. l spoke to be in time.
What say you, Claudine? Yes or no?"
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 a 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 rafting 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 irremediable
things! This return was for him,
Pierre, a shattered love, broken
future, that smiling broken future over
which the six hundred francs of his
Claudine spread a radiance like the
sparkle of a 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 a
menacing spectre erecting itself from
a crumbled dream?
Meanwhile a 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 a responsive cry and
threw himself backward, the prev of
poignant struggle. But the cal came
again-lamentable, sinister, pleading;
he could bear it no longer; wave of
pity flooded his soul.
Watt" he cried; "wait but little; |
will run; | will return at once with a
cord; the hole is just big enough; wait,
waltz
And Pierre, without a single word or
glance at Claudine-did he fear that
his purpose would fail him?-took the
hill at mad run.
Left alone-with him-Claudine
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; Il 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 q
man for succor.
God in heaven her man!
Swiftly as Pierre had leaped 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,
engufed itself in the hole. There was
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 nrv in truth
alone.