San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1890-11-14

49, -
desolate woman, struggling with all her
might to regain a lost position, to con-
ceal the past, and make a fresh life for
herself in the future; or think with any
thing but sharpest pain that it was has
hand that was to be lifted to crush her?
Yet he knew that what he had to do
must be done, and he resolved this
second night to do it; and it was he who,
an hour after Mr.. Dunstan had taken
his leave of her, came to her door and
knocked, and reused her from her first
stupor OF misery.
She was still sitting in the same place
where she had been sitting ever since
she had been alone. When Mr.. Gilbert
knocked and spoke to her she rose up,
half bewildered, with-even from the
first moment-a startling foreboding of
what he had to say.
MAY | speak to you for a few mo-
ments?" he asked her.
MIR. Gilbert? Yes" she answered
family; and-for he had opened the
door-she waited standing till he had
entered and closed it, and sat down
again. The room had suddenly begun
to swim, and her knees to tremble I'M
der her.
"Will you sit down? I think l ha
been letting the fire go almost out"
said in a strange voice, almost like so
one in a dream; and then she did not
try to mend the fire, but sat in a rigid
way, erect, with her hands clasped tight
in one another. She had forgotten to
offer n greeting to him-she did not
even know that she had not done it.
He has come to make it all impossible.
This is my punishment for aver dream
ing of it." she only thought, as far as
she could be said to think anything at
all.
She had lighted a pair of candles
while MI. Dunstan had been with her
flor she had said to him with a little
sad smile-"1 want to see your face'D,
and they were still burning where she
had placed them, making a dim light
ed her black dress, but the light from
them touched her hair, and the white
face which ever before he spoke a word
to her moved him with a pity for her
that he had come into the room with no
desire to feel. How delicate she lock-
ed! he thought; and this woman who,
rightly or wrongly, had suffered such
bitter things, it was to be has work to
stab to the heart!
He took a chair as she told him, and
sat down. He was a man whose words
in general were few, and his way of ut
tering them very simple and straight
forward. He had none of the d~exterity
of speech that enables some men, and
many women, to set their faces to a
painful subject from a long way off,
and by fine degrees to approach it more
! and more near. Mr.. Warrington, who
did not like him much, said of him
once that he talked like a man dealing
blows with a sledge-hammer. True
blacksmith's talk" he had called it with
a laugh; and George Gilbert himself
knew his W defect, and had said to
that he had to do, with honest Self-de-
observation-disclosures any one else would
do it better than / shall do it," But
there was no one to do it except him;
and now he waS seated within a couple
of yards of the widows chair, and the
moment for performing his task, wheth-
er it were to be done well or ill, had
come.
She had not spoken to him except in
those few words at first, and he had to
break the silence. He might have brok-
en- it in some Indifferent commonplace
way, so as not to Startle her, but some
how he could not do this. AS he began
to speak, the first words that he utter
ed told her the business he had come
upon.
II want you to forgive me for what /
am going to do. l have come very IN
willingly, to say a few words to you"
he began in a low, grave voice. "You
remember the talk We had together five
months ago? But Ineed not ask you
that: of course you remember it,"
She had lifted up her head as he began
70 SnnoH DC IF RI liSfnn m him nn6 nnyv
as he paused he met her eyes, with their
first frightened look in them,-just
such a pitiful look as his heart had
shrunk a score of times already in
picturing. There was a moments ST.
Ience; then he would have gone on
speaking without waiting for her to an
swer him yet, but all at nee she pre-
vented him: for she had read his face,
and the words died on his lips as in one
sentence she made all further eXplana-
lions unnecessary taking one step
that overleapt them all.
''Then you have known it all the
time!" she said, in a short, sharp tone,
like a cry.
mol did not know it when you
spoke to me-" he said eagerly. There
was such intense reproach and pain in
her bitter accusation that he inyOlun-
tarily quickened his voice as he, began
to answer her. 'Take my word that 1
did not deceive you! l told you that I
did not know your story, and, believe
me, / did not know it then. But your
face had always seemed to me like a
face that l had seen somewhere before;
and suddenly that day, after you had
left me, | remembered how it was that
l knew t."
Pale as she had been, the painful
blood had flushed all over her now: she