The record-union., 1891-01-25

his coffin, as 1 sat by his side after quiet
ness had been restored. 1t was near mid
night. Some one entered the room.
looked up to see Loo standing beside our
dear darling. / don't know which looked
the palest.
She knelt by the coffin, and with her
hands clasped together, silently gazed at
the cold, calm face before her, gazed long
and earnestly. Almost an hour had thus
passed.
Loo, darling, don't grieve so; surely
God knows what is best"
God! Don't tell me He had anything
10 do with it 1t was I who killed him.
Yes, killed him! coaxed him to GO
even against his own will. I am his
murderer! He is one of Queen Loo's vic
TINS" and with one wild shrek she fell
fainting across the corpse.
Eight weeks she lay in the room above,
lowering between life and death; sanity
and insanity contending for the mastery.
More intolerable than the first hours of
great sorrow is the waking up after it
and finding it all true, and we cry in our
agony, God help us!" as we find it a
living reality.
Oh, the awfulness of that waking;
when even before the heavy-lidded eyes
open to the light of day, while yet in
transition state between sleeping and
waking, we are conscious somehow Of an
wrong; and then the truth rushes upon
us and we turn our faces to the wall in
the utter helpleSSneSS Of depair.
Thus was LoO'S waking to life again.
But Heaven is merciful and human love
is great; though one link snap after am
other in the great chain Of loves, the ties
that bind us to life are still strong. No
suffering save one is eternal.
Vain indeed would it be to try to tell
how sorely we missed our precious
brother. Let each afflicted one put him
self or herself into our place and his own
heart can then inform him, but Loo's
smiles were slow to return as she trod
the weary path through the valley OF
desolation.
She was very much changed. Even in
repoSe i'll those hours of meditation the
over-wrought tension of her nerves never
relaxed. Sweet, SorroWful curves were
around the mouth, heavy, mournful,
gray eyes, deep lines traced ON the clear
broad forehead, with hardly a tinge of
color i'll her thin, white face, and the
flood of auburn curls that used to stream
SO Jauntly from under her hat, was now
folded back in loosely dropping braids,
While In her eyes, and in her voice, and
IN her mute, clinging caress there was
some great unspeakable change, like the
opening of IL new life.
Human experience may err, but it may
have needed some crueller process than
the gentle influences of love to work this
change, for from girlhood she had awak
ened to the reality of perfect womanhood.
An entrance in the hall, movement
through the open door, and DIR. Gray en-
tered the room. MANY. waters cannot
quench love, neither can the floods drown
Them" Loo looked up. A low, broken
murmur escaped her lips.
II have come back to you, Loo" he
said. Eyes, back, back from death unto
life, each of us, but-Dan-''
DIR. Gray took her in his arms and laid
here queenly head upon his breast, and
while they rejoiced over the long existing
mutual love each acknowledged for the
other, they wept sorowfully for the life
that had gone out forever at the moment
of their discovery of that love-