Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-07
feel overbnrdened with gratitude for the mercy you've shown mel"
CHAPTER Tx.

mercy you Ve SnOWn me!
 CHAPTER Tx.
 On a certain afternoon Gerald woke to the conviction that he had been treat ing his brother shamefully. But the blunt ruth was simply that he had been forgetting, all this while, if such a person as Sylvan Maynard were in existence. His thoughts would not dwell for longer than a brief space on any subject save one. This woman whom he had brought back from death haunted him always, with her bronze brown hair and her dark eyes tinged by hiclers of tawny light He found himself clothing the whole incident of her rescue from death in colors of pie torial appeal He imagined her dra- peried figure standing on the threshold of a tomb whose inky background symbolized death itself, while she stretched forth glad hand to the lamp he bore, and caught it's rays upon her kindling eyes and parting lips He would have liked to be an artist, if just for a short interval, and paint this pie ture. He felt the desire to paint it grow all the keener when he was first admit ted to the chamber where she sat, Mrs. Brawne had been very kind to her, but if Gerald had given a closer glance into the face of his landlady he might have noted that the serene stolidity there was touched by an expression as of restrained anxiety. For Mrs. Brawne had not been by any means dull enough to fail of seeing wildly improper glare about certain recent occurrences in her establishment. What means had been used for continuing the former current of her complaisance Gerald never knew and never thought to ask himself. Crawford Clyde might easily have told him, and bank-notes would have been the terms, as it were, of such intelligence. But Gerald, who had lately trod on air, was in no state for cold deductions of effect from cause. He had every belief that when they met on the morning after their fateful ex- perience with the elixir, she on whom it had acted so astonishingly would quite have recovered her lost remem- brance of the past. It gave him a sharp shock to find that this was by no means the case.
 ''Still," she said to him, "all is 8 blank" He seated himself beside her. and for a long time they talked together as though nothing strange had oc- cured Her sadness now and then gave way to transient mirth; 1t was like the parting of mists and the glimps- ing of blue heaven behind them But the mists of oblivion were more stub born; these would not divide. Mean while they spoke of books that both had read, of poetry, music, art. A new and peculiar feeling began to steal over Gerald. It was like a sense of pos sessorship, proprietorship. Death had given him this charming woman for his very own. She had been; she was now once more, newly, and for him-alto- gether for himI This meant the reward of his labors. He had done her the service of bringing her back to life, and in surrenderins her death did so royal ly, as all kings should do.
 That afternoon he said to Clyde, when the latter came and before he had seen her: 'You will find Perdita quiet and in a way contented."
 "Perdita9" queried Clyde. "You know her name then?"
 II call her that in my thoughts, for want of another name."
 "Oh! really"
 "Indeed, have confessed to her that call her so, and asked permission to address her by this name whenever we now meet"
 "Is it possible?" returned Clyde, with much dryness. "All of which means, l suppose, that the lady still recollects nothing"
 Nothing" said Gerald, soberly On sudden he frightened and went on: "In one sense she recollects a great deal. It is simply the question of scho she acaS that escapes her. Otherwise she is full of the most refined past in- huences, "reminiscences, associations. Oh! my dear Clyde, you have but 60 know her and the charm of her pres ence will penetrate you completely" Clyde pulled at his mustache for an instant and looked down. ''I think I'd rather not be penetrated quite as com pletely as yourself" he said, still with the same dryness.
 Gerald drew himself up somewhat haughtily. "What do you mean?" he asked.
 Mean? Why, my dear Gerald, that -o,,s-o 14e% x,1,,r hood 0-ou