The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-01-18
CHAPTER V.

Her voice soon gave him further PROOF Oh
this. 81 should not have behaved so ex-
citedly, Sylvan, she said. but reject;
for you to destroy those papers would be
dreadful. 1t would be an insult flung at
your fathers memory. Whether they are
of any real worth or not, he left them TO
you with the desire that you should test
the idea, the hypothesis which they con-
tain"
He rose and faced her almost fiercely.
81 do not wish to test it?' he declared,
"My poor mother prepared me, long ago,
for something like this in him. But l
never thought that | should be so con-
fronted with his ungodliness."
.'Ungodlinessl you are a man OF sense,
Sylvan, lawyer, weigher of the truth
against"
II am man who reveres his Creator"
he broke in Il abominate this sort of at
tempt to fly in the face of heavenly laws"
'.But you do not a5ominate the physi-
clan who seeks to save you from DEATH"
NO physician presumes to prolong any
life beyond its allotted time"
"Oh, Sylvan, sylvan What would you
say of such logic az this if you heard it In
the court-room?"
He quite ayerted his look for second or
two. Then he turned to her again, and
said, IN voice full of repellant discords:
Il see, Lucia. You believe that packet
may hold in it some uncanny means by
which you may defy death"
IF had such belief" she began.
at would be horribly sinful"
But you simply assert; you deal with
no proof.
my heart tells me more, in case like
this, than my brain could ever do"
Would you let your heart dictate to
you in the shaping of some important
legal decision?'
You insult me as Christian" he an
swered. There is hardly any great dam
ger of my jumbling together the spiritual
and the mundane.
"You have called this conception of
your fathers 'uncanny.' Suppose hum
dreds of other people--thousands, mill
ions, if you will-should look on it as
priceless blessing Would you be right in
keeping it from their possession because of
that personal prejudice which your mother
instilled into your mind when you were
mere half-grown boy?"
He knit his brows. "What is this?" he
demanded harshly. "Who told you of any
such act ON my mothers part? Thorn
dyke no doubt"
II have guessed more than Dr. Thorn
dyke told me-" Lucia said.
Sylvan chose now to RISE. He walked
toward the door, slipping both hands be-
hind him with sort of non-committal
moroseness-as who should say; 81 de-
cline further. speech on this affair, though
what / have heard has been highly aggra-
vating."
He left the dining-room, and Lucia felt
that for the first time they stood on the
verge of an open quarrel. And how would
it end7 She must have that packet; her
very palms had begun to itch and tingle
for it. With burning cheeks and lowered
head she sat for more than an hour in her
own dressing-room and brooded upon this
avid longing, which had seemed to grow as
firmly wed to her spirit as its color to her
blood. No use to try and laugh away Egg
bert Maynard's whole aspiration as the
dream of mad chemist. While she now
thought upon her own past life, she under
stood how there had always been a strain
In it of romantic receptivity to just such
impressions as the one which a recent
event had wrought. Her parents had held
no definite faith they were of the kind
teminently though her father had shone in
the law who curtained what they thought
the bad policy of non belief with such a
pretty patterned fabric ofindifference, that
II deceived nearly every eye as orthodoxy
For this reason their child's nature missed
those pleasant repasts which occur to lis
when We can feed imagination and emo
ton on the solemnity of worship. Lucia
would have made a splendid num- except
for the actual greed of mere living, the
hunger after large inclusive experiences,
the love for life itself Just because of its
pulse-beats and hreath-drawings, which
must forever have kept her somewhat of
the earth. earthly.
But she would have chung 10 her psalter
and her beads, nevertheless. while shapinr
for herself material future heaven. with
palm-trees of glossier emerald than most
nuns dream of, and perhaps a pair of wings
with some sort of half-voluptuous rose tint
amid the chastity of their plumes. Now
IN the present circumstances of her heinz
married TO a man who had never lii her
days with any harder kind of glow than
that OF a rushlight through hours when
her eyes longed for the light thar never
was, this young woman poured forth In
excited obeisance on a new-found object of
homage all the past, pent-up fervor which
religion might formerly have won from her
with ease. Seated there. in her perturba-
ton, her fright of self, she strove TO think
what friend or acquaintance could now
bring calm to her troubled soul. Not one
All the men and women whom she knew
had for years entrenched themselves he
hind the practical and ordinary. Some of
them were confirmed church goers; Others
were rstlonalistS; and vet Others were Of
THAT ''oon care" type which accepts life
death, time. eternity and the human soul
Is II they were facts in history. like the
kdlct of Nantes or the Battle of the Rovne
topics that one may be well aware of but
need not seriously treat.
Il wonder what sort of counselor this
younger brother Gerald would make y
Lucia deliberated. Hes never sent ms
his photograph; | might have gained some
real mixing of him from that. But ar
least he's liberal: DR.. Thorndvke more
than suggested il. His mind isn't a covert
Of cobwebS, like Sylvan's. Ii would he
refreshing 90 know him and Judge for nv
self whether he could help me" THROUGH
mist of tragic hewilderment one clear.
viewed purpose began to dawn on her
sylvan had spoken about DESTROYING those
papers. This meant that he had nor We,
done So--poSSlbly that he would refrain
from such an act for long time. if indeed
he ever performed IT, Meanwhile the
manuscript Cwhy not . repoSed in one nj
the two locked drawers of the cabinet in
MS study. What ii she antagonixea his
oeduraey by theit9 Her impulse Of hon
'Sty, still entwined among the most SenSi-
i've hhers OF conscience itself t1rs-ei n