The Princeton union., 1891-03-19

back, with the old love for her and the
wealth he had gone to win for her;
Harry back, and she another MANS
wife! All her love talse, every promise
broken; married to a man she despis-
ed, and Harry here;
Mr.. Hugh Foster, q grave, stoop
shouldered, plodding sort OF q ma,
coming in at half-past six to his dn.
ner, found his bride lying in the dark
ened parlor on lounge, Der face bur-
led in q pillow. She shrank away as
he touched her, as if his fingers were
hot irons, and never looked up as she
answered him, It was only bad
headache. The darkness, solitude, and
q cup oftea, y-and-by would cure her.
He was to 60 and take his dinner, and
let her alone.
Mr.. Foster took his dinner philoso-
phically enough. And, lying face
downward on her sofa, in the dusky
gloom of the dying fire, Ruth listened
to the dismal November wind bowling
and wailing around the house like a
despairings spirit, with but one cry in her
heart, '"Too late! too late!' If she had
but waited four poor weeks longer,
how blest her whole life might have
been! And now it was too late! She
had thought him dead or false-she
had thought the oldlovehad died out.
And now, when all was over, and she
had lost him for ever, through her own
fault, she knew how madly, and pas
sionately, and wickedly she loved HIM
still.
Ruth's headache was very obstinate.
It kept her in the house all that week,
and prevented her from seeing visitors.
Even when Mr.. Harry Newton called,
the servent told him Mrs. Foster was
too i'll to see any one; and how was he
to know what it had cost her to send
that message? But Sunday came and
Mr.. and Mrs. Foster went to church,
and right opposite them, beside her
cousin Lena, sat Harry Newton. She
knew he was there almost before she
saw him, and she had only dared to
look once-only once; but that once
was enough to show her that the dear
face was ten times handsomer than
ever-enough to show her his look of
stern reproach for herself. and his
dlsdainful glance at the man by her
side. The service and the sermon were
all thrown away on Mrs. Foster that
morning. She never lifted her eyes
from her book; but she neither saw a
word there, nor heard q syllable of
what the preacher said. "Too late!
too late!' the passionate cry OF her
despairing heart was all she could
hear: that beloved face, that it was
sinful to love now, all she could see.
~ 04 rr+ T,o &
the church, where his old friends were
crowding around to welcome him
back, Harry Newton stopped her,
with outstretched hand
"F'or the sake of old times, Mrs.
Foster" he said, "you might shake
hands,"
There were so many malicious eyes
upon her, remembering those old
times, that she gave him her gloved
fingers, murmured few brief words of
welcome, and introduced him to her
husband. Mr.. Newton bowed, with
cold politeness, and Mr.. Foster, who
never had anything to say to stran-
gers, drew his wife s arm within his
own, and led her away.
That evening, Mr.. Newton called,
with Cousin Lena. They found the
newly-married pair keeping the width
OF the room between them unsocially
enOugh-he, in an armchair by the
fire, reading Sunday paper; she, at
the table, bending over a book The
color flashed into her white face, and
receded again, at sight of him; but he
was shaking hands with Mr.. Foster,
and did not look at her.
'The light from your windows, here,
looked so pleasantly genial, Mr.. Eos
ter" he was saying, in his easy way,
"that there was no resisting it. Lena
persisted she must come in, and get
thawed out. So here we are. Ihope
we don't intrude."
He glanced, with a slight smile, from
the paperto the book, and all Ruth's
shame and despair were in her colour
less face.
"How pale you look, Ruth!" Lena
cried. "She isn't much like the ROSY
Ruth you knew three years ago, Harry
is she? And she is as sober as a. Judge,
too, with face aslong solemn as any
owls. | shall never get married, in
the world, if it is going to make me
such an old granny all at once as
Ruthn'
| Was it marriage, or the man she had
married, that had transformed her?
Harry asked himself the question, and
felt that if he wished for vengeance
with all the evindictiveness of an Indian
or a. Corsican, he had it. He sat down
beside her and tried to make her talk,
as they had used to talk, long, long
ago-of books, and art, and music,
and foreign lands, and all the old
things that had been so delicious. It
was hard, at first, to win from he1
more than monosyllables; but Harry
Newton was not to be resisted, and
presently she was the Ruth of other
days. Mr.. Foster to whom this con.
versation was all Greek, lay back in
his chair, and snored audibly, and
Lena yawned behind a novel, and
got fidgety at last, and insisted on
going home.
"What takers you two are!" she
said, "and all about things no one
else understands. You have set Mr.
Foster asleep, and me too, nearly
Ruth, come to tea tomorrow evening