Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-10-22
Copyright, 1890, By Edgar Fawcett.l

| CHAPTER N.-CoSII-slED-
"You hare called this conception OF
your fathers 'uncanny.' Suppose hun
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 be-
cause of that personal prejudice which
yoar 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?
Thorndyke, no doubt"
81 have guessed more than DIR. Thorn
dyke told me- Lucia said.
Sylvan chose now to rise. He walked
toward the door, slipping both hands
behind him with sort of non-committal
moroseness-as who should say: Il de-
cliEe further speech on this affair,
though what 1 have heard has been
highly aggravating.
He left the dining-room, and Lucia
felt that for the first time they had stood
on the verge of an open quarrel. And
| how would it end? 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 long
| ing which had seemed to grow as firmly
wed to her spirit as it's color to her
blood No use to try and laugh away
| Egbert Maynards whole aspiration as
the dream of mad chemist. While
she now thought upon her own past life
she understood how there had always
s.
| ty to Just such impressions as the one
| which recent event had wrought. Her
| parents had held no definite faith; they
were of the kind (eminently though her
| father had shone in the law who cur
| tanned what they thought the bad
| policy of non-belief with such pretty
patterned fabric of Indifference, that it
deceived nearly every eye as orthodoxy.
For this reason their childs nature
| missed those pleasant repastS which
occur to us when we can feed magma
ton and emotion on the solemnity of
worship. Lucia would have made a
splendid nun, 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 breath-drawings, which must for
ever have kept her somewhat of the
earth, earthly.
But she would have chung to her
pSalter and her beads, nevertheless,
while shaping for herself material
future heaven, with palm-trees of CLOS
sier emerald than most nuns dream of,
and perhaps a pair of wings with some
sort of half-voluptucus rose-tint amid
the chastity of their plumes. Now, in
the present circumstances of her being,
married to a man who had never lit
her days with any harder kind of
glow than that of rushlight through
hours when her eyes longed for the
slight that never was" this young
woman poured forth in excited obei-
sance on newfound object of homage
all the past, pent-up fervor which re-
ligion might formerly have won from
her with ease. Seated there, in her
perturbation, her fright of self, she
strove to think what friend or acquaint-
ance could now bring balm to her
troubled soul. Not one! All the men
and women whom she knew had for
years entrenched themselves behind the
practical and ordinary. Some of them
were confirmed church-goers; others
We're rationalists; and yet others were
of that don't care type which accepts
life, death, time, eternity and the hui
man soul as if they were facts in his
tory, like the Edict of Nantes or the
Battle of the Boyne-topics that one
may well be aware of but need not seri-
ously treat.
81 wonder what sort of a counsellor
this younger brother, Gerald, would
make" Lucia deliberated. Hes never
sent us his photographs; 1 might have
gained some real inkling of him from
that. But at least he's liberal; DR..
Thorndyl>e more than suggested it. His
mind isn't a covert of cobwebS, like
Sylvan's. 1t would be refreshing to
know him and judge for myself whether
he could help me-" Through a mist of
tragic bewilderment one clear-viewed
purpose began to dawn upon her.
Sylvan had spoken about destroying
those papers. This meant that he had
not yet done so-possibly that he would
refrain from such an act for a long
time, if indeed he ever performed it.
Meanwhile the manuscript (why not?)
reposed in one of the two locked drawers
of the cabinet in his study. What if she
antagonized his obduracy by theft?
Her impulse of honesty, still entwined
among the most sensitive fibers of con-
science itself, urged a stern veto
against any such crafty course. Once
more she would try persuasion. Once
more she did.
For several days the friends who
came to her noticed that she had an alb
sent and febrile manner. One or two
of them, who were feminine. went
away with the deduction that pecul
iarly domestic illness was approach
ing and that it was high time some
happy proof of her bond with Sylvan
should bring its welcome change.
One lady even murmured sentence
of this import in LAcia's ear. How
little she dreams of what thralls and
clouds me-" her nearer thought. That
very evening, perhaps an hour after
their almost silent dinner together, she
appeared at Sylvan's side, while he
wrote as our lawyers do when they
have quilted their downtown" dis
fractions, and while he used for desk
the very cabinet whose two locked
drawers made SO heavy an onus on her
mental peace. Lucia was by this time
excessively disturbed and eager. She did
not know whether she could properly
control herself throughout the coming
interview, and she was quite clearly
aware that her husband now awaited
some sort of distinct rebellious out