Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1892-04-17

that he had been foully dealt with
that an enemy in the guise OF friend
had invested his camp and laid 1t waste
that he was being stabbed with a
knife drawn from his own sheath. This
man had listened to his story, had en-
couraged him in his aspirations, had
counseled, sympathized and suggested,
and then, like thief in the night, had
crept in and stolen the treasure.
In the burning heat OF wrong and
outrage all possibility OF justice, all
power OF rational discernment were
consumed. His Identification OF the
woman with the child had been so com
pete that his mind had no longer power
to separate them. He could not think;
he could only feel. All the earth, and
the air, and the spaces Of the infinite
were pulsing madly with his wrong.
His passion made his heart beat like
the sledge on burning metal, sent the
blood to his brain and oppressed its
power Of perception, and filed his ears
with a dull roaring as OF imprisoned
waters ere the ice breaks to rush and
rend and destroy.
A door opened and closed quickly;
footsteps sounded on the porch, the
steps, the walk in front of the house; a
whistle clear and joyous as that Of a
schoolboy cleft the brooding air. Dan
was on his way home now to the house
across the ravine, where the door was
on the latch and the gift on the crowd
ed table. Somehow Anthony drew
back under the shadow Of the trees, out
Of sight, and let him pass.
The moon still hung poised above the
cedars, but it was now free from the OBJ
structon OF their branches and cast
what light was in its gift to the earth
ungrudgingly. The path was light
enough, but under the trees the shad-
ows lay dense and black. Dan came
down the walk whlstling; his step
was light, as though, in the
sense of universal good new born
within him, the touch OF earth
were pleasant to his feet. He neared
the shadow where his friend lay am
pushed, passed it and went on In the
pale moonlight. Anthony's hand was
in the breast pocket OF his coat and his
eyes cleaned narrowly through the
dropping lids.
At the gate Dan paused to light
cigar, striking the match against the
upper bar; his hands were raised, pro-
tecting the fame instinctively, al
though the air was still; his back was
toward the shadow. Anthony's hand
stole forth with the revolver; his right
hand stiffened as he took aim at the
young mans head; his eye was steady
and his finger on the trigger was as
firm az the metal 1t touched; the moon
light made little track along the bar
rel Of the pistol.
The arm twitched, the finger on the
trigger shook, the eye faltered and the
aim grew unsteady. A thought had
flashed through the maddened brain,
recollection powerful enough to balk
the deadly purpose. to strike the arm
TO his side. Was it truth or memory OF
or compassion for the woman
whom he loved, and whose love he was
about TO slaY? Not one of these things
would have moved him. What he did
was the simple fact that Dan was I'M
armed, and that his back was toward
him.
He stood and watched his rival pass
through the gate and down the path
which led across the ravine by the
longer way-the same on which Mary
had left him in Indignation some months
before. A baffied, beaten feeling was
growing in his breast, sense OF impo
tence and failure; jealousy and brute
strained on the leash like
but rough honor held
them back with a strong hand, and the
man stood shaking from head to foot,
cursing under. his breath. He could not
shoot down an unarmed man from be-
hind.
Turning in the opposite direction he
retraced his steps through the old gar
den. He was not going home; he had
no wish to meet his rival-the sense Of
impotence was growing. What had
come of it all-the long struggle, the
waiting and working, the ambition and
final success? What had 1t availed
him? Money! A place among men! A
monster fortune! or what use was the
He wanted love-this love, no
other: and all the wealth OF that fab
ulous mine Of his was inadequate for its
purchase.
His mind went back to that lonely
CANYON, the redwood hut by the snow
fed tarn, the leper driven forth to die,
and die alone. OF what use had this
gold been 10 the leperT Could it buy
him pity, sympathy, tendance, even
tolerence among his bellows? Had it
been powerful to avert misery, loath-
someness, death?. He remembered how
be himself had sickened at the sight OF
the SCARED visage and had shrunk from
the touch of the leprous hands; how the
cup OF water had been given with averted
face, and the vessel afterward broken
to prevent all possibility OF its ever
touching cleaner lips; how be had
disgust in the performance OF
those last offices for the dying and the
dead: how hastily he had fashioned the
rude resting place; how shuddering he
had placed in il the Door, defaced thing
that had once been human, how he had
shoveled in the earth with sense OF
relief that from this fair world had been
removed foul blot.
He felt strangely drawn to that lonely
grave, strangely akin TO its miserable
occupant. Was not his case like the
occupant? Was not he driven forth
from the love and sympathy he craved,
10 dwell forevermore amid the rocks
and the awful solitude? The ieper's
fate was his-and the leper's gold.
Oh. the mockery Of 1.-THE bitter,
bitter mockery. 1t was his, that storf,
his TO hold and enjoy. his to spend ar
save CT give, and he stood lonely NAB