The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-01-24
CHAPTER III.

Hetheridge appeared at the Parish church
next morning, and watched the wedding
ceremony through. He shook hands with
the bridegroom in the vestry, and made a
| clumsy advance toward kissing the bride in
rustic fashion.
Ellice drew back from him in alarm but
Redwood, clappinR his old acquaintance on
the shoulder, brought him forward again,
and insisted on the salute. The newly made
bride offered a cheek as cold as stone, and
Hetheridge set his lips TO it. The girl shiv-
cred with repulsion, and the chill of her
cheek seemed to pierce the rejected suitor's
marrow. As mere matter OF form, and
because there we're lookers-on about them,
be had kissed the forehead of his dead
mother years before, as she lay in her coffin
attired for her last rest The memory of
that clay cold kiss had haun Ted him ever
since, and the only caress he had ever been
permitted to offer his sweetheart since she
came to girlhood brought tvivldly and ter
ribly TO his mind.
He left the church with some abruptness.
and drove to the railway station three
hours betora the time fixed for the departure
Of the London train. The lonely waiting,
spent in striding up and down the little un-
peopled platform, gave him ample time in
which to regret his final unnecessary visit
to MS native place. The mans position was
tragic, and but for the one awful motive
which inspired him would have been alto
geUher pitiable. But the cry of his heart
as sincere prayer as ever vet was offered
was that he might find some safe and hid
den opportunity for murder. His despair of
that, his recognition of the sheer imp1ssi-
bility Of it whilst he burned, and yearned
and only groaned for it, made up the greater
part of his torments.
Tho green corduroyed porter came
whistling over the fields at last. jingling his
keys in his hand, and unlocked the
door of the ticket Office. Nobody found the
porter business to transact, and twenty
minutes later the lonely traveller took the
numbering country train for London. As
he journeyed on, one thought became
clearer and more clear to him, and seemed
to bear with it a dim promise OF a far-off
hope OF peace. He could put the width of
the world between himself and that impos-
sible passion for revenge which burned and
hurt him 80, and perhaps in the course of
time the pain might die. Out of this grew
wild hurry to be away from England
He longed to count the leagues OF sea which
would place barrier after barrier against
his denied desire.
For Il whole week his days and nights
were fevered and whatever he did in the
enforced time Of waiting for his ship was
done with dreadful hurry and precipita-
ton.
He was aboard at last, the only soul In
the whole crowded vessel who had no good
by to say. The decks were swarming until
the tug cast Off below Gravesend, when the
early night began to fall. and almost every
body went below. Hetheridge kept his
place at the vessels side, watching with
gloomy eyes the occasional twinkling lights
ashore. He seemed to himself TO have no
heart for anything just then, neither for
love nor for hate. nor even for self-pity. AS
the night wore on he grew CHASTITY i'll, but
| 1 4
| he could stand no longer and was uncere-
moniously bundled below by brace of
stewards. Then followed three or four DAYS
| bodily anguish severe enough to overwhelm
all mental pains, and when after lie came to
he deck again TO look on smiling skies and
| smiling sea he found himself already in a
balmier air than he had left behind. At
| first he thought, and with apparent reason,
| that he had left the greater part of his
troubles in the rear, but as the sense of
health and ease once more became familiar,
| the old unsatlstied passion laid upon him q
| hand as exlgent as ever. Other emigrants
made friends. assorted themselves into
| groups and cliques, had interests, affections,
! little animositieS. He of all the crowd was
! lonely. His Angry face and his constant
solitude made him disagreed bly noticeable
10 his fellow passengers, and at his coming
| conversation tagged and sport languished
| be thought himself blight upon the ship.
and in this respect, at least, every man,
woman and child aboard was of his way of
thinking.
IL was quite natural that he should lay
this at his enemy's door with all the other
mad and unfounded charges no had al
ready headed there. But for George Red
wood, he told himself, he might have been
marriek and happy in place of being the
Stunned and solitary wretch he was. But
| for George Redwood's father, his own
father might have lived to wealthy and
honored old age, in place Of being brought
half way to beggary and dying broken
! hearted In the prime Of life. That there was
no faintest foundation, in fact, on which to
build these theories made no difference.
| That he had in his secret heart rather wel~
coined his fathers death than otherwise as
bringing him at once to manhood, freedom,
and the possession of bis own, made no diff
ference either. Outside this groundless
hate the man was probably as sane as any
one In thousand, but the passion itself had