San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-05-13
CHAPTER ".
ICoNTINUED.l

for each other!' said: and bending for
4 ward kissed her on the lips.
For more than minute she sat there
quite still, | kneeling in front of her.
we were looking straight into each
others eyes. Then all at once trou-
bled, anxious look came into her face
She rose with startled gesture to her
feet.
"Hush! hush! did you hear?"
whats the natter cried |, jumping
up in surprise.
''Hush! some one calling-calling
me-
Again that strange fancy! What did
it mean? | could not repress certain
thrill at the heart as | gazed at her. It
was very weird and strange.
As | gazed a singular change crept
over her. Her face was now quite color
less, and its pallor was intensified by the
blackness of her mystical eyes. Those
eyes slowly grew fixed-immovable, as
if frozen. The lids trembled for mo
ment, then dropped, then lifted again to
their widest extent and so remained
Her lips, slightly parted, showed the
white teeth set edge to edge behind
them. The rigidity descended through
her whole body; she was like marble
statue. She breathed low and deeply
as one who is in profound slumber
'kate! what has happened to your
cried in alarm, putting my hand on her
shoulder. Her arm was fixed like from
she seemed to hear nothing, feel moth
ing. She was as much beyond any
power of mine to influence her as if she
had been dead. The diamonds that gilt
tered on her bosom were not more in
sensible than she.
| must confess that | was somewhat
unnerved by the situation. Kate was
evidently in some sort of trance; but
what had put her into that state. and
costume, who announced himself as the
master of the house, now came out to
take charge of my trunk. was, or
fancied myself (as you may have
noticed), a quick judge of faces, and
this PEASANTS face failed to commend,
itself to me. 1t was at once heavy and
gloomy, while scar at one corner of
his mouth caused that feature to twist
itself into perfunctory grimace, gro
,tesquely at variance with his normal ex-
preston. In person he was much above
the common size, and to judge by the
ease with which he slung his heavy
trunk over his shoulder, he must have
been as strong as August der Starke
himself, whose brazen statue domineers
over the market place in Dresden.
"Guten morgen, Herr Rudolph" said
Slurk, hailing this giant affably. The
two seemed to be on some sort of terms
of comradeship, having perhaps struck
up an acquaintance during the previous
negotiations for lodgings | must say
the; looked to me to be not i'll matched
pair. Fma .gt.-r r...... g .rr,v-.-s. o..
We alighted and were welcomed in
with surly courtesy by Herr Rudolph.
Kate, confessing to headache, went at
once to her room, whence she did not
again emerge; Slurk disappeared into
the kitchen regions with the landlord;
Mr. Birchmore presently went out for
stroll before dinner, and |, finding N.Y.
self thrown temporarily on my own
resources, decided to make a virtue of
my loneliness by writing some letters
which had been long owing. accord
ingly CROPPED my way up the darksome
stone staircase and so along an eccentric
passage to my room. H ..
did not know then nor could even
now accurately describe the arrange
ment of rooms in that farmhouse. There
M 70
not running at right angles to one an
other, but seeming to wander about ir-
regularly, now and then turning awk-
ward corners, descending or ascending
short flights of steps or eddying into u
little cul de sac, with perhaps only a
closet door at the en- of it. The conse-
quence was it was nearly impossible to
say whose room adjoined whose. II
might be long distance from one to
another measured along the passage.
and yet they might actually be separated
only by the thickness of a wall Where
the farmer and his family slept | know
not, but have reason to believe that al
our party, including Slurk, We're accom-
modated upon the same floor.
On opening the door of my room
found some one already there. This per
son was a comedy young woman, tn,
farmers daughter evidently, busy in tn,
benevolent occupation of putting thing
in order. She had moved my trunk be
meath the window, she had put fresl
water in the ever, she had straightene,
out the slips of drugget on the rougl
board floor, she had placed some flower
in the window, and she was now en-
gagged in tucking clean sheet on tn
bed. | said she was comedy; on secon