Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1893-02-09
CHAPTER III.
FOR LOVES SWEET SAKE.

CHARIER III.
FOR LOVES SWEET SAKE.
Like visitant from the grave, spec
tire appearing across the dim boundary
line of life and death. the wan, worn fig
ure of Ray Webster filled the vision of
the startled and amazed Flora
Loyalty to the Judgment Of wise
father had closed her heart to any action
that would bring about written commu-
nication or meeting with the man who
had betrayed high business trust in
the eyes of the world. and she had
counted their love as dead, but in
one flashing glance at the pitiful
figure before her, Flora's mind forget
the impending peril of the hour-into
her true. womanly soul surged wave
of infinite pity, love and anguish, that
involuntarily wrung cry like that of a
faAS, wounded dove, from her lips.
Past love, present sympathy, intui-
ton illumined and enlarged, the mourn
full story that haggard face revealed.
Suffering, despair, the fierce resentment
of a chained soul CALLING under it's bonds,
wrong, injury, suffering-all these lin
gered, eloquent, pleading, in the pose.
looks and accents Of the man who con-
frOnted her. Innocence, too AS she
shrank, one reproachful glance from
Ray Webster's eyes told that she might
better have awarded him dagger
thrust than add to the bitterness of de-
spair by tacitly insinuating that she, too,
even dreamed of his being the guilty
wretch he had been adjudged!
Flora, my life, my love!'' he painted,
advancing, his hands extended, his soul
quivering on the reception she would
award him. ooh! the weary waiting
the torturing silence-but now, at LAST
In frantic, feverish distress she waved
him back. This was not the cringing
suppication of a hypocrit, crimi-
nal. All, no! Above the prison rot, the
pallor of illness and suffering, there
shone in the attenuated face the true
nobility of the soul beneath, proud, I'M
proach overwhelmed he:. Breathless,
''Waitv' she gasped. ''They told me
you we're"
SIN prison?" he interrupted quickly.
eyes, but hope can burst stone walls,
despair disrupt iron letters. l did not
expect to meet you so soon. 1t was that
man, Arnold Dacre, | sought Tell me
i am not too late? Tell me-he is
still at Ridgevlle-he has not fled?-for
the score he owes my broken. blighted
life, must be paid tears for tears, woe
for woe, heart-break for heart-break!"
"Arnold Dacrel'
Tumultously she gasped the name, as
If a sudden revelation. Into her soul
flashed the true significance of the dark
hint Ray Webster's words conveyed. A
fierce accusation, stern arrangement,
they seemed to hint at plot villainy,
they illumined The vivid suspicion that
had famed into her own mind that morn
ing, that some hidden, sinister hand was
wreaking trouble, disaster against her
father, herself, and those she loved.
Then you thought me guilty?" cried
Dalton sharply, 'you--"
Look! look! sh, it may not be too late
yet. Father! father.'
With suddenness that startled Web
ster, feverish hope springing to her
eyes, Flora abruptly ran to the rivers
edge.
CHANGING across the bread stream once
more, she caught last sight of the
horseman bound for the bank With
shock, her thoughts returned to her
father-to his environment, his peril.
"Your father? yes, I see," spoke
Webster wonderngly. ''You called
him before-you are agitated
''His life is menaced. Oh. he has
gone on" walled Flora, wrirging her
hands trantically, as the horseman again
disappeared from view. ''Will no one
save him?'
''From what?'
She turned upon the questioner. her.
self the supplicant now. Amid her emo
ton, her ouivering hand sought his arm,
and rested there pleadingly.
The Bank!' she painted incoherently.
He must not go there. 1t is trouble,
peril, perhaps death. The thirst for his
blood, that man Dacre says-a mad,
reckless mob, for the bank has failed,
and"
Failed? oh! the heartless scoundrel
His plots have succeeded, l understand
all! Flora, there is but one way to reach
to warn, to intercept your father-the
river"
He STEPPED to the remotest edge OF the
bank. Her eyes swept the surface of
the stream which here ran at it's swift
est. She knew its dangers, for few
rods below the plunging falls tugged
at the current like giant at stout
hempen ropes.
mo! no! not that way. The bridge"
she cried.
1.-The bridge? why. he would be in the
town before could reach it, am weak,
out of practice, but was good SWIM
mer once and"
Splash! Without another word, Raw
Webster precipitated himself over the
edge of the bank.
'Come backr'
wall of love and distress, as that of
some bride bereft stretching her empty
hands across the void that had swallowed
up loved one. Flora Merwyn tottered
on the bank.
AT the fervid supplication, the water