The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-12-07


she had money with her arm round his
neck, her cheek nestled against his, and
her hand smoothing the hair from his
forehead.
1t was at this frenzied point of his
meditations that the captain sat down
to write the letter which turned Kitty
the next morning white as the break
fast cloth.
Being girl of singularly high spirit
she did not utter single word, but af-
fected to go on with her breakfast un-
concernedly until her father and her
two young sisters had quilted the room.
Then she rose, and getting behind her
mothers chair to prevent the white
anguish of her face being seen, she
said in breathless staccato sentences:
"Read that, mother 1t is from Capt.
Darlington Never speak either of it
or of him to me again"
And before her mother had realized
that something horrible had happened
to sever the lovers Kitty had swept in
the queenliest way from the room.
Nor even in the privacy of, her own
room did she for long time break
down into abject tears. She stood as
uhoukh uIuCu W WllUC ldCluk
defiantly the captains photograph
over the mantle piece, as though daring
it to repeat the outrageous language of
the letter.
When her mothers timid knock came
presently to the door Kitty asked in
dull dead voice:
"What is it?''
Its |, dear"
well mother, what is itp" she re-
peated upon her mothers entrance.
Its some Misunderstanding, Kitty
some dreadful Misunderstanding
mischief making of his auut's. From
the first dear, / never liked"
"Don't, mother, asked you not and
I meant it," she said in tone which at
once silenced and terrified her gentle
| mother.
Turning to say something not less re-
| pellant and steel-cold to her mother,
Kitty caught the yearning trouble in
her gentle eyes and was moved to fold
her impulsively in her arms and sob:
Dear mother Dear, dear mother!'
| And soon the poor girl was again a
child upon her mothers knee Yet
even then she would not let her mother
talk of that letter or its writer.
''If | struck you in the face, mother,
| you would not like ever to speak of it,
or have it spoken of. Let me try to for
| get it, it's the most can hope for" she
said, with an aching desolation in her
voice which made her mother press her
almost passionately to her bosom.
But, though poor Kitty would not al
low her mother to discuss the letter or
it's writer, or the motive of its writing,
with an inconsistency that girls will
understand, she permitted, even per-
! haps encouraged, her dearest friend,
Miss Bell Herbert, to discuss the whole
affair eXhaustively.
Its the aunt, of course; and it's Mr..
Rolleston, of course; but nothing you
could do or she could say justifes such
letter. I should dearly like TO give
him little lesson with this" switching
her ridingwhip viciously in the air
NeedI say that little of this vigor.
GUS virago talk of physical vengeance
upon the recreant had a reactionary eff
feet on Kitty? Her love was dead
murdered, as she thought-but she rev.
erenced, so to say, the body of the
dead, and could not endure it's desecra.
tion by such talk
AS Bell had the tact to perceive this,
she went at once upon the opposite
tack of trying to imagine an adequate
provocation for such letter.
She cross-eXamined Kitty upon all
firtations with Mr. Rolleston without
finding anything which anyone could
candidly consider disloyalty to her en-,
gagement.
But there's no knowing what she'd
think improper" she wound up-"she'
being Mrs. Lyncourt, the captains
aunt. "Some of these prim English.
women are like Neds wooden soldiers
so stiff that anything which pushes
them out of the perpendicular by a
hairs breadth sends them over I
together
Having done something by her sym
pathy at least if not by her comments
and her counsel, to comfort poor Kitty's
narrowed heart, Bell had to quit hel
to ride home, where there happened to
be urgent need of her presence al
lunch.
just as she was in the act of mount
ing her mare unaided, and for this
purpose had gathered up her habl'
with one hand, she caught sight of the
recreant captain standing staring al
her as though turned to stone
He had no sooner posted his letter tc
Kitty than he repented of its brutality
and hurried after it or rather with il
in the limited mail to Ireland.
His intense love coming upon hin
with rush swept everything before it.
so that in this mood and for the mo-
ment he would believe nothing-not
that Internal photograph, not his owr
very eyes-against Kitty's truth and
modesty
Bell, though she had no idea thai
this was the captain (whom she haG
never SEEM, was arrested by the stupe
faction expressed in the face of this
man who stared at her as at the ghost
of some one he had murdered.
Presently he took out photograph
and compared it with her face and fig