The Olneyville tribune. (Providence, R.I.) 1893-189?, 1893-10-21
HOW SHE PARDONED.


Oddway's gray stuff skirt and wrapped
it about her ankles. She bent her
head TO the blast. The September
afternoon was fading rapidly, blotted
out in the scudding masses Of those
tumultuous clouds. The road to
Jagged Point was always lonely. To-
day she had met but one man, who
had nodded curtly.
Surely she was now used to all
this? Yet this afternoon, as she
reached the cottage door and barri-
caded it against the storm, there
was pallor about her lips bitter
ness in her steady gray eyes.
She took off her cloak and looked
about her. The solitariness struck
upon her. The wind was rising in
slow but surely ascending force out
side. 1t would be bad night at the
seaport town, two miles distant But
it would be worse night On Jagged
Point, where the cottage stood alone
and neighborless
Prudence Oddway, daughter and
granddaughter Of sailors, knew the
signs. Yet it was not o! the coming
storm that she thought. Three years
ago to-day. Three years, hour for
hour! Against the growing gloom OF
the cottages bare walls strange pic
lures began to form. She could see
a certain face, a certain shape, so
vividly that she laid her hand against
her throat as il TO stine the pain
there. 1t was an ache, terrible
straining Of all the chords, and her
eyes shared that ache. Yet she
would not let the tears come
Tears? Or what good were they?
She had chosen. She had laid out
for herself her own path. And-ycs!
even now, with the passion of love,
the despair Of renunciation, tearing
her heartstrings Prue Oddway
raised her head on her strong,
straight throat with the old, indom-
liable pride-she would, were the
choice given her anew, choose not
otherwise.
=
The rain fell suddenly, in beat
ing torrent as John Wisher reached
his door. His house stood upon the
outskirts Of the town. Temperance,
his wife, was laying the supper table
in the oil-clothed Kitchen.
II amt seen a more threatenin'
night off the coast this Ten year"
said John. And, a little later. as he
stirred his tea: II see Prudence odd
way a walkin' TO the Point an hour
ago Taint any kind OF night for
woman-and a young woman-to
be out there alone"
Temperance tossed the slice Of pie
she was cutting sharply into his
plate
'Ain't she made her own bed?
Amt she bound TO lie on it now?
Who asked her to give up all old
Cap'n Oddway's money and TO go and
live out there alone and do her own
work and act the way she did TO Aus
tin Bedd?'
John looked into his plate. He
was not minded to reawaken this
discussion. 1t had ragged for months
among the housewives OF the town.
1t was only now, after three years,
beginning TO be forgotten. Prue
Oddway, with her stern, pale beauty,
full-bosomed and imperious was not
loved OF the women OF the town,
Less loved than ever had she been
when handsome Austin Redd had
come back from his first long yoy-
age, with his stalwart shoulders his
compelling eyes his way" that
filed the thoughts OF the younger
maideps with love-sick dreams For
Austin Redd had kept company"
with Prue Oddway, and she had won
him away from all others, and then
they had been engaged. Then had
come the night when, having drunk
more than was good for him, and be-
ing, by boon companions tauntcd
with his iDfatuation for old Capt
Oddway's daughter, he had staggered
and said that IL was 'the money he
had cared for as well as the girl I"
The half-drunkcn words bad been re-