Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1894-10-12
She walkad on faster

consciousness. She walkad on faster
and faster, in futile effort to avoid the
crowd; her head was aching intolera-
bly,, and something inside her brain
seemed to be humping like trip ham
mer
New York had never seemed so ag-
gressively on the alert as to-day. Ac-
tually, to see them, one would think
Broadway was the Mecca of the universe,
as dear to their hearts as the stone which
Moslems travel miles to kiss.
There was that Markham girl on tho
front seat of the Taylor drag. How
ridiculously happy she had looked since
her engagement to Dick Taylor.
"Ah, we'll, girls like that were al
ways complacent," Honor said to her
self at is the shallow stream which
is never unruffled"
Tom said there was a standing joke
at the club about her, Honor remom-
bered asking him iii was on account of
her being standing joke that she made
them all so tired. Tom could bear any
amount Of levity.
She began to wonder in a dull way
If any one would ever accuse her of flip
pancy again? She felt horribly passe
and jaded No one except Tom had
ever understood her, anyway, when she
paused to look back upon it He had
been q friend and a brother and lover
all in one.
Honor walked on as if impelled by
some invincible force, holding back her
toars while the pain in her throat
mounted up to her ears, and she was
reminded of the time when, as child,
she held vinegar in her mouth to deter
mine whether sho had the mumps. When
she had gone dozen blocks farther the
crowd had thinned, and the street lamps
we're now being lighted.
She turned then. and reluctantly set
her face toward home. A square ahead
of her street organ was grinding out the
refrain of tho familiar 1.-TWO step" which
Tom had taught her
As long as she lived. she felt sure,
whenever she should hear those strains
of the Cadets March" she would be
reminded Of the cozy, hastily snatchod
half hours at the close Of the crowded
days when Toms fair head was but dim
silhouette against tho pale light Of the
window, while the fingers would STUN
BILE aud halt in the twilight as no thrum-
med his banjo strings, his mclodious
humming intersperssd with his staccato
laughter, and tender word now and
then for tho girl beside him.
Honor paused at tho corner, and gave
the man piece Of money His "God
bless you, miss, caused the corner Of
her lips to twitoh uncertainty in her
struggle for composure.
Whom she reached her door it was
quite dark, and she paused with her
hand on the bell, and stood there 10 u
vague way trying to analyze the despair
which controlled her, The lights were
cleaning from beneath the drawn cur
tains IN the house across the way. AS
she gazed across with heavy eyes the
door was opened, and the colored lights
in the hall threw the figure of man in
evening dress into vivid relief.
Honor watched him as he lighted
cigar and threw it away When the
door closed behind him. shutting 10 tho
light Of the hall, she felt like the peri
at the gate of paradise But a moment
later he re-appenred beneath the gas
light in the street, and she saw him
plunge deliberately into the whirlpool Of
passing vehicles. and dodge this way
and that in an effort to gain the sidewalk
oppOsite