The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1894-08-02

Aurlen LatOur, were YOU
blind then? Are you blind now? Boy
though you We're in those days, expert
ence should clear your vision as you
look back at themr
The man did not answer. A thrill
went through him, half hope, half dread.
The white moon, higher overhead, re-
dected from the yellow sands in saffron
CLEAN. In that silence Latour seemed
to hear the wild beating of his own
heart, and twice the words forming in
his brain had rushed to his lips. But
twice those portals of speech remained
closed. AT last the woman spoke, and
again as though continuing a subject:
Eyes, there is world of things from
those days that l recall so we'll. You
one walk around Filtration,
when you answered my badinage about
Arthur and Guinevere? When we part
ed, four hands crossed; and, as you re.
minded me just now-I am marriedv
81 recall the day as clearly as yester-
day." he answered. when the hands
crossed, you said, Farewell, Sir Launce-
lotr"
would you have had me say, We'll
come, Sir Launcelot?"
A hot flush rose to the mans face.
He drew quick breath, about to speak,
when she went on, quietly:
"Ah, we were younger then, in years;
very children, in world knowledge.
Since | have lived ages in experience.
Now l know that the legend of Guine.
we're does not belong to ancient Britain.
Indeed, it is no legend, but the crystal
lizing of living, bitter truth. 1t be-
longs to all nations today, as it ever has
and ever will! Who may say but she
that archetype of woman"-she waved
her whip to the Sphinx, towering grim
and hoar in the moonlight beyond the
river-"was the Guinevere of some i'm
memorial Arthur"
"Who knows, indeed?" Latour replied
"You yourself have told me that woman
is the riddle of the ages"
Eyes" she went on; "a Guineyere in
ancient Memphis may have inspired the
Titanic poem yonder. In Rome she
would have spoiled the pretty moral fable
by listening to the Tarquin. In France
and England today she is the victim of
CONVEYANCE, that octopus grasping all
that is best of us to crush relentless in
Its Shiny tentacles. In Paris she may
drive her pony ph4ton in the Bots, la
riene du demi-monde; in London she
only lunches with his Highness of
Wales!"
There was bitterness in the tone,
though it foated low and musical upon
the desert night; and the eyes that held
him in their darkening CLEAN grew
blacker still as she added slowly:
"Who among us, without sin, dare
cast the first stone at her? | shall not.
| pity her-sympathize with herr
By def touch upon the bit she checked
her speed so suddenly that the man had
to throw his mare upon her launches to
keep beside her.
They were close upon those magnifi'
cent memorials in Saracenic architect
ure, reared to departed glories of that
line of Memlook sultans who seized the
Egyptian throne in mid Thirteenth cent
ury and held it 300 years.
In the white moonlight the frette(
minarets glittered like frost work, coldl.
pointing to heaven from the immemoria
past. The silence BETTING those mau
soleums of an antiquity almost forgotten
brooded over the lovely picture, unrea
and fantastic as mirage exhaling iron
the desert sands.
"How cool and restful that depth Q
shadow looks!" Lady Martindale said
pointing to the massed blackness throw
almost over them by the mausoleum c
the Sultan Bergook. Its invitation
dismount and share its quiet is resis
less"
Without reply Latour threw himse
from the saddle to assist her easy di
) mount, looping the brides of both mare
under their fore shoulders, more frol
habit than through fear Of desertiol
Then the woman sat upon fallen pi
Q lar, the man pacing now in the mool
S light, now in the deep shadow, throug
g which her form cleaned vague al
o ghost like in the gloom.
Not of the dead past, but of the livir
d present, seemed the thoughts of bot
e and she went on as though not int
rupted:
u "And you remember how l JEST
n about her and Elaine? Poor little Elain
10 She-the type Of weakness and unresis
Us ance in that grand epic of the passions
NJ was the type of woman, too. And Elai
of our day went-downward with t
ID food"
le The man stood still, his face in fl
II light. Over it passed Pickering me-
DRY; but an impatient gesture was
hs sole reply.
ne "Ah, strange, truly are those revens
d. brought in by the whirligig of tim
IN Edith went on slowly. But stranger 81
II. the reversal of that epic's moral
twas godlike Arthur's self from wh'
ID. Launcelot would have borne her ba
TX to-
" On his face the memory came ba
deepening to wondering pain; but
II only gasped:
We Great God! You know"
'se eyes, know" she answered in
r. changed tone. "The clash of sabers
to- moonlight is too romantic not to mi
ep echo, and sudden vanishing of maid
zen from enchanted towers may be follow
MS by quest too eager even for most
y Greet ogres to keep secret. Bessie
ley Capt. Arnold entertained us at Newr
'ay that summer; and you know what sic
young officers are!"
a., "And the-she fled from him after
mt night There was neither pain
nd eagerness in Latour's voice-only
- curiosity.
Eyes; she fed from New Orle;
81 But"-and genuine surprise crept