Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-03-20
CHAPTER XIX.
q SHALL NEVER CONQUER MY L,

II SHALL NEVER CONQUER MY LOVE. ''
 There had been nearly q week of in cessant rain. A dark pail of cloud, gloomy and changeless, overhung the earth like a vault of solid lead but tressed upon the mountains whose peaks were hidden from view. Cold, gray mists crawled along the heights, tan gling themselves among the pines or lying low down in the valleys, level and motionless, presenting to the deluded eye the appearance of wide, calm lakes rehecting the hue of the sky above. The soil was sodden; the unwary foot treading upon the solid seeming turf sank deep in lurking pools of mud thickened water. The meadows were inundated, every hollow a pond, every trench and ditch frothing brook. The single street of the village was narrow river covered with refuse, among which padded the ducks and geese of the com munity, snuffed at enviously by shiver- ing dogs and moaned over by bedrag gled, houseless cats.
 Down all the hillsides roared foaming torrents. Gentle, dripping cascades, from whose messy brinks the small
 
 into destructive floods bearing down from the fastnesses above splintered logs and uprooted trees. Those who had lived all their lives in that region con- fessed with ominous shakings of the head never to have seen such storm before
 Up at the MoncktOn mansion the young proprietor sat at his library win dow, listening to the vail of the wind and the Ceaseless sound of the rain. in sOrrOwful mood, deepened and darkened by the funereal aspect of the weather. Never had life seemed so fruitless and flavorless as now. Never in his sternest self arraignment had he felt himself so unnecessary in the world, so objectless. During his residence in the French cap- ital he had acquired the fashionable pseudo cynicism, but that philosophy comfortably allows you to despise all mankind excepting yourself. You are the solitary spectator of a masque of fools, and your privilege of sneering rests upon your own conscious enamel patton from all shams, follies and faiths. It is a sort of sublimated con- ceit, affected by young people because it looks like experience, and natural to old people with bad tempers and worse digestions. With Ralph Monckton it had never been genuine, but donned first to conceal his boyish provincialism and the honesty and sincerity which he saw doubted or disdained by all about him it had become second nature. hardened by his real loneliness in the midst of his gay associates, the light, the glitter and the hollow laughter, his enforced idleness and his father s igno- rant pride.
 Now as he sat gazing out at the driv- ing storm it was simply savage self dis gust that he felt, loathing of the past, wea-iness of the present and hopelessness of the future. It was state of mind that had fallen upon him first on that wretched afternoon when he had offered himself to Imogene Duke and had spread and widened within him ever since. As he thought of his careless, foppish pro- posal-and he was always thinking of it now--he shuddered and felt sick. And beneath the shame of it was a hard, reDding pain-a dry, cold agony-for he loved her, as he had known he loved her when she turned upon him that day. With her love, what could he not dor Majestic visions of great deeds, noble and glorious works, the splendid rising of a new dawn for mankind, crowded his brain. Oh, if she loved him!
 His meditations were broken in upon by sharp rap at the door, and Joyce entered, followed by a man clad in a dripping suit of miners habiliments. Monckton recognized the latter as one of the superintendents, John Turner by name, formerly one of North's stoutest henchn1en.
 He refused to submit a written re- port, sir," explained Joyce, with an in- jured air, but insisted upon seeing you in person.
 Because, retorted the man, twisting his sodden hat round and round in his big fingers, there ain't no time to write reports, even so be it as had my copy book for the letters and my Web ster's speller to get the words correck.
 "Slt down, Turner" said Monckton, land tell me what you want"
 II don't want nothin, myself" " re- piled Turner, numbering into the chair placed for him. II m out of it and don't propose for to risk my skin agin by go- ing back, at no ones orders, meaning re- speckful to you all the same, sir.'
 What is it now?" inquired the pro prietor. "Some new trouble at the mines?"
 "No," was the response, nothing new, insomuch as I reported the same to MT. Joyce here weeks ago. 1 said then, I says, that wall in the Ten Foot Drive has water behind it, and, says I, that water is bound for to force its way out, and when it do, says I, there'll be widders and orphins in this village, un- less, says l, timber bulkhead is put up agin that wall. But MT. Joyce, in his jedgment, seen fitten for to refuse, and now no bulkhead of no sort, sir, will prevent what is going to happen. dead sure, before the day is out.''
 "You remember, Turner" said Monckton quietly, that I attempted to put up that bulkhead and that your friend North prevented me from doing so.'' E r- .
 "With due respeck, sir, '" replied Tur- ner. Matthew North has ceased to be my friend, being pigheaded and ohs+' nate beyond reason, and cursing '-the red face famed redder with indignation ives, sir, cursing, incredible, at older and more experienced men than himself for offered advice. Since that eventful day me and Matthew is out"
 "But about the Ten Foot Drive, Tur- ner," interposed the proprietor.
 Well, sir, as I said, there has always been water behind that wall. No man with my ears, s," touching one of those large, fiabby members with his finger, ''could mistake the sound. Boomi boomi gurglei gurglei Now, it's been raining hard the best part of week, and as came across the bridge at the bend this morning noticed that the