The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-06-05
CHAPTER II.
A HALT IN TIKI ROAD.

pretty girl on the rear seat. "You are
N artist. What do you think of the
workmanship of this?"
He had taken from an inner pocket q
mall leather case, which he now passed
D his companion. When the young man
ad brought to light the contents, he
held i'll his hand a medallion, set in a
jowelcd frame-a medallion upon the
convex surface of which was craven the
attractive features of q handsome wom-
an. Tho work was 50 delicate, the sitting
SO rich, the effect of the whole so ex-
Quisite that the artist involuntarily ut
tered a cry of pleasure.
"Why, this is really admirable, La
mar! Who isit? Where did you get it?'
Tho man on the front seat answered
in q voice as cold and Unconditional as q
voice could well be:
''Inasmuch as this is the woman
whom | am to marry, | thought a toler-
ably fair counterfeit of her face would
be interesting to my friends"
Tho pretty girl, who had been admir-
ing the dainty valuable, became, as he
spoke, somewhat pale.
''Oh," she said in q constrained, con-
ventional way, this is Mrs. Forsythe?"
Mrs. Forsythe, F" assented the man
on the front seat.
"She is very pretty" said the girl in
the same tone.
AS she spoke she put the medallion
quickly into the hand of the young man
who sat beside her and averted her head.
"Another choice" exclaimed the
man on tho front scat in a brisker tone,
CHANGING at a fork in the white road
which the fleet horses were rapidly ap-
preaching. Shall we take the inland
road direct Or go by the roundabout sea
road? We shall see more life by the first
way, but we shall have better sleighing
and plenty Of cold wind by the second.
Which shall it be-"
(Which shall it be, Ellen?' repeated
tho young man to the pretty girl.
ut makes no difference to me-"
"Then let us have the sea road and
the sleighing. We are in no hurry, and
a little cold won't hurt u.s."
"Jacta est alea. The sea road it shall
be-"
The sleighing party was now within
eight miles Of the city, the location of
which was marked by a vague glow in
the wintry sky, Gradually the laughter
had ceased and words had become infre-
quent. The bells on the horses jingled
merrily MS ever, and the rapid hoof beats
on the hard crust came to the ear through
the biting air in the same inspiriting
pulsations, but for all that it was cold
riding after sCndown along the sea road,
with the bitter breath from the darken-
ing ocean full in tho face.
Every mopCnt the fences and hedge
rows were becoming more indistinct,
and the dreary white landscape between
the observers and the fading streak in
tho horizon, where the sun had lately
been, was rapidly losing all significance
or intelligibility Is a prospect. Truly
DR.. Eustace Lamar had forgotten the
flight Of time i'll his enjoyment Of the ex-
hilarating sport, or he had sadly miscal-
culated the distance. Not that there was
anything to be dreaded in tho ordinary
course Of events Of a ride in the pale
starlight or under the mellow rays of the
moon. The road was q good one, and
very soon it would be well lighted. And
If the three pleasure seekers We're a trife
cold they could console themselves with
the comforting reflection that there was
o cheerful fire waiting for them in the
agreeable sitting Don Of the uppermost
fiat at 20 Ballavoine place. 1t was not
ali elaborate affair, this abode of Julian
Maxey, the artist, but it was q pleasant,
interesting and certainly on a cold night
like this a very comfortable and desira-
BILE place in which to be.
Perhaps it was not owing altogether
to the cold that an unwonted silence had
fallen upon the occupants Of the sleigh.
Pretty Ellen MaXey, the artists sister,
who sat beside her brother on the rear
seat, had dealt q deathblow to the con-
ver5atlon Whan she ceased to take part
in it. But she was not asleep, and her
face, protected from view by abundant
wraps and the growing obscurity, had
gradually settled into an expression at
once wistful, pathetic and resigned.
Maxey, whose power Of observation
was not wholly o matter Of eyesight,
had become annoyed and solicitous, but
he took pains not to botray this fact.
As for philosophic, middle aged,
handsome DR.. Lamar, tho prime cause
Of the whole trouble, he was supremacy
unconscious Of any unhappinoss on the
part Of his friends. lie sat bolt upright
all by himself on the front seat, his
hands busy with the roins aud his at
tention apparently completely absorbed
in scanning tho road as far as he could
sec in front of his swift team. The truth
is that DR.. Lamar had blundcringly and
unwittingly touched upon a topic ex-
ceedingly disagreeablo to his friends be-
hind him when he mentioned his ap-
preaching marriage with the wealthy
Widow F~orsythe.
If DR.. Lamar had only known how
fine and handsome he appeared in his
pretty neighbours eyes, it would have as
tonished him a great deal, and he would
have been henceforth very much more
discreet in his remarks. If pretty Ellen
Maxey had imagined how well her keen
and penetrating brother had guessed her
secret, undoubtedly she would have dis
simulated a great deal Of gloo and mer-
rimont in a dospairing endeavor to have
thrown him off the scent, for the heart
beats proudly in the breast of q girl like
her, and this was such q secret as sho
would wish might die with her.
They were all young. The doctor was
the eldest, and he had barely reached
40. He was a brilliant young man who
had made something Of n name in the
medical world by q Iocent remarkable
publication, and whose practice was al