Arizona republican., 1894-11-07

| time. By eight o'clock all was fin ished. The sleet was still beating against the window. Even if she had had anywhere to go, she could not have gone. But it was having no- where to go that made her feel so lonely. There was nothing to do but sit still and think. Marion was gen. orally too busy for this, but tonight she could not help thinking a little bitterly of the loveless life she led. 1 And then she tell to wondering what that other one was like. Of course she was pretty. There was photograph of girl upon Carrington's mantel- piece, with Mora Thurston" scrawled across the foot. Doubtless that was | she.
 ''Oh, if I might be just a little beau tiful, just for little while!" she sighed to herself. Then, refecting that the wish was absurd, she had her supper-a couple of biscuits and | glass of milk-and went to bed There are two kinds of women those who offer sacrifice and those who 1 demand it. The latter must have some ] thing to lean upon; the former must l have some one to support, somebody to feed or fondle or convert. It may be a husband, it may be a curate or a cat or a cannibal. Now, Marion Norman was one of those women who long | vaguely for some one for whose sake they shall have right to sacrifice 1 themselves.
 A fortnight had passed, and the op- eration was over. For some days Lewis Darlington had lain upon his sofa in a darkened room with bandage across his eyes and terrible dread at his heart. He was waiting for the remov 1 al of the bandage to know whether he was to see or be blind for the rest of his life. Marion had been with him all the time, waiting upon him and reading to him. She had not been so happy for years, for Lewis Darlington depended entirely upon her. Every day she had been downstairs to answer the inquiries of a fair-haired girl. It was the girl whose photograph stood upon the mantelpiece. Every day she had been able to tell her that Lewis was going on well, and that there was l every hope that he would see as soon as his eyes were strong enough to bear | the light.
 The evening before the day on which 1 the question was to be decided, Car rington was restless and nervous Ma rion read aloud to him to keep his | thoughts from the morrow. But she saw hls fingers twitch upon the arm of his chair and knew of what he was thinking. At 10 o'clock she insisted on his going to bed. But for more than an hour Marion, who was listen | ing by his half-open door, heard him l tossing from side to side. She had de- cided to give him a soothing draught | when his breathing became more regu- l lar, and at last settled down into the rhythmic respiration of the sleeper. So Marion lay down on the sofa in the sitting room.
 She had been asleep, as it seemed, but little while when something awoke her, and from where she lay she saw Darlington standing in the doorway between the sitting room and his bed room.
 "Mr. Darlington! What is the mat ter? Can get anything for you?' she said, starting up in alarm.
 He did not reply, but walked slowly, without turning his head, straight across the room to the window, over which heavy pair of curtains hung. ''Mr. Darlington" she said again. But he did not answer. And then she understood that he was asleep. 1 For the moment, in. her half-awak- ened state, she could not think of the right thing to do. She watched him pull one of the curtains aside. The light from gas lamp in the street be- low fell full upon his face. And by the light she saw that his hands were pulling and tugging at something up on the back of his head. He was try ing to take off the bandage from his eyes. In another moment if he sue ceeded, the glare of the gas lamp would meet them and extinguish for ever the feeble glimmer of sight. Her l senses, half dazed with fatigue and sleep, Marion, in that instant of startled comprehension, saw but one thing, that Lewis Darlington would be blind, and being blind
 Her heart gave great leap of exul- tation. Motionless she sat, watching him as he still fumbled with the band age.
 "The lover is always selfish, espe- cially if it be a woman."
 The words broke in a flash across her mind-the last sentence she had taken down from Carrington's lips. In an instant she was by his side, wide awake, every nerve tingling with