The National tribune., 1895-04-25
90 D'S
Sa rsa

might see how the leaping ray of the lam
tern sprang forward into the darkness?
"Dere's-my-papa," Colin heard the lit
tie voice cry out, and he knew that the
chubby little forefnger was pointed after
him.
"Papa's gone! Papa's gone " said Lucy,
in the singsong tone supposed to be sooth-
ing to the infant mind and Colin heard the
door shut 1t had closed forever between
them and him.
He stopped short in the middle of the
road.
"Oh, God can't leave them," he said
with n sob.
Still he knew he must go on.
He rowed in his skiff to the appointed
spot, but when he reached it the woman
was not there.
He strained his ear to catch the echo OF
an approaching football, but the murmurs
of the night seemed to fall around him like
a vail of sound.
Her delay was both o relief and terror
to him.
Must it be? Must IL be? His mind
stumbled again and again over the same
dark thought. There were other ways
one other way. A mans strength against
a womans-and in this lonely spot.
His clothes were dank with moisture. and
his limbs trembled beneath him. Still she
did not come.
Hour after hour passed, and he knew that
day was at hand. 1t was more a feeling
than an appearance. First, the whippoor-
wills forebore to cry. There was q hush in
the air, a peculiar damp, cold smell; every
spear of grass stood motionless, trembling
under its weight of dew.
The chill wind of dawn began to rise,
bearing q fresh scent of earth and flowers.
He heard an uneasy cow bell here and
there, and knew the cows were getting on
their feet. A calf bieated hundred cocks
began to call each other from the neighbor-
ing farm houses Colin looked at the sky
A moment before it had been trembling
with stars ; suddenly as if pail had been
drawn across il, every star had vanished.
Then came the first bird voice-a high,
shrill cry of two syllables, far overhead.
that seemed to fall from the upper air.
After few waking notes, harsh and quer-
ulous, the mocking bird started off into q
clear, whistling cadence. Then all the
birds began to sing at once; and above
them all could be heard the thrush saying
over and over again sweetly what he had
said before the close of the day.
There was q growing brightness in the
East.
Colin looked about him with eyes that
smarted and felt filmy. A sudden sense of
weakness and emptiness had come over him.
He felt that he must 90 home; that he no
longer cared what scheme Annette's malice
might be devsing. All that he wanted was
to get back to his warm nest of love and
happiness.
When he reached the house he could
hardly walk, and his feet stumbled at the
threshold. He knocked again and again.
The windows were close barred and voice
less. Supposing that the judgment of God
had struck his home. and that Lucy and the
child had died in the night, groan welled
up from his heart. He hammered frantically
upon the door.
At length a timorous voice called out:
" Who's there?n
"Colin-let me in quick"
Lucy opened the door and he staggered in.
"Why, Colin" she cried, "your clothes
feel damp and your hands are as cold as iee
am afraid you are going to be sick"
Yes, Pm SICK" said Colin, with chatter
ing teeth. "Let me go to bed"
II was late in the day when he awoke,
heard Jaeky on the front porch, rolling over
in joyful scuffie with the puppy. Lucy
was sewing beside the window. She greeted
his open eyes with smile, but did not
speak, hoping he might fall asleep again.
Lucy, he said, raising himself on his
elbow, has any one been here to-day?"
No one, DEAR" she replied, in her quiet
little voice.
He sank back upon the pillow with mo-
mentary feeling OF relief.
No blight had fallen as yet upon his house.
For the next two days Colin lived like a
man under sentence of death, but on the
third day, while he sat at break fast, one of
the field hands came to tell him that the
body of a woman had been picked up in the
river not far from the house.
When Colin looked upon the dead face he
recognized Annette. An eddy had brought
her almost 10 his door. He fancied that she
must have missed her footing in the dark
and so fallen into the water on her way to meet
him. He could never guess that, in the sud-
den revulsiOn of the moment and the ag0n-
izing rush of recollection she had drowned
herself. If she had waited, the swell of emo
tion would have ebbed, but she had been
and, in its full of tide" it had
swept her TO her death.
Colin arranged that she should receive de-
cent burial. He did not curse her memory,
for be rejoiced with trembling at the thought
of all that he had been spared.
"Poor thing!" sighed Lucy pitifully,
perhaps she had no one to love her.
Exchange.