The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-12-10

>*s e
She stepped into her mothers room and
| stopped to kiss her forehead.
lounging at the window, delighted with
the life and hustle of the city streets
and vaguely longing to get out and air
his new 'tcits," yet not quite daring to
go to Kitty's in them, because she de-
clared she'd never speak to him except
in uniform, and Mrs. Farrar was lean
ing back in her easy chair, tanning her.
self slowly, with her eyes and thoughts
on her boy, even though Helen Daunton
was reading aloud to her long, inter-
esting letter, there came a shout from
Will that brought the blood to Ellis
face and drove it instantly from Helen
Daunton's. Confronting each other as
they sat, each saw and marked unerr-
ingly the effect upon the other of Wills
jubilant announcement.
'Here's Jack Ormsby!''
| Helen made her escape from the room
that night before he entered, had never
been in the parlor on the occasion of his
brief visits thereafter, yet had seen him.
Ellis never forgot how the evening of
his last call, when his card came up to
her, she remembered that Mrs. Daunton
was searching at that moment for
book in the library back Of the parlor.
She noted that Helen did not come at
once away, as had been her wont. She
fingered few minutes over the last
she was distrustful, jealous Of her lover,
she was woman enough to loose no chain
that bound him. Her heart was flutter-
ing and her face was pale as she stepped
| into her mothers room and stopped to
| kiss her forehead, and Mrs. Farrar look
ed at her wistfully, as though half ready
| to plead for the honest fellow she had
grown to trust and honor. From Mrs.
Daunton Ellis had wrung the admission
that some years ago she had met and
known Mr.. Ormsby. From Jack Ormsby
she had learned that he had never
known Mrs. Daunton in his life, and
her heart was filled with misgivings as
she went swiftly down the stairs turn
ed sharply at the bottom and in an in
slant stood at the library door.
! Just as she expected, there. peeping
/ through the heavy meshes of the por-
there's, invisible to any one in the par
lor, yet able to study it's occupants at
will; there, clutching the silken folds
in her beautiful white hands, with her
face pallid and quivering with emotion,
with great tears trickling down her
cheeks; there, deaf to her coming, stood
Helen Daunton, gazing spellbound at
the man who dared to approach her
Ellis Farrar-in the guise Of a lover.
And Jack Ormsby had vowed that
never until he met her had he known
what it was to love a woman, vowed
that his heart had been all her own ever
since the winter of her fathers death,
ever since the bitter day he had to break
to her the dreadful news, and yet, here
before her eyes, was evidence that this
woman could look upon him only in un
oontrollable emotion. What folly to talk
to her Of never having seen Helen Daun
ton before! And even then an idea flash
ed upon her. Under some other name he
must have known her, and though he
might deny the name he could not deny
the woman. Jealous, doubly jealous,
she sought to bring them face to face,
and, entering the library, quickly turn
ed on the electric light and would have
opened the portiere and babe him come
to her there, but Helen Daunton turned
and fed. All Ellis could afterward ex-
tort from her was that in her unhappy
past Jack Ormsby had befriended her,
stood by her in the sorest need, and she
would be grateful to him to her dying
day.
"And yet" said Ellis, ever doubtful
and suspicious, ''you refused to see him,
you shrank from him, and you would
not meet him." But to this there was
no reply.
That night was Ormsby's last call be-
fore he went abroad. And now, with
Christmas near at hand and her jeal-
ousy ever wrestling with her better
nature, and the respect, even the regard,
she felt growing within her for this love-
~ woman who was so devoted to her
mother, Ellis Farrar knew not what to
think or say when she noticed the unerr-
ing signs Of Malcolm Leale's growing
love and of the evident pleasure, despite
all her gentle reserve. the woman felt
in his society.
Even to Helen, then, the coming
Christmastide was bringing that which
women prize and welcome. Only Ellis
in all the busy garrison found no com.
fort in the happy season, for the lover
she longed and longed to see was by her
own act banished from her life.
CHAPTER vi,
That night Ellis Farrar was as wake
full as the sentries on their snow bound
j posts. it was after midni1ht when she