The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1896-06-05

number of one of the magazines. She
was essentially of her own day and gen.
Grafton; and she apparently knew little
and cared less about the subtler dis
tinctions of motives and of character
which SO torment and perpleX the
student of his kind. Without in the
least suspecting it, and being, on the
contrary, quite fully resolved to keep
in touch with bristling activity of
modern life, Hugh Ringbrand was
already beginning to acquire the intro
spective habit of closet.student; peace
and quietness, and a well-selected Ii
brary, seemed to comprehend the con-
ditions most necessary to his well-be-
ing; and such an environment with the
breezy personality of Hester Latimer
for the central figure appeared almost
laughably incongruous.
To do him full justice, Ringbrand
tried very earnestly to reason his way
out of the emotional tangle in which he
found himself-the more insistently,
perhaps, because he felt his powers of
resistance slipping away from him in a
closer acquaintance with Hester. The
experience of those few weeks was en-
tirely without precedent in his we'll
ordered life. He had said to himself,
in certain self-congratulatorym moods,
that he had successfully passed the age
when passion usurps the place of i'm
partial judgment; that an artist must
be SO far removed from the emotional
side of life in his own experience as to
be able to look upon it with the cool and
dispassionate eye of critical student;
and up to that unlucl1y moment when
he had seen Hester Latimer trip across
the platform at Chilwanee Junction he
found little difficulty in conforming to
the artistic requirement. Now, how
ever, the point of view seemed to have
veered SO suddenly that it left him CROP
ing in mist of uncertainties, in which
he was sure of nothing but an over
whelming desire to possess Hester; a
desire which contemptuously pushed
aside the arguments of reason as of no
weight and quite unworthy of the
smallest consideration.
And then the incident of the evening
the indistinct shadow in the bushes,
Henry's hasty and vindictive intention,
the colonePs interference, and Hester
sitting unmoved through it all. What
was the meaning of this warlike episode?
Were such things of SO little moment
in the daily life of the south that they
could be passed over without comment?
1t would appear so, since his hosts had
Immediately ignored the incident as
though it had never been. Even Hester
had been able to take up the thread of
inconsequent conversation again with
no visible sign of perturbation or EN-
barrassment. What was the reason for
Henry's sudden and savage wrath?
Could the intruder have been a common
marauder of chicken-coops, or was he
sneak thief hoping to find the house
unoccupied because there were nc
lights?
The sinister meaning in Henry's care
less reply answered these questions be-
fore they had taken shape. Could it
be possible that the Latimers were in
volved in one of the cruel vendettas
about which he had heard and read p
was that what Hester meant when she
said her own family had not escaped?
And following closely upon the heels
of the latter question came another: If
he should enter the family, would he
be expected to bear part in any such
irregular warfare? No. that was not
quite the way to state it; say, rather,
could he reasonably hope to hold the re-
spect and affection of his wife upon any
other condition?
The night was cool, and the light air
sweeping up the side of the mountain
ofof, ,1 nd no
heat of the day, and yet Ringbrand
grew uncomfortably warm as the in
evitable conclusion placed itself like
gigantic exclamation point at the end
of his theories. The possession of
physical courage in his own proper per-
son is not a necessary qualification for
the writer of stories. 1t is true that he
must recognize its existence, and he
must be upon sufficiently intimate terms
with it's outward presentments to be
able to Undue his heroes with proper
degree of contempt for their personal
safety; beyond this, the eXigencies of
the art demand nothing, and the artist
himself may be the most humble votary
of the goddess of common sense. Some
such thought as this came to Ringbran
as he made his way down the mountain.
The successive scenes of his uneventful
life passed in review like the pictures
of a retrospective panorama. Now that
he thought of it, he saw that all of his
lines of conduct had been drawn
we'll upon the hither side of personal
antagonism-that he had always been
averse to anything approaching an ar
bitrament of force. With well-mean-
ing sophistry, he had argued himself
into the belief that contempt for mere
physical courage was part of the
thoughtful mans protest against bru-
tality and the unconvincing logic of
appeals to physical superiority; but he
remembered, with sharp little sting
of modification, that these fine-spun
theories had been swept aside like cob
webs on the few occasions when he had
been brought face to face with personal
danger. 1t was not necessary to go far
for an example; flush of shame glowed
in his face when he recalled the small
fit of terror that had seized him but an
hour before, when he had stood help
lessly watching Henry trying to get
the lodging shadow within the range of
his rife.
After that, his thoughts kept him but
Indifferent company for the rest Of his
walk, and he reached Tregarthen, and
his room at the Ludlows', without hav-