Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1896-07-15

| And" she added, with q little chuckle,
rs she tucked up her feet and leaned q
little closer to him, "here's mel"
He did not speak, but his arm quite
unconsciously passed around her small
waist You see, Clarence" she went
on, with equal Inconsistencies of the
act, you ought never to have let me
go-never. You ought TO have kept me
here, or run away with me. And YOU
oughtn't TO have tried to make me
proper. And you oughtn't to have
driven me to fiirt with that horrid
Spaniard. and you oughtn't to have
been so horribly cold and severe when I
| did. And you oughtn't to have made me
take up with Jim. who was the only one
who thought me his equal. I might
have been very silly and capricious: I
might have been very vain. but my van
ity isn't n bit worse than your pride
my love of praise and applause in the
theater isn't bit more horrid than
your fears of what people might think
of you or me. That's gospel truth, isn't
IL, Clarence? Tell me! Don't look that
way and this-lool at me. amt
poisonous, Clarence. Why, one of your
cheeks is redder than the other. CIar-
| ence-that's the one that's turned from
me- Come" she went on, taking the
lapels of his coat between her hands.
and half shaking him, half drawing
him nearer her bright face. Tell me-
isn't it true?"
Il was thinking of you just now when
fell asleep, Susy," he said. He did
not know why he said IL; he had not
intended to tell her-he had only meant
| to avoid direct answer to her uues-
ton, yet even now he went on. "And
| i thought of you when I was out there
| In the rose garden waiting to come in
here"
you did?' she said, drawing in her
| breath. 4 wave of delicate pink color
came up to her very eyes-it seemed
10 him as quickly and as innocently as
when she was n girl. "And what did
| you think, Klarus"-she half whis-
| pered-"tell me-
He did not speak, but answered her
blue eyes, and then her lips. as her arms
slipped quite naturally around his neck
The dawn was breaking as Clarence
and Jim Hooker emerged together from
the gate of the casa. Mr.. Hooker looked
| sleepy. He had found, after his return
| from Fair Plains, that his host had an
| early engagement in Santa Inez, and he
had insisted upon rising To see him on
1t was with difficulty, indeed, that Clar-
ence could prevent his accompanying
1 him. Clarence had not revealed TO Susy
the night before the real object of his
| journey, nor did Hooker evidently sus-
pect it, yet when he had mounted his
horse, he hesitated for an instant-but
without extending his hand.
''If l should happen to be detained"
he began with half smile.
But Jim was struggling with Il yawn.
"Tha's all righ'-don't mind us" he
said, stretching his arms. Clarence's
hesitating hand dropped 10 his side,
and with light, reckless laugh and a
half sense of providential relief, he gal
Hoped away.
What happened Immediately there
after, during his solitary ride to Santa
Inez, looking back upon it in after
years, seemed but a confused recollec-
ton, more like n dream. The long
stretches of vague distance gradually
| opening clearer with the rising sun
in an unclouded sky, the meeting with
few early or belated travellers and
his unconscious avoidance of them, as
| If they might know of his object, the
black shadows of foreshortened cattle
rising before him on the plain and
arousing the same uneasy sensation of
their being waylaying men; the won
dering recognition of houses and land
marks he had long been familiar with,
| his nTIrnncnlaG- NJ mt %. |.
circumstances in which nc had known
them-all these were like dream. SO,
too, were the recollections of the
night before, the episode with Susy.
already mingled and blended with the
memory of their previous past, his flu
tile attempts to look forward 10 the
future, always, however, abandoned
with relief at the thought that the
next few hours might make them un-
necessary. So, also. was the sudden
realization that Santa Inez was before
him, when be had thought he was not
yet half way there, and as he dismount-
ed before the courthouse his singular
feelibg-followed however. by no fear
of distress-that he had come so early
to the rendezvous that he was not vet
quite prepared for il.
This same sense of unreality per-
vaded his meeting with the deputy
sheriff; the news that the federal Judge
lad, as was expected, dismissed the
prisoners on their own rccognizance,
and that Capt. Pinckney was at the
hotel at breakfast. In the like alb
stract manner he replied 10 the one or
two questions OF the deputy, exhibited
the pistols he had brought with him
and finally accompanied him TO n little
meadow hidden by trees below the hotel.
where the other principal and his sec
onds were awaiting them And here
Re awoke!-clear-eyed, keen, forceful
and intense!
So stimulated were his faculties that
his sense Of hearing in its acuteness
took i'm every word of the conversation
between the seconds, a few PAGES dis
taDt. He heard his adversary's second
say careiessly 20 the deputy sheriff: 60!
presume this is a case where there will
] ba no nn01oCrt- cr ruoTfofsor. - A.