Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1897-03-25

the duslly corners Of tde s3uIchanibel
I hitherto obscurel by the shadows Of Ia.
/ health and moIb,luess. The Light was
not altogether welcome. though il ma
terially lessened the distance between
the ostensible Philip and Philip he
real. For one thing, il belittled the mo-
tive which was responsible for his
work. Allowing the prompt .ngs Of
common humanity their fun weight.
the fact remained that his enthusiasm
had for its starting-Pcint desire TO
win the approval of Elsie Duncan.
1 That was the new ideal, and his saner
thought told him that il was wretched-
Is inadequate; that il sprang from I'M
pulse and was degraded in the hour
of its birth by unfaith Unworthy a.
il was, it was still an ideal. and Philip
dashed himself into a small fury OF
self-eontempt when he discovered thar
il was no longer the motive for his
eNertions; that Elsie's appreciation and
Kilgrow's wrongs We're secondary con
siderations in comparison with the
strenuous urgings of newly aroused
ambition squirting him on 10 wiring vic
tory out of defeat for victory's sake.
He kept his room az Duncan's and
rode often up the valley, both for the
sake of the intimacy which the nature
of his guest made impossible elsewhere.
and because he honestly wanted to be
true to the new ideal. and he went
oftener and stayed longer when he be-
gan TO feel the ground slipping from
under him in the small matter Of senti-
ment. He said rather bitterly that he
must be true to something; that he
should lose what little self-respect his
tickle precipitancy had left nm if he
suffered himself to swerve from the
plain path he had chosen in the day of
illness.
For some of the doubts and much
of the dissatisfaction. Elsie was her
self answerabe. She was frank with
out being confidential: she was affec-
tionate and sympathetic, but she never
gave him an opportunity to add word
to those already spoken. She rejoiced
frankly in his stubborn perseverance
in the Kilgrow affair, and she was
openly thankful when the tide of i'll
| health began TO ebb: but beyond all
this, Philip felt that there was bar
rier which he had never been permit
ted TO pass. He told himself that it
was maidenly modesty--a nice refine
ment of womanly delicacy which de
Tended her from the ambiguity of his
| impulsive declaration; and in this be-
lief he went about, seeking the OPP
rortunity for palmer speech which
chance or something else persistently
denied him. Sometimes it was Elsie's
mood; oftener it was the presence of a
third person = either Duncan or his
wife, or Protheroe. After such battle
ments Philip scourged himself dutiful-
| ly, heaping abuse on his own head for
not overriding such trivial obstacles.
He insisted that he owed It to himself
no less than to Elsie that there should
be clear understanding between
them; driven into words, the thought
would have been that he would be surer
of himself when there was no possibili-
ty of retreat.
Without doubt, and in the face of
much matter for thankfulness. Philip
was neither good enough nor bad
enough TO be wholly comfortable. Like
most compromises, the compromising
with ones conscience leaves the main
| question still unsettled; and as to ben
| Gifts, it was TO the giver and not to the
receiver that the blessing was prom
! Used. 1t is true that Philip had found
| an employment that called out the best
there was in him, and that in the bat
tic he had somehow stumbled into the
| Path that led away from sickness and
| dependency; but at times he was tor
| nented by the thought that he had
! paid too dearly for ambition and bet
! ter health 1t was if he had sold him
| self for an extension of life and the
herewithal to make it worth the hav-
| ing.
Two grains Of comfort he bad man
aged to sift out of the summers cbaff.
One was that Helen's sisterly letters
added no fuel to the fires Of conscience,
and the other was the news that the
bank in which the Thorndvke money
was invested was in difficulties. He
smiled at the thought that he was
able to extract comfort from this, but
| so It was; the threat of disaster made
him throw himself with redoubled ar
dor into the case in equity. II might
easily happen that his attorneys fee
would be all that was left him when
the day of reckoning came, and under
the spur of this premonition he took
counsel of zeal and taxed his resources
yet more persistently.
And in the matter of resources Philip
had developed a creditable measure Of
that ingenuity which is usually but not
always the handmaiden of experience.
He had attempted through various
channels to make overtures to Prag
more He had tried to trace Gates and
his convenient witness. He had ran
sacked the old town, ferreting out
everyone who could give him he Slight
est information about Gates or kilgrow,
| the tenantry of the farm, the raid Of the