The Irish standard., 1897-02-13

Cle .OuSky CCI rs u VIC oouA VI oI'Ai"IA
hitherto obscured by the shadows of i'll
health and morbidness. The light Was
not altogether welcome, though it ma
terially lessenel the distance between
the ostensibIe Philip and Philip the
real. For one thing, it belittled the mo-
tive which was responsible for his
work. Allowing the promptings of
common humanity their full weight,
the fact remained that his enthusiasm
had for its starting point desire to
win the approval of Elsie Duncan.
That was the new ideal, and his saner
thought told him that it was wretched-
~ inadequatc; hat it sprang from I'M
pulse and WIS degraded in the hour
of it's birth by unfaith. Unworthy as
it was, it was still an Ideal and Philip
lashed himself into small fury OF
self-contempt when he discovered that
It was no longer the motive for his
exertions; that Elsie's appreciation and
Kilgrow's wrongs were secondary con-
siderations in comparison with the
strenuous nrgings of a newly aroused
ambition ,purrng him on to wiring VIC
tory out of defeat for victory's sake.
He kept his room at Duncan's and
rode often up the valley, both for the
Sake of the intimacy which the nature
of his quest nude impossible elsewhere,
and because ne 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 prnip;tancy had left him ii ha
suffered himself to swerve from tho
plain path he had chosen in the day of
illness.
For some of the doubts and much
of the dissatisfaction, Elsie was her
self answcruble. She was frank with
out being confidential; she was atfec-
tionatc and sympathetic, but she never
gave him IN 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 permits
ted to pass. He told himself that it
was maiilvnly modesty-a nice refine-
ment Of wo,nanIy dclicacy which de
Tended her from the ambiguity of his
irnpulsiye declaration; and in this be-
lief he wcnt about, seeking the OPP.
portunity for palmer speech which
chance or something else persistently
denied him. Sometimes it WAS Elsie's
mood; oftencr it was the presence Of q
third person either Duncan Or his
wife, oreProtheroe. After such BATTLE
mcnts: Philip scourged himself dutiful-
", 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 q 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.
efits, it was TO the giver and not to the
receiver that the blessing was prom
ised., It is true that Philip had found
ar, employment that called out the best
there was in him, and that in the bat
tie he had somehow stumbled into tho
Path that led away from sickness and
Dependency; but ut times he was tor
mented by the thought that he had
paid too dearly for ambition ard bet
ter health. Tt was II he had sold him
self for anFcStersion of life and the
ing.
Two grains of comfort he had man
aged to slit out Of the summers chatf
One was that llelen's sister1y letters
added NO fuel to the fires of conscience;
and the other was the news that tic
bank In which the Thorndyke 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. 1t might
easily happen that his attorneys fee
would he 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 rersistently.
And in the matter Of resources Philip
had developed a creditable measure of
that ingenuity which is usually but not
always the hantmaiden 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 ram
sacked the old town, ferrcting out
everyone who could give him the slight
est information about Gates or Kilgrow,
the tenantry Of the farm, the raid of the
revenue officers. and such other scraps
Of local history as might have bearing
on the case. lie had ridden for days on
the mountain in hopeless attempt to
find witnesses who could certify that
Kilgrow had not been in -Allacoochee
on the Goth of May, 1885. And when all
these eXpedIents had been pushed to
drnitless conclusion, he had seeured.thc
services of New York detective, who,
. after three weeks .painstalling inycs-
I, Iva ivs ;ee ref