Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1897-06-03
THURM0NT, Frederick County, Maryland Thursday June g. 1897

Olympia rose ana closed the piano.
The count also rose, and they confronted
each other for moment.
II will marry you," she said at length,
"when you bring Keppel Darke here,
and he bids me do So"
He bent forward and looked in her
eyes. There must have been in them
some speaking light, revealing what her
woman's tongue refused to tell.
'tOlympial" he cried, in a voice too
weighted with emotion to he loud, "you
know me-you have made fool Of me
but you love mel"
His arms closed about her, and fire
of new life seemed to flame up in his
heart as he felt her soft pressure against
him. 1t went glowing through hisveins,
and images of ecstacy trembled in his
brain. Across what gulf of darkness
had he passed since last he had held her
thus! But peace and joy were only here.
They kissed each other with slow, deep
Kiss, full of memories of pain that was
past, and of present delight soexquisite
that they half feared to move their lips,
lest all should prove dream and they
should awake. Such happiness comes in
moments only, yet when it comes the
soul recognizes 1t as its true estate-a
glimpse of the eternity in which it was
meant to dwell forever. No dream is
half 50 fair as this brief reality, whose
intensity makes all the rest of life seem
dreamhke. In such q moment lovers
live in heaven and are the peers Of
angels.
"Oh, Keppel, why have you denied
yourself SO long,? sighed Olympia at
last. II should have known you at the
first if I could have brought myself to
believe that you would hide from me So"
"a disguise like mine is something
moro than cloak that can be thrown
off and resumed at WILL" he replied.
From the first I have been as strange
to myself as / have appeared to others.
But for you l should never have found
my real self again. With that change
came so many changes began to forget
that l had ever been Keppel Darke, and
all my youth and what belonged to it
seemed never to have been; but was as
if born middle aged, with no youth or
kindly associations to humanize me. II
it had not been for you should have
lived on so, and at last died 80, if man
without childhood and soul can be
said to die"
eyes, you are yourself again nowr'
murmured Olympia. II have felt wall
between us all this while; l knew, in
some secret place Of my heart, that you
were on the other side; but yet did not
outwardly know it until the last day or
two. 1t was like the fairy tales. when
the prince is enchanted, and the princess
cannot recognize him; but at last the
spell is dissolved, and then they know
each other. am not afraid Of you now;
can see through your beard, and your
hair, and your eyeglasses; you are only
Keppel" and she gave little laugh and
drew down his face and kissed him.
81 feel as if were nothing but mere
child" said he, laughing, too. 81 want
to do nothing but sit hero with you and
love you, and talk to you and hear you
talk and be silly-that is, really wise.
NV heart feels 80 light! Does yoursf
my heart sings like bird-and l am
the song! And the song says: love
Keppel Darke! am glad he is alive, and
that the Count de Lisle has vanished!
II hate that stiff, conventional phan-
tom, too. But he has his ''eAs, and we
will make him he useful to Us. He is
rich, and he is devoted to you!"
"Do you wish to give me up to him,
sirr'
"Ah, He wants to marry you, I am
told!'
"And You will let him marry me If
only l promise to love you? But tell
me, Keppel, why were you such fool,
dear? Why didn't you come to me at
once7 The next time you delay 80
sha'n't wait for you'll"
"How could l know that you would
want me1 Dead people coming back to
life are sometimes very much in the
way. l thought it wiser, for your sake,
to send some one to find out how the
land lay"
"For my sake? For yours, I think'"
They both laughed again.
"How did you come to find mo out!'
he asked. "You had accepted the Count
de Lisle so long that the last thing ez-
pected was an inquiry for me-"
"There is something mysterious about
that replied Olympia, turning grave
"When that strange man of yours
Garcia--has put me into the magnetic
Sleep which is not sleep at all, but
deeper waking, that makes ordinary
waking seem sleep in comparison-in
that state, whatever it is, can see my
own thoughts, just as one sees things
with ones bodily eyes. And | see things
that have happened to me, not as they
seemed to me at the time, but as they
really were. So I began to have i'm
pressions of you, and at first could not
understand them, for there was no rea-
son that knew of why you should ap'
pear to me. But at last noticed that
the meetings between us Gin my visions}
were the times of my meeting the Count
de Lisle, and from that was not long
in solving the puzzle. When the count
came this afternoon was SO angry with
him for having deceived me that l was
almost ready to let him go off and take
you with himl If you had not looked
through his eyes at the last moment,
and so given 1lew turn to things, You
would have been nicely punished-and l
should have diedl"
This terrible picture called for conso-
lation on both sides, and the two lovers
administered it to each other. They
were sitting in the embrasure of the
window, deep, we'll cushioned divan,
protected from the room by the piano
and pot of ferns, while the light Of the
western sky, now golden with the set
ting sun, came softly through the semi