The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-08-12
POSSESSION.

his feelings. He seemed TO lose courage
in his quest for his wife The m mountains
rose as a wall, which he felt she could
never have surmounted in her flight from
him. If she were not in Denver Itself,
and he began to doubt the trail she, the
light hearted, wonld have been repealed by
SO gloomy barrier between her and the
freedom of the vast wastes beyond.
After all, 1t was not freedom she had
wanted, he realized now, but stir, gayety,
life. He gazed and gazed. No; the vast
and melancholy had not attracted her.
She had left that field to him.
He spent hours each morning before the
reluctant time of searching began in ques-
tioIiipg the mountains. The tiny, new
room in which he lodged had one large
PANIED window. His heart seemed to be
drawn out, out; from the high slope where
he was, across the lower lying city be-
tween, over the bit of plain, over the foot
hills, up, up, and then whats
A question met him-a darkness, a
blank. The question did not take form,
but it became troublesome. Then, as the
days wore on and no impulse came to
Laurence to turn to seek new trails, the
question grew insistent, else why should
he stay there?
When it was dark and Laurence did not
sleep, he was thrown back into his
thoughts, his past. He felt the noun
tains, but they did not draw him. He
could think of Fannie as she had been, of
their old life for it was far away; their
home among the tame scenes of small
Iowa town; their coy beginning, their
petty interests, his little drug business.
Even the remem branoe of the suffering
of his little Fannie at the birth of their
lost baby did not give him the pang he felt
once. His heart had been wrung at the
cruelness of motherhood. He had felt it,
without doubt, more consciously than she
had. His memory skirted the two great
nf their the 11aaFriRlQ and the
birth. 1t fingered outside, troubled by
mum berless former happenings too mean
iugless to dwell upon.
A year ago, and he was part of that
life. A month ago the shock had come,
and his wife, instead of returning to Lau-
renee after visit to friends, had melted
away into the unknown west She had
not gone alone, but Laurence had never
heard of the person whose name appeared
on various hotel registers through which
he had traced her.
Now came nights of brilliant light, and
the mountains never left him. Their line,
that strange line that was almost a mem
ace, was scarce dimmed in the moonlight.
So Laurence did not sleep, except some
times in the afternoon, when the sunshine
paled the range into dusty pearl. The line
then swan in the clear heat. 1t was not
ominous
But after the red glare of sunset had
left the yellow shade of the shutterless
window in shadow Laurence awoke. The
great hills lowered black then, their out
line fierce and strange. 1t must mean
something, that line. What could 1t meanf
After the moon had vanished he got
little more rest. Yet the nights were
made up of half conscious fear-R fear
that Laurence grew to dread more than
his misery. He was tormented, too, by the
knowledge that the days were creeping on
to the fuller moon again. Then he would
y1O from them night and hR
was afraid
One day his heart gave a bound when
he saw in the street a woman walking
ahead of him. 1t was Fannie. She was
going to save him. He had found her.
He hurried on, forgetting pain, jealousy,
the rage to avenge. A doubt came over
him, but it was she-the same light brown
hair in loose coils, the figure not tall, but
soft and full. He came near enough to
hear her laugh. 1t was Fannie's laugh,
and he saw her companion. Laurence
grew blind with wrath. Al the same in
slant the young woman turned her head
and he realized that he had deceived him
self It was not his wife.
That night the moon was beginning to
throw faint illumination over the wide
space between the city and the hills, but
the outline was not clear. Laurence had
been sharply moved by the false sight Of
Fannie. He lay on his bed facing the
open window, his mind shocked into sense
of his grief once more.
He slept and dreamed of the little drug
store; of his cottage near-a dream Of
common details. He was not distressed,
and he awoke caImer, but 1t was all to
live over again-the frantic departure, the
wearing journey, the nightmare of hotels,
and heat and strange, hard faces
He was again at the door of the noun
tains asking for her. They confron ted
him again, ominous, overbearipg. He
afTki6 Of them for his c0nl0 not
leave them, and the queer line meant moth
ing that he could understand, but it for
babe and it beckoned at once.
What must he do? Laurence knew there
was clew, answer. He knew that the
question the crazy line was asking of him
must be answered. Why else was the out
line now sharp, in zigzags, now oddly
softer? Never was it in the lines of beauty,
always cratic. What did it spell in its
gigantic writing? He could not bear the
uncertainty. He must find out.
So the idea fixed itself in his mind. He
made his plan with nicely. He wrote a
letter to a near relative, assigning the
store to his change for the time. He OBJ
liberated all marks by which he could be
identified and destroyed papers and cloth
ing. He dressed himself in the simplest
a straw hat, flannel shirt, light coat
He was careful to leave word he was going
back to Iowa. He even bought ticket.
Tt was nightfall. He was free. Fannie
was gone, and he thought of her only as
part of the question that the far, shadowy
hills were asking. Her real look was not
in his visual mind. The pain was not
sharp-there was only a confused trouble
left where the pain had beeD-but he was
afraid. Oh, that terrible fearl 1t had
grip on his heart, on his nerve.
Laurence wandered about for hours
with his fear The new moonlight cast
vague beauty over the hills and sky to
which he was looking for a sign. As he
stumbled on toward them by a westerly
road that his feet found by chance the out
line seemed TO grow clearer. 1t was not
ominous but promising finally.