Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1897-10-21

begun to develop an unaccustomet
p.ayfuness.
She did not leave him long in error
do not tOucl. me-" she said in q voice
which, though it trembIed with excite
ment, showed the decisiveness of Ions
premeditation. do not touch me.
cannot bear it,"
Inc Governor stood motiOnless, will
/ the puzzled look of one whose intellect
Is overcome. She might have pitieG
him and receded had she been capable
/ either of seeing or understanding, but
| she had become Il mere autOmaton
governed by long-suppressed emotion
Il cannot bear it," she repeated 81
do not love you. | have never loved
you. | have tried to learn. cannot
| have tried to become a true and duti-
ful wife to you. cannot. have tried
to forget the only man | ever loved |
cannot. There must be an end of it all,
and it must come now!'
virginia" said the Governor help
!cssly. "Nirginia--'
''Do not stop mel" she went on, with
increasing rapidity. II am rot insane,
though am near it, am good wom-
an. sir. At least. have nothing with
which to reproach myself, except the
shame of having allowed them to make
you believe love you. 1t was all my
mothers fault and yours. Why did
you follow me? Why did she force me
on YOU, when | did not love you. when
| never can love you; when have
ceased to wish to love yOuT
She paused a moment for breath. The
Governor did not move. He had leaned
his elbow on the mantel and now, with
his hand supporting his chin, he stood
looking at her blankly.
Il will not be stopped" she said.
catching her breath with sob 81 will
tell you everything. everything. the
whole miserable truth that is killing
me. | love John Endcott. have never
loved anyone else. never will. He
does not know it, and he never can
know it, unless you tell him. Now you
know what wretch am and you
know what you have done to make me
So
AS she stopped she drew herself up
and threw back her long black hair.
which had escaped from her comb and
fallen around her face. AS yet the
Governors mind had assimilated hard
ly anything of what she had said. 1t
had come upon him supreme calamity
al the climax of his good fortune. He
seemed to himself to have died sud-
denly and to be striving to wake to
consciousness in another world. The
one idea which shaped itself clearly in
the chaos of his brain was th't his wife
had never been so splendidly beautiful
as now. when she stood with head
thrown back and flashing eyes, lifted
above herself by the stress Of such an
effort as no one person ever makes
twice in n lifetime, as very few ever
make at all. A moment later, over
come by the inevitable reaction. she
had rushed sobbing from the room,
leaving the Governor still standing at
the mantcl, immovable, as he had stood
since she began.
lie nau maze no attempt 10 FOLLOW
her She had gone only few minutes
when he stood upright, threw back his
shoulders, walked twice up and down
the room and then took his seat before
Il writing desk, drawn close to win
dow overlooking the river. Settling
down in the chair with his elbows on
its arms and his hands locked across
his breast, he looked steadily out of
the window, motion!ess, as the clock
on the mantel struck the hours, one
after another, until the small, square
window panes began to grow luminous
with the dawn. Then he rose, and I'M
locking drawer in the lower part of
his desk. took out mahogany box
with silver-mounted corners and a
heavy silver plate in the center G. the
lid. He unlocked it deliberately, and