Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1898-10-20


listen to me, would not let me lend him
the necessary money. 1t was struggle
between us, and I assure you, Anne, /
Inundated myself to him. !"
"Does he want to so now?'
He wants to try-glad even to stop
sketching for awhile 1t need only be
for few years. He will give up brain
work and uncertain hours for life de-
manding physical energy and systematic
habits. Did / tell you, he said more
softly, she's to let me send his protege,
Joe Evans, to my old nurse in Connecti-
cut? The climate down there would fin-
ish the little chap in wink. He start
ed up and took few steps up and down.
81 never can forget my visit to his
rooms the other night and the sight Of
the sick boy there. Donald is queer
mixture of good and bad, isn't he? He's
done what never could do, been vicious
as never could be, but he's made life
heaven for one creature, urged to it by
humanity which scarcely understand. "
He stood before the fire and stared
into it, There was a line between his
brows, his glance was heavy, and Anne
knew he was thinking of himself and
what he lacked as perhaps he never had
before. He sighed and moved so that
his elbow rested on the mantel. When
he looked down at Anne, she saw again
the light as from heart satisfied which
a little while before had puzzled her.
ANNE" he said in musing way,
edo seem unlike myself tonight?'
She nodded. She could not move her
eyes from his.
"But do l look like man who has
come into rare inheritance? Dol? Yes,
yes, he said quickly, 81 want to tell
you. You have been so much to me /
must tell you now
He took the chair opposite her and
again leaned forward. Anne sat motion
less, heavy GOODNESS weighing her.
''Look at me. am in love at last, as
unreasonably, as hopefully, as if l were
3D."
There was a seconds pause. To Anne
it was the ray between aspiration and
chaos all that was possible and what
could never be.
81 told Olga today loved her. Anne,
and she is going to marry me. You and
1 will be relatives soon, he said gayly
and pressed her hand.
There was nothing to tell him. She
was cold and in darkness. She remained
apparently quiet while her heart seemed
cloven by sword. She said verything
he expected of her, some of the phrases
quite prettily too. She even laughed
while the mirth was dust ON her lip
and David unreal and terrible to her.
After long time he went away, and
she sat like dead woman, yet curious
ly, painfully alive to one thought. She
had loved him, and he had passed her
by. Olga had won her happiness. The
apathy left her, and she sprang up, her
eyes suddenly wild. She hated Olga
and envied her bitterly, but only for a
moment. Through all her pain she rec
ognized an unquestionable fatality. The
reason of her failure to draw to herself
the man she loved lay somewhere at
the large root of things, in darkness,
beyond the knowing. Olga's success
was just as inexplicable and impersonal.
The bitter fact she could face and must
accept, but nothing else.
Unconscious of time, she sat still un-
til voices in the hall and knock at the
door seemed to come from long dis
lance. Nora, half asleep, entered with
a letter. A messenger boy in the hall
was rubbing his ears with his mittened
hands.
| mn %Hn ynl( wi l,n,,
curiosity, but the words aroused her,
and pity for something besides herself
passed over her face:
Ny DEAR ANNE-Can you come to my place
as soon as you read this? I'm afraid it's all up
| with poor Joe, and he keeps talking of you
| Do come with the messenger. He won't live
| through the night. l dare not leave his side.
| DONALD
Anne looked at the clock. 1t was
after H. She heard the wind shake the
window in fury, she saw the snow
moved like tremendous curtain west
ward, and groaning stole in from the
night. The silent room became sud-
denly uncomfortable.
When she stepped from her doorway
with the boy, the wind, as if recogniz-
ing her affinity by reason of the storm
in her soul, welcomed her with frenzy.
There was relief in bending her head
against the blast, in feeling the fakes
sting her face to burning life, the sense
of being needed had comfort in it, and
the purpose of her errand surmounted
for the time the other dull, insistent
ache.
The street where Donald lived was in
the heart of the business center and
mournfully quset The lights in high
tenements and old fashioned lodging
houses f1ickered ON lonely stretches of
snow, traffic was muffled, and people
passed as if with velvet shod feet.
Anne dismissed the messenger at
Donald's door and entered alone. From
the many small apartments came sounds
of the life within. Through one open
transom where tobacco smoke curled
she heard Germans voice, raised in
argument, roll out, Bismarck In an
other room girl was laughing unre-
STRANGELY. Farther away the reitera-
lions of banjo were like punctuations
10 ell