The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1898-04-12
AN ARMY ROMANCE.

AN AKIN ROMANCE.
It is commonplace of speech that
there is no changing the leopard S spots.
! The keen observer of his kind who has
not IL axioms wherewith to work the
theorems of life, but l 200, accepts it as
gospel. Raymond. who was not a keen
observer, but man with faith in his
heart, did not accept it. In the face of
advice and caution and good counsel he
decided to reduce it to the absurd and
marry Cicely Granville. Success crown
ed him, as even those who warned him
know now, but it was desperate risk.
Far back in the days which it were
heresy to doubt were as good as they
were old, when Alan was just the stolid
small son of Captain Raymond and
Cicely was but the angel faced little
daughter of Captain Raymond first
lieutenant, Marlitt, the boy and girl
had been fond of one another
They had made mud pies and hunted
the first wild flowers of the plains and
had ridden burros and bronchos togeth-
er. They had wintered and summered
in each others company the mountains
and prairies of the southwest while the
land was yet given over to the never
ending disturbances Of the hostiles
They had learned what it was to have
only one another for playmates for
months at a time. And because of the
hardships of long marches and the joys
of half savage freedom shared togeth-
er they came to think themselves in
separable.
And then they were separated. CiceIy
was to be civilized. She was sent east
and abroad to school. Alan Raymond
went through West Point and got his
commission.
Thereupon fate-which at times does
what might be expected of her-sent
him to the same post where the Marlitts
were stationed, and he saw CiceIy again
He looked into the placid depths of her
long, gray eyes and remembered the
past. He looSed at the curving red lips
and the thick brown hair and guessed
the future. She had changed for the
worse and for the better. She had been
civilized and was less frank. She had
learned to attain her ends by indirect
means, yet as women go she was honest.
But the sanity face was more beautiful
and the child was grown to one of those
women whom to love is to worship.
And in due time Raymond loved her.
There are men who take their love as
simply as they do the breath of their
life. 1t is necessary to them, but they
do not go mad with the ecstasy of its
possession. When Raymond had told
Cicely that he loved her, and when she
had laid her head upon his shoulder and
had put her slender, clinging hands in
his and, turning up the beautiful, deep
eyes to his face, had said, II love you"
he was satisfied.
His fault if such it were, was that
he was undemonstrative, and Cicely
though some count it virtue in wo-
man-that she was jealous. Of all vices
jealousy carries with it it's own swiftest
punishment. 1t realizes it's unreason,
but is powerless-like dreamer who
suffers and cannot awake, though he
knows the while that he is dreaming
She knew in her heart that her lovers
word was worth more than most men 8
VOWS. She knew that his purpose was
direct and honest, and yet she doubted
The tiny stone of suspicion began to
roll. A question which Cicely was too
proud to ask would have checked it, but
it rushed on and became an avalanche
that buried and crushed their happiness
under its mass. Raymond looked on
dazed. He could not understand
When it was too late, it was made
plain. Cicely sat before her own fire in
the dusk and looked quietly at the blaz-
ing logs. The light shone on her fair
face and on her cleaning hair. Ray
mond stood and looked down at her.
resting his arm on the mantelpiece. He
was an honest man. He had no inten-
ton of speaking of even the love of the
past to another mans wife. but beside
the blank reality rose up in front of him
the might have been of his life and he |
cried out from the depths:
''Cicely, why did you do 1T"
She started back and looked up at
him. For one long minute the deep
eyes gazed into his eyes and saw there
the futility of an irretrievable mistake
The curved lips grew white and parted
and closed again. She turned and hid
her face in her tightly clasped hands and
bowed her head against the back of the |
chair. There is tragedy of the fiercest
sort that enters once, at least, into
most lives-tragedy which seem to rend
the veil of ones universe in twain and
to open up the graves where ones hopes |
and sorrows have lain sleeping.
Yet we jeer at melodrama when we
are shown bits from the play Of exist
tnce that are as nothing to the truth. |
We say it is overacted. 1t is because it |
mas been mercifully given to us to for
get. In the past Raymond, first of all. |
would have scoffed; in the future he |
would come to doubt the horror of the |
present moment. But it caught him
and held him then with a mighty !
strength. The primitive creature comes
out when it is dashed with the whip of |
real pain; all the bars of custom and
convention cannot restrain it. He for |
got the honor of his sane moments. He
snatched away the hands and dragged |
her to him and turned her face up |
again to his.
"Why did you do it, Cioely?" he re-
peated.
She clinched her teeth and steadied |
her voice, and then she told him.
"But you were utterly wrong" he
said. He was dazed to have been so /
misunderstood, and he offered no ex-
PLANTATION. But she did not need one
now. She had seen the full measure Of |
her folly.
81 know" she answered, 81 was
wrong, and-I am punished. She
threw her arms about his neck and sob.
bed, and he held her close. 1t was only
for little time Then she drew away.
Her arms fell at her sides. sit cannot
be helped" she said, and she turned
and went away.
There was no change in Raymond.
either then or as the years went on. He
was good officer and good man and
unembittered But Cicely Granville
changed. The world loves nothing bet
ter than to find an explanation for what
has mystifed it. 1t does not trouble to
verify it's belief. "It is plain, it said
now, "why Cicely Marlitt married
Granville Raymond was not the man
to have allowed her to indulge her pro-
psnsities. I"
The propensities were toward firta-
tions that scandalized that conservative !