Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1898-07-30
OUT OF THE MIST.

w UT HE MIDI.
To him who has much, much is
given--and much is forgiven. Chas.
Marone had at the age Of 40 wealth
and health, good looks, consider.
able reputation as a novelist and
some basis for that reputation. He
was net always popular with men,
but in recompense he had been
adored by many women. Having
much, much was permitted to him
to be capricious, to be fantastical,
to have eccentricities, to carry self
indulgence to the utmost limit, even
to be cruel.
1t was caprice which drove him
from London in the middle of the
season and made him take little
tumbled down cottage near the vii.
lage of Lowstead and live there
alone, to the anger of his servants
and the mystifcation of his personal
friends. 1t was not all caprice
vanity came into it. His vanity was
fiattered when he mystified people
That is easy to explain-their mys-
tifcation implied interest. There
was yet third reason. He was
strangely practical for one so ideals
tic; he had made q contract with q
publisher to finish certain work in q
certain time. In the country be
would be able to work without in.
terruption,
1t had rained all the morning, the
drops pattering on the loaded win.
dow in which he sat, with his writ.
ing pad on his knee. In the after
noon the rain had ceased. The sky
was still gray. The empty moor
land, the water dripping from the
trees, the cry of the curlews-all
gave the scene certain melancholy
Toward evening the mist lay thick
and gray over everything. He was
sensitive to THE melancholy of the
world outside his windows. Late in
the evening, tired of his work, tired
of the French novel he had been at.
tempting to read, he went out. A
laboring man passed him in the road
and said "Good night" Marone
asked him the way to the next vii.
lage, Arnmore. The man pointed
to the track across the moor and
warned him to be careful not to get
off it. People had been lost in the
mist. Marone laughed, lit a cigar.
cite, and, leaving the road, walked
quickly along the track.
X X
There was not breath of wind
and there was no sound in the air.
The mist hung motionless. The
things that he passed seemed to
jump up suddenly out of it. A
gorse bush or stunted tree would
take almost human movemement
in the tricky light. Two or three
sheep came close up to him out OF
the gray veil and as suddenly turn.
ed and scampered away sgain. He
walked on. He had left the track
for some time before he noticed that
he had done SO.
He lit another cigarette and stood
perfectly still. He had quick ears
and was ready to catch the least
sound of a football or of wheels on
the cart track, and to give the call
which would bring him home again,
If he heard nothing, he would still,
ne told himself, be patient enough
to stand there and go on smoking
while the cigarettes lasted. By that
time the mist would probably have
lifted-it would be a new exper-
fence.
Suddenly, though he did not hear
the least sound of any footstep, he
was conscious that somebody was
coming toward him. At a little
distance the figure looked like tall
column, vague and shapeless. As
it grew nearer the mist illusion pass
ed. 1t was woman, yelled and
dressed in gray. As it came close
up to him he saw it was a very
young woman, and that the lines oil
her figure were beautiful. She stop.
ped when she was close to him, but
did not speak. The silence seemed
almost uncanny. He took off bis
hat.
"Do not let me Brighten you,' ht
said. II am merely a harmless
traveller lost in the mist, and, | pre-
sumo, you are in a similar casef
She laughed. It was pretty
musical laugh.
"Ob, no. she said, II know th,
moor well, aud often walk her,
when the mist is thick like this
Perhaps can guide YOU"