Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-01-12

look ann and Tired. She was his frienG
and knew that his life was at stake.
and that %quiokened the presence Of
mind and the courage within her. Shc
was made of British stuff, and tina
steadied the shaking hand and kept the
revolver straight, and though the first
bullet went wide the second carried
true, and the mad dog, with il hideou,
yell, dropped disabled with IA shattered
| shoulder not ID PAGES from him. Thel
the crowd closed in and put an end tt
everything.
Five minutes later Edward Verekel
and the woman who had saved him
leaving the excited villagers still clus
tered round the horror on the grass,
went back into the garden.
1t was as much as she could do tt
walk now that the strain was past, be,
ing only a woman after all, and the
green garden was going round and
round in a dim mist that smelled Of
gunpowder and grew blacker at every
step.
He saw her falter and stop and was
only in time to catch her in his arms to
prevent her oollapsing on the lawn al
his feet, The earth and sky might
wheel and melt into a blackening mist
at will, but a pair of strong arms were
round her and her cheek Oh a protecting
shoulder.
Strong emotions make US view the
world in a distorted light with our men
tai as well as our bodily eyes, and there
was no David in the green garden be-
hind the high hedge, only a brave wo.
man, weak and trembling, with her
head on the breast of the man she had
rescued from worse than death-the
man who called her "Evey, my dar-
ling" and p%assionately kissed her.
David Lancaster came home in the
cleaning half IN hour later, with IA
piece of salmon in a bass bag and the
fifth Globe with all the latest cricket in
it.
Evey, up at her window, white and
trembling still, watching with half
averted eyes a figure pacing up and
down under the cedars, saw her husband
coming in at the gate, saw him join the
restless figure and tramp up and down
in company and knew the story was be-
ing told him, for with a kiss had come
awakening and shame, as it came with
the knowledge Of good and evil into the
first garden.
S0me time later the two men came
back to the house, and Evey's prefer
naturally sharpened ears heard Edward
ascend to his own room and David turn
down the passage to come to hers. She
stood in the middle of the floor in her
white gown, her hair slightly ruffled,
her face drawn with the stress of emo
ton which she had undergone, her
hands-those little hands that had done
so much-hanging Imply by her side.
And David opened the door and came in.
She could not look at his face, but she
understood as he walked across the room
to where she stood and took her straight
and unhesitatingly into his arms that
somehow, in spite Of all, he knew about
the kiss and had forgiven her. And the
kiss was all she could remember of her
past life.
When David Lancaster went up stairs
to his wife and took her to his heart
without asking for a word of explana-
ton on her part, he did the one thing
that saved him and her and Edward
Vereker from shipwreck.
read a story once in which the con-
Guiding sentence ran thus, "And SO by a
little thing was a woman saved from
the misfortune of a great passion"
Edward Vereker, having done all that
lay in his power to atone Tor what had
happened, left the house early next
morning without seeing Evey again.
And her husband shook hands with him
at parting.
They have not met since, except casu-
in society, and then they meet and
greet as friends. They had fallen a lit
tie way together and repented of it, and
WAtA ACPoiltaAoc COlIlCS IofulhlUu VI 1tel
ing and with that the end of all things
might have been, withered untime-
ly in the budding of passions poppy
flowers.
So she was heroic in that she saved
him, and he was noble in that he con.
fessed his kiss to her husband. But
it seems to me that the great.
est Of these three was David Lancaster,
who heard and understood and yet, hear
ing and understanding, forgaye. BLACK
and White,