Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-11-20
teri" Janet began. "What has hap

teI. Janet peSdu. WudI Has Aop
pened?"
He took her aside and told her gen.
thy in a brief whisper.
"Oh, don't go this way, Dick" she
begged If you will only wait. we
surely can set it right. If you would
let me-
There! That is Just what l want to
avoid, Janet" he interposed-"any dis
cussion. any raking of the fire. 1t
scorches enough already" He clasp
ed his mother with an affectionate
goodby, saying: Il shall write to you
both soon, and meanwhile, mother and
Janet, remember my dignity while I'm
gone. Try not to be angry with her,
but perhaps it would be best not TO see
the Greys."
Indeed we WON'T" cried his sister
warmly. I'VE shall not go near them,
and l can't help but be angry-for
you"
Thank you, dear, though I'm sorry
said Dick.
He kissed them once again. The
driver leaped up to the box. There
was a turn of the wheels, a flicker Of
light dust. For a moment Dicks IA
miliar figure in gray travelling coat
and soft hat nodded and waved to them
from the window, and then the fare
we'll was over.
When Malvern saw again that street
on the outskirts of Windbury, which
had so long been his home, it seemed
but short time since he had left it,
yet in the interval something more
than 20 years had gone by.
The business offer which called him
away-opportunely, he thought, at the
very moment when his engagement to
Leila had suffered wreck-proved to be
so favorable and so full of brilliant
promise that he sent almost at once for
his mother and Janet to break up the
old household and join him in the city
toward the west to which he had gone.
From that time his life moved with
the sun westward and still westward
until with his small family fixed at
last in a luxurious home in another,
newer, larger city of which he had be-
come an integral part, with a widening
web too, of great commercial interests
spread out around him-little, far Off
Windbury came to seem to him in the
distance of memory like mere frag
ments of broken mold from which all
this large existence had emerged.
Mrs. Malvern and her daughter had
held rigidly to his desire while they re-
manned there of having no further in
tercourse with the Greys. The breach
made was abrupt and complete. If
Leila wondered at his swift action or
was tortured by his silence and aban-
donment, she gave the two women no
way of knowing it, and the tenor of
rumor was that she had been glad to
break off the affair so easily.
Nevertheless in all these rapid and
busy years no report of her marriage
had come to Malvern. He thought it
natural enough that if she had been
married he should not hear Of it, for
they had grown to be as far apart as
though they lived in different Sky
worlds.
Once, quite by accident, for he had
little to do with poetry now, he came
upon the old book in which was hidden
the faded leaf that recorded the day of
their final parting. 1t f1uttered out
from among the pages. and with sud
den Impotence he was on the point Of
throwing it into his wastebasket when
the mere singularity of its having been
preserved so long through all the
changes and mOvings of his career
staid his hand. A voice seemed to
murmur distinctly into his ear, Even
dead things have life"
He had felt very sure the old love
was dead-so sure that he seldom gave
it even the artificial vitality Of think
ing about it, Could it be possible that
there was still any spark OF it smoul-
derfng down there in his heart? Why
did he feel something like an affec~
tionate association with the faded leaf?
His life should be rich enough now to
do without the company Of tattered,
dingy memories. 1t was replete with
interests, with wealth, luxury and the
excitement of great practical under
takings in which he moved as citizen
of weight and influence
He, too, remained unwedded. II he
had been asked why, he would very
likely have said that he was too much
and too well occupied 10 make room for
anything so absorbing and so unccr-
tain as marriage. How could it be sup
posed that he had avoided matrimony
from loyalty to Leila since she had dis
earded him so capriciously, and he
would not admit to himself that any
sentiment even bougd him to her? Yet
at the bottom of his mind he felt
certain pride in the fact that he was
L.