The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1898-09-20
HER EXPIRATION.


his going, and we would be SO never
again felt convinced. She had absorb
ed him. Mind, desire, future, were
packed in the little palm of her hand.
Yet 1 was not vulgarly jealous. loved
Aubrey Yeldham better than / could
have loved brother, but had seen
her and had caught the reflection of his
sentiment, though in tempered degree.
/ had met her but once, in verdurous
Devon lane, where she had lost her
bearings and we had come to her assist
ance.
Her name was Ruth Lascelles, and
she was a widow. That was the sum
total of our knowledge. She might have
been 20, but we estimated her age at
20, deducing our theory from a certain
fatigued languor of voice and expression
that accorded i'll with the girlish satin
of her skin. This was arrived at on the
first day of our meeting-we had not
discussed her since. But one morning
when he had called at the little farm
cottage where she lived and had found
her flown without word of regret his
despair had been too much for him.
The whole story rolled from his lips;
his love for her, her seeming reciproc-
ity, their wanderings in the woods, her
reliant, trusting attitude-that had
taught him to wish himself some knight
of the Holy Grail and not mere be-
smirched man of many passions.
I was so out of it, as the phrase is,
fhnf L.
ton. That she was coquette of the
first order seemed the most feasible So
luton, and offered it. He derided the
nation-it was apparently so frivolous
venture that it failed to anger him.
But one day, after we had returned to
town and were working we'll in har-
ness, he with his book, with my illus
trations for it, he burst out afresh:
She unintentionally let out where
she lived. 1t is a village on the coast of
France. She must have returned.
"Well?" I said, suspending my work
and pretending to extract hair from
the fine point of my drawing pen.
| "Well," he burst out, 'the world is
our oyster. If we shirk opening it, we
can't hope to fitch pearls
"That means?' hinged expectantly.
''That means, in plain words, that
don't intend to give up the biggest
| pearl that God ever sent to make a man
| rich"
You intend to follow her?" / ques-
tioned-needlessly indeed, for his kim
ding eye contained a fire of decision and
energy that for 1 days, since the sorry
one of her disappearance, had smol-
dered.
He had been absent but week when
Ireceived the telegram announcing his
intended return. stood-with my
back against the mantel and hands
warming themselves behind my shelter
ing coattalls-eager to recognize his
rampant mount of the stairs, to feel the
clasp OF his hand or the thump on the
shoulder Blade and hear his CHEEKY
Congratulate ne, old fellow!" that /
knew must come. A cab stopped outside
and a key turned in the lock- Then a
the passage. There was 20 need for
more than a glance at him to abridge
the exuberance of welcome that had
bubbled to my lips.
The silence was SO long-so pregnant
with unsyllabled anguish-that at last
I closed a warm hand over his fingers
as they clasped the arm end of his chair.
"Well?"
"Well, F" he said huskily, starting a
little from his coma and poking coal
with the toe of his boot, ''it's over"
$50 l supposed, and the pearl was
mott
"Not for my handling, he inter
rupted. 81 knew you'd think something
hard of her, but you won't, you VI IN t
when tell you''-
! He stretched his hand to his glass
and emptied it before continuing.
sit came about sooner than intend
ed-the horizon was so serene I wanted
to lay to for bit-but it was no use.
We We're talking of something's for
get what-and made quotation. You
know the chap who said, SHOW me a
woman's clothes at different periods of
her life and 1 will tell you her his
tory?'"
eyes, l forget his rame, but think
it was Frenchman.
SWELL, quoted him. pretending to q
like perspicacity. 1t was sneaking,
cowardly ruse to know more of her."
"Well?"
"she snapped at my offer-was al
most ardent in her wish to test me.
81 caught her wrist as it turned the
handle of the wardrobe door and remon-
strated: Il refuse to see them. know
nothing of clothes, and I'm not a detec-
tive. won't pry into your past secrets
either of sorrow or of joy
"Her hand shook in my clasp.
Don't stop me, she cried impera
lively. Help mel want you to know
them
g So be it,, / said and pushed back
the door. Then she suddenly flung her
self in front of it, between me and the
row of dainty frocks and shimmeriue
laces. Size looked like Cassandra guard