Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1899-11-02
Bellows Falls Times
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1899,
"A CASE IN EQUITY"
CONTINUED FROM PAGE g.

enjoying yourselr, aIter some primitive
fashion, and, better than all else, that your
health is improving. Because can believe
the latter, / can continue to spare you
while the need exists; and since the separa-
ton has to be, il is better that we should
bear it contentedly. / should be sorry to
have the good effect of DR., Perevin's pre-
scription marred by any repining of mine,
and so long as you feel that the out-of-door
life is helping you, ! hope you Will not let
any strained sense of your duty to your
mother or to me make you abridge 1t. we
shall get along famously without our preuX
chevalier, and you are not to suppose that
we are obliged to go about uncared for be-
cause you happen to be buried in the forests
of Alabama
write often, If you feel like It, but don't
let it become bore, There is nothing more
dreadful than having to write to some one
when you want to do something else. At
fectionately, as always, HELEN.
"P. 81 have been invited to join party
on Derrick Morton's yacht, and if you don't
hear from me again for two or three weeks,
you'll know l have accepted and that post
offices are not to be had for the asking
Philip put the letter down with a
smile that was more than half sheer.
When one sets out to make himself the
advocate of an unworthy cause, mental
short-sightedness stands ready to dis
tort and confuse the judgment; and in
the case of a letter, the dispassionate
Journalism of written language lends
itself easily to inferential misconstruc-
ton.
Glow could / ever have fancied that
she had any warmth or depth apart
from the intellectual side of her char
acter?" he asked himself. I'm sure l
don't know, any more than l know why
| always took it for granted that we
were divinely appointed to be the COM
ponent parts of thatmysterious creation
which the marriage service declares to
be one person, but which all experience
says is still more than ever two. Could
Elsie Duncan write such letter as
that to the man She loves? Would she
turn neat phrases and Bah! the
comparison is absurd! And yet, on the
other hand, it isn't fair to blame Helen
because 1 don't happen to be the one
man in the universe who is capable of
calling out the best there is in her; and
| don't blame her. She may find the
right man yet; it's barely possible this
cruise in Morton's yacht will turn out
to be more nearly divine appointment
than an agreement made by our fathers
while we were in neutrality-suspicious."
Thus Philip, in plausible attempt
to justify himself How should he know
that the cool and dispassionate letter
was only a part and parcel of the hard
task Helen had set herself in the begin
ming? How was he to guess that she
had steadily resolved from the first to
say nothing that would tempt him to
turn back to his hurt? By what inner
precedence should he have been enabled
to read between the lines the passionate
yearning that was so resolutely effaced
in the written words? AS he stood at
his window looking out into the calm
stiffness of the moonlit night, what
good angel was there to tell him that at
another window in far-off New England
the writer of that letter knelt with wet
eyes, beseeching the Merciful One to
protect and preserve the absent lover?
There was none; nor was there any in
ward monitor to hint that propinquity,
the charm of an innocent face, and a
simple outpouring of womanly SYM
pathy had united with his own moral
and physical weakness to turn him
aside from the plain way of rectitude
and honor.