Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1900-10-12
CHAPTER w.

CHAPTER w. #
"Do you mind, my dearest?'
yes: ! wish had been the first,
Alan
The two people who were speaking
were sitting together on q boulder by
the seashore of one of our prettiest
watering places. 1t was early October,
and although 1t had been a late season,
yet there was already a touch of cold
ness in the air, Notwithstanding the
brilliant sunshine. The sea was as blue
as the sky, tossing and little dis
turbed by the wind, yet only enough
to give 1t color and motion. The ht-
tie town looked white and clean, smil-
Ing in the autumn sunshine. A thor
oughly conventional English scene,
just as the girl herself was thorough
ly conventional English girl. Her dark
blue eyes were brown and OF a soft
texture; her face q perfect oval, with 9
little square chin, into which there
had been pressed, as by some loving
finger, the prettiest dimple IN the
world. A tall, slight figure, that gave
promose Of fuller, ampler woman
hood; a clear white skin. flushed rosy;
and lashes and eyebrows many shades
darker than her hair completed q
whole that was very captivating. she
was dressed, too, conrentionally, al
though the blue serge dress and jacket
fitted her as only a tailOr-made gown
can fit. A little sailor hat was perched
upon her head in just the most effec-
tive manner possible.
But at this minute the dark blue
eyes looked troubled, the pretty hands
were ciasped round her knees, and she
was looking Stewards and away from
the man by her side. He, too, looked
troubled. It had cost Alan Mackenzie
a good deal to record the events OF his
life, and to speak of the young wife he
had lost four years ago. He had want
ed the past TO be past; and although
Veronica's memory was dear and sweet
to him, and the girl herself had been
loving and tender, yet 1t seemed TO
him hard to bring up the dead past.
There was such chasm between that
life and this, such a difference be-
tween the dark-eyed. half-Spanish girl
he had wooed under the brilliant South
American skies and this girl whom he
was wooing beside the tumbling Eng
fish sea, that 1t often seemed to Alan
Mackenzie that he must be an entirely
different person.
He leaned forward and looked at
her. She had her face turned towards
the sea, so that he could just see the
delicate profile outlined against the
blue sky, could Just see the pink ear
nesting against the coils OF her hair.
It was not for her beauty alone that he
loved Joyce Grenville. He felt that
she was his equal in most, his superior
in some, things. He and she together,
he thought, could live the perfect mar
ried life. And now there was the
shadow of poor Veronica to come and
throw a gloom over their wooing. Yer
onica, whom he had never loved like
this girl; Veronica, for whom he had
had the tenderest protective pity, but
that was all.
And now he looked at Joyce, and
felt to- the full that If he lost her
he lost everything that made life
worth living; that life without Joyce
would be incomplete, aud that all
his success in life-and he was
by no means disposed to under
value that-would mean nothing to him
without Joyce. She was so desirable,
was Joyce, with her high-bred, Brit
ish air, and with all the qualities that
he knew her to possess, and with that
fact staring him full in the face that
he loved her, and her alone.
His voice tremblcd as he said: "Do
you mind SO much, Joyce, that it will
be an insuperable bar? Do you mean
that you cannot say Yes to me?"
She turned round and faced him, and
he could sec the trouble in her eyes
and the twitching OF her lips. NO >
she said, in low voice, Fl don't mean
that; I cannot give you up, Alan. You
have made me love you; ! cannot
change my love in day. But it has
cast shadow over me. I cannot re-
joice over my love for you as l did
now / know this: That life cannot
give the unalloyed happines that l
thought possible BALI an hour ago."
Because YOU are not the first,
Joyce? In one sense you are the first.
I have told it you all quite truthfully
how first felt nothing but pity for
her, and then gradually wanted to
shield her from the hardships Of life,
ana there was no other way. l mar
ried her"
'.And she--did she not love you?"
Alan did not hesitate, nor did he
prevaricatc A less truthful man than
he might have made light of Veron-
ica's devotion, but he could not. The
dead girls passionate eyes, fixed upon
him with an expression Of undying
love in them, rose up before him.
"She," he said, in low voice-"sh
loved me more than her life
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