Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1900-02-02
but midway he pauses. An awful pallor

lutIS uOWu ullCUu6ClUuSs AuU 80 IuGY U0U
him when the day is nearly spent.
"Ennisford has had a stroke!"
The news of this goes far and wide,
md a few, remembering him in the glory
of his manhood. utter a regret; but the
many, with an expression of surprise, put
him out of their memory; and he is bet
ter and able to be moved to Highcliffe
when the tidings reach his wife in an out
of-thc-way villa in which she has buried
herself in one of the northern shires.
1t has been Il dreadful wrench to her to
leave Highcliffe, to take her last look and
say her last prayer Mt Chester's grave.
But when she found that her husband
had really left her and was living with
the woman who had bewitched him she
felt that she could no longer live under
IL roof that belonged to him.
Twilight tingcs the western blue. as n
woman, closely cloaked and yelled, and
with Il child's hand in her own, steals
through tlie familiar grounds at High
cliifc. and then up the stone steps at tho
back of the house. n light shines out
on the piazza from Lord Ennisford's
library. and, creeping softly up close to
the window, she looks in.
He is alone-alonc with visions of a
uay tnaL is Oe1u.
Visions of a girl wife. whom he had
certainly loved in the first halcyon days;
he wonders now how he had had it in his
heart to be harsh and selfish. and even
brutal to one who had loved him so much
that his lightcst look had been her law!
Presently his head dNops forward and
there is such utter dcsolation in his atti-
tude. such utter. utter loneliness in the
room, that Lady Ennisford feels she can
bear no more. With shaking fingers she
auictly unlatches the easement and
pushes the wondering child, hiding her.
self behind the clustering leaves of a
magnolia.
Stealing round tho back of his low
chair. she suddenly clasps her fat, dim
pied little hands oyer his eyes. and cries,
shrilly:
"Bo-bcepY"
Then she dances round and faces him.
Great heavens"
He grows deathly pale to the lips and
trcmbles all OVER, as if palsy and not
paralysis had seized him.
He recognizes the features OF his pet
the child of his heart. The child does
not come nearer, and, alas! he cannot so
NY precious" he 4 Is, and for the
first time since he left his wife a real
ring of happiness sounds in his voice.
Mammal.
lie starts a little. and a tingc of color
sweeps across his thin cheek.
Mamma. Where is she? Ask nj
to come to me-" he whispers in Mays
car. in a trcmnlous tone.
800 so to her. May ordains, dictato-
rally.
II can't, my chi!d!.'
He says it so wistiully. and she who
listens to every word with bated breath
and straining ears, stretches out her arms
toward him in the darkness.
All. how she loves him. in spite of his
sin and shame, loves him as much as il
he were a good man. and righteous, and
as she gazes. with her whole soul in her
eyes, she sees him rise slowly and with
difficulty. and in another moment May
clings to her dress, and beside her stands
A 4 II $+si4teuE with p:eraaturc age. lc2N
ing on Il crutch.
His curling yellow hair is streaked with
gray, and his face is worn and lined with
suffering. He was dazzling as a god, in
the untouched splendor of his. manhood,
but she was already wan and weary With
her womanhood.
Now ii is she who has the advantage
These months. though months of sorrow,
have ripcncd not withered her, and the
pure light which irradiates her sweet,
brown eyes,. and suffuses her delicate soft
features. kind!ing them into absolute
loneliness.
Il love you! l shall always love you,
1Sro u, m n ~ ~ n ,,o;aa tlnt e;,- roo,.
ago TRANSPORTED the earth into heaven
for her With these same words.
"4And l love you; l have never ceased
| to love YOU" she whispers back.
II know! | do not deserve it. for 1
| have been such Il ~thoroughpaccd brute 10
| you, Frances"
NO matter. it is all over now. And
| after all, Ennisfoid, to err is human
| she says, womanlike, making excuses for
him.
".And to forgive, divine! but you We're
always an angel" he cries, feryontlY and
meaning it.
"That little Lady Ennisford has actu.
ally taken her husband back" says Mrs.
Walsingham, struggling her shoulders.
Women are such fools! How long does
| she expect to keep HING
Long enough to repent at leisure what
| she has done in haste" Mrs. Temple an
swers. "Efe is not fit for a married man."
But he is.
He has had q surfeit of beauty. and is
content with the helpmate God has given
him. He goes to see Bella, too, for, in
his newborn happiness, he can forgive
even her evil work.
And Bella meets him with n smiling,
smirliing face, and introduces herself to
him as Lady Ennisford,'' when she re-
ceives him in her room in a private asy-
lum which she calls "Highcliffe."
"Quite incurable. and often very dan
gerous," the mad doctor whispers, as he
hurrics Lord Ennisford away.
CThe cnd.)
Love the Parent of sympathy.
1t is not necessarily poverty or troub.
lie which makes people sympathetic;
often it makes them quite the opposite.
I think it is just love. The person who
loves most understands most and for.