Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-12-17
CHAPTER Xxx.
81 Have No Dead Ashes of Love to
Give"

81 Have No Dead Ashes of Love to
Give"
Sixteen months had passed since
Sybil Ayrton fed from her home, leav-
ing gloom and desolation behind her.
Nothing was changed there. The
squire went his daily rounds. Irene
fulfilled her usual routine of duties
Nothing was changed; yet a dark
cloud lay over Glynn and all in it.
AS he rode over his farms and
among his tenantry. the squire no
longer met his humble neighbors with
a kindly smile. The gray head was
bent beneath it's load of trouble; when
his eyes were raised to the face of
man, woman, or child, each read bitter,
gnawing anxiety there.
He had never known happy mo-
ment since she left him, and never
would again. His proud, beautiful
darling, whose golden head used to
droop so lovingly on his breast, was
always before him. At night, in his
dreams, he felt the clasp of the ten
der arms, the touch of the sweet, warm
lips. He would wake, crying out that
he had had a bad dream, then remem-
Der it was all true.
People respected his grief, and sell
dom intruded upon it; they knew how
the squire loved her for whom the
whole neighborhood mourned. They
knew what had brought those deep
lines on the brow, and round the
grave lips. They knew why the squire
so seldom spoke, and never smiled
He never knew afterward how he
had endured that part of his life; how
the summer days and winter evenings
passed; how he bore the silence, the
anxiety, and suspense.
There was one person Squire Joce-
Ign never pardoned, and that was Lady
Marche. They had one most stormy
interview, and when it was ended
nothing could induce the squire to
speak to or look at her, or endure her
name mentioned.
He reproached her most bitterly.
He accused. her of shameless careless
ness in bringing man like Captain
AyrtOn to her house.
In vain Lady Marche wept, and said
she had met him at her brothers,
where every one seemed to think so
much of him; that there had been a
rumor Of his engagement to Lady
Helena Pierrepont, Lord Severne's
daughter. He would not hold her ex-
cused. She was a mother, with daugh-
ters of her own to shield and guard;
she had done a grievous wrong in
bringing such a man into her house
He told her his daughters ruin lay at
her door and it was women like her,
who overlooked vice for the sake of a
handsome face and pleasing manners
who really demoralized society.
Lady Marche received a lecture that
day she never forgot; it did her good
She was a wiser and better woman
after it.
No one felt more sorry than she did
for the tragedy that had blighted the
life Of the squire's best-loved child
She owned afterward that she had
NOA1O Wills, CAIctC IL 0nC 1ctu IIldQ6 III
quiries about Captain Ayrton, before
asking him to Ling, she should have
discovered that he had lost caste
among those with whom she had seen
him associate
Lady Helena Pierrepont, for in
stance, far from being engaged to him,
had resented his attentions most
haughtily; and at her request Lord
Severne had forbidden him the house.
Lady Marche had heard the first ru-
NOR, not it's contradiction, and never
stopped to ask if it were true.
Perhaps the greatest change of all
had come to Sir Rupert Dacre His
youth seemed to have died away. He
never spoke of his sorrow to any hui
man being-not even to the squire
it was an untold secret between them
But the squire knew it well, as though
Sir Rupert had spoken of nothing else
He spent the greater part of his
time at Glynn. The squire became
quite dependent on him; he loved him,