Waterbury Democrat., 1901-05-29

tiidt SOHe Ol lIle nuTrylHS@ SfoOLlS shouted loudly in their impatience broke through his stupor and reached him. It was that of the woman whom, however madly, he loved with all the strength of passion born out of utter hopelessness. He turned to the out rider nearest him.
 "You are of the Princess Corona's suit? What does she do here?"
 Madame travels to see the country and the war;
 'HThe war? This is no place for her. The land is alive with danger, rife with kdeath.'
 brother. Miladi does not know what fear is.'
 ''But'-
 The remonstrance died on his lips. He stood gazing out from the gloom of | the arch at a face close to him, on which the sun shone full, a face unseen 1 for 12 long years and which moment before laughing and careless in the light changed and grew set and rigid and pale with the pallor of an uputter- able horror. Cecil brought his hand to his brow in military salute, passed with the impassiveness of a soldier who passed a gentleman, reached his charger and. rode away upon his errand over the brown and level ground.
 He had known his brother in that fieeting glance, but he hoped that his brother would see no more in him than a French trooper who bore resemblance by a strange hazard to one long be- .lieved to be dead and gone. The in stinct of generosity, the instinct of self sacrifice, moved him now as long ago one fatal night they had moved him to bear the sin of his mothers darling as his own.
 k
 Within six and thirty hours the fn- structions he bore were in the tent of the, major whom they were to direct, andshe himself returned to the cara l vansary to fulfill with his own hand to ! the dead those last offices which he would delegate to none.
 1t was in the coolfless and the hush 1 of the night, with the great stars shin | ing clearly over the darkness of the 1 plains, that they made the single grave under leaning shelf of rock, with the somber fans of a pine spread above it and nothing near but the sleeping herds of goats. The sullen echo of the soldiers muskets gave it's only funeral requiem.
 When all was over, Cecil still re- mained there alone. Thrown down up- on the grave, he never moved as hour after hour went by. To others that lonely and unnoticed tomb would be as nothing-only one among the thousand marks left on the bosom of the violat- ed earth by the ravenous and savage lusts of war-but to him it held all that had bound him to his lost youth, his lost country, his lost peace. Suddenly 1 he started with a thrill of almost su- perstitious fear as through the silence he heard name whispered-the name | of his childhood, of his past: He sprang 1 to his feet, and as he turned in the l moonlight he saw once more his broth CTS face, pale as the face of the dead ! and strained with an agonizing dread. Concealment was no longer possible. 1 Cecil was the first to break the si- lence. He moved nearer with a rapid movement, and his hand Nell heatilF on the others shoulder. y N - -
 'Have you lived stainlessly since?
 God is my wftness-yes! But you | you-they said that you were deadv'
 CeciPs hand fell from his shoulder. There was that in the. words which smote him more cruelty than any Arab steel could have done. There was the accent of regret.
 'I am dead" he said simply dead to the world and you"
 He who bore the title of Royallieu l covered his face
 "How have you lived?" he whispered hoarsely.
 ...Honorably. Let that suffice. And you?"
 .tIn honor, too. swear! That was my first disgrace and my last. You bore the weight of my shame! Good God, what can I say? Such nobility, such sacrifice! We believed you were dead They said so; there seemed ev- cry proof but when I saw you yester- day knew you-I knew you, though you passed me as a stranger. I staid on here. They told me you would re- turn. God, what agony this day and night have beenr'
 Cecil was silent still He knew that this agony had been the dread lest he should be living.
 There were many emotions at war in him-scorn, pity and wounded love and pride too proud to sue for grati- tude denied. Long ago he had accept ed the weight of an alien crime and borne it as his own. To undo now all that he had done in the past, to fling out to ruin now the one whom he had saved at such cost, to turn, after 12 years, and forsake the man, all coward | though he was, whom he had shielded for so long was not possible to him. Though it would be but his own birthright that he would demand, his
  . !