Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1901-03-14
CHATTER I.

StoHc Walls Oh bTey OAKS, the COuLITy
residence of Donald Markham. and the
show place of the neighborhood.
Within the elegantly-appointed dining
room. around "A table artistically gar
nished with fruit and flowers, fingered
three persons
One was Grey Oaks owner and a
ter-a tall. superb-looking man of six
ty-five winters, whose frosts had Whit
ned his hair and beard, but failed to
bow his powerful frame.
Twenty years before, the society
world. already looking upon Donald
Markham as a confirmed old bachelor,
had been startled by being m
10 welcome. on his return from an ex.
tended foreign tour, a young and beau
tiful woman OF Italian birth, whom he
presented to them as his wife.
Who she was. where he had met her,
and how she had conquered this hither-
TO un~conquerable. were matters for Gu
rious speculation, of which there was
no lack.
Some said that she was the daughter
OF a Roman noble. and that she had
2 sbd oWS Va AihtoS
incredible magnitude: others declared
that she was penniless, her only dover
her exquisite beauty and winning
grace.
Whoever, whatever, Donald Mark
hams wife may have beer before he
thus had honored her, as Mrs. Donald
Markham. she was too great a local
power not to reign as social sovereign
had she so ordained. Society's pet
grievance was Ia she did not so or
dain.
She adored her husband, and he APP
peared to lavish all the pent-up tiood of
years upon her.
For a year their happiness was un-
marred, and then, one perfect May
morning, the heaviest sorrow of Donald
Markham's life fell upon him. They
pat into his arms an infant daughter.
and whispered to him that his wife was
dead.
His grief was something terrible I'm Its
silent, hopeless intensity Iron bands
seemed at that moment to lock them
selves about his heart-would w re-
manned so locked forever but for the
tiny fingers OF his little girl, who. as
che years went by, one by one loosed
them.
On her he concentrated all a fathers
tenderness. No other woman's smile
yer alIured him. Reticent and raw
his child alone reveled in the inner
warmth and sunshine of his nature. un-
ill. advancing from babyhood to child
hood-from childhood to girlhood-sha,
now standing on the threshold OF wo-
manhood, appeared to him the imper-
sonation and idealization of the past.
IL her lead mother had left her nc
other inheritance than her exquisite
ioveiiness, that. at least, was full, COM
glete and perfect.
The light, streaming full upon her
face. revealed no flaw. The figure was
rounded into a beauty which defles all
criticism. Hers was a face no pen
could describe. Her eyes We're gray
The straight regularity OF the little
nose. the rebellious. willful rings of
rudy gold upon her white brow-this
until she smiled; and then you would
have sworn Ii was the smile to which
she wed her rarest charm.
Yet now, sitting opposite to her father
and toying with. rather han eating, the
bunch of hot-house grapes upon her
plate, the lashes We're sweeping her
cheeks, the dropping head half-shad-
owed its bloom. The smile was absent,
indeed, a tiny frown puckered her
brow; but the beauty still was there,
and on 1t gloated the eyes OF the third
member of the party.
Randolph Chester was the nearest
relative Donald Markham could boast.
but Ii was difficult to believe even a re-
mote tie of blood connected two men
whose expression rendered them so dis
similar.
The face of the younger man was at
once singularly handsome and singu-
lariy repellant. One recognized in him
the fascination possessed by the SER
pent.
His eyes were dark and glittering:
his hair and mustache black; his skin
fair as a woman's. There was subtle
grace in every movement. His voice
was low and musical.
At the time of his cousins marriage.
twenty years before, he had been a boy
of fourteen, and already looked upon
himself as Donald Markham's pre-
sumptive heir.
For years ne had nourished a deadly
hatred against this innocent destroyer
pf his fond vision; but. as the child de-
veloped into the most perfect woman
hood. a new idea had burst upon him,
by which his early disappointment
might yet be wiped out, and his early
ambition attained.
Over Donald Markham he already ex-
ercised a strong and peculiar influence
that influence he fostered by every
care, until he knew that to no man
would his cousin more willingly intrust
his most precious treasure than him
self.
But an unexpected obstacle lay I'm HIS
path. 1t was one thing to WOO Beatrice
Markham-another TO win her; and the
girl usually SO sweet, so gracious to all
took no pains to disguise toward him
her aversion and-she was in love with
another.
Bertram Talbot, holding a salaried
position In his cousins employ. aspired
TO the hand of his cousins heiress. II
was he who had caused Donald Mark
ham to pol at this thing in its proper
Iight--to feel his old liking for the