Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1901-02-07


l told you / hated Mrs. Charters? So
I did. But / hated her because I
loved her. Don't you remember tell
ing me you felt sure I didn't care for
her after the ball. Yes, I did avoid
her, because I knew she was the kind
of m a man was safest away
from" He hesitated.
81 have no right to blame her,
Dora. But long before she called me
in to attend her she had made me un-
derstand in a hundred ways"
He paused again. The girl nodded
her head silently. She was leaning
back in a chair, her eyes shut, as If
she sought blindness from the blow
which must fall. The utter forlorn-
ness of her slight figure, so still and
unresistant in its misery, might have
turned the edge of a less relentless
fate. But suddenly she sat up,
straight and aggressive, with flaming
cheeks.
Leonard, did you yer discuss me
with her?"
ION my soul, Dora, neyer!" he ex,
claimed im~petuously. But in a mo-
ment he added, with the appalling
self-honesty which characterized
him. "Tbat is, if we did, we never
said So"
She covered her face with her hands.
for the tears would come. The un-
conscious I'VE" smote her so cruelty.
"Oh, Leonard, how could you?" she
moaned.
perhaps if you had known her as
7 did: ha hanan oroip after n lonn
silence, but Dora chilled him with a
proud gesture.
Leonard" she said presently,
Leonard, I must know. I must. Did
you-did ou-eve kiss herr"
He could have smiled. In the face
of the deep involving of his soul with
that dead woman's it seemed Sc
puerile a query.
NO" he answered coldly. "But I
would have given my soul TO-"
THANK YOU she said proudly.
~Your frankness is admirable, but
somewhat gratuitous." She moved to
the door, but he held her as she swept
past him.
Dora, listen! I'm going away. I've
offered my services as an army sur
gecn."
She wavered, and then turned TO
him helplessly. If she had ne loved
him better than herself it would have
been SO easy to be proud.
"Oh Leonard, don't go! You never
loved her. You only think so now.
Some day you'll know better. You'll
know you loved me best"
Perhaps 1 shall, but 1 don't now"
he answered. inexorably honest. "The
trouble is, Dora, I've been loving two
women. Some one has said hat at
heart all men are bigamists. 1t must
be true, or I can't explain myself"
She WINGED under his words, but an
Intuition born of her love sustained
her even now.
You're too honest, Leonard. You
ask yourself too many questions. 1
should think that a doctor would have
known better than to pore over SYM
toms, like a student, until he thought
he had the disease. l suppose we've
got the germ of everything in our
bodies and our souls if we chose to
look for it"
'Oh, Dora, you don't understand"
Don't I? Do you suppose 1 didn't
know" she demanded, with sudden
passion. "Why. Leonard,
from the very night of the ball 1 fol-
it all, step by step"
He stared at Der stupidity.
Eyes, and you pry and pry, and
you're 50 honest hat you're
brutal. Why, you're so honest that I
believe you'd almost tell a lie in maxi
ing sure that you told the truth"
He listened to her in amazemcnt.
He had never suspected this simple
of sublety. He had thought her
as plain to him as a page of primer
prose.
All at once she turned to him with a
cry.
''Oh, Leonard, don't you care any
thing for me? And I'm so good. I've
never done a thing in my life that I
be ashamed to have yon know
cheeks famed. could Mrs.
Charters have said that?"
mo"
"Why, they say I'm the sweetest
girl in this town" She smiled at him
"And I'm-we1l, oh you know,
Leonard" Was she going to speak
of her wealth, for whose sake so many
men had craved her "sveetness?"--
why, Leonard, you know I'm not
ugly, and oh! I owe you so terribly"
ugly, Dora, you're as beautiful rs
angel" he exclaimed in deep,
tones. The bitter pathos Of it
all, this simple mastering of all her
virtues to tempt him back to !
side, melted his heart to her like
in a furnace.
But she hid her face from him, and
began to sob. Her humiliation was
than she could bear.
go away!" she whispered pas
sionately: Goodbye"
NO, no, Dora" he protested.
Don't you know I may never see
you again? I can't leave you like this"
She sat up instantly.
"Do you want to kiss me?" she
lsked, with a naivete at which he
hardly hide a smile.
She was such a child-when she as
Tot a woman. a week ago he had had
her all analysed and labeled, and she
lad required very few tags, for there
vas nothing complex about ner. But
Tow it struck him with the force of
discovery that no human being is
except, perhaps, the n who
him such.
The next day he went away, out
tho field of hra a wiser and