The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1902-11-22
A Knave Of
Conscience
Bv FRANCIS LYNDE.
CHAPTER NNX.-CoNTlNUED.
(copyrie.b 1900. by Francis aynde.)


short run before the gale to the pier.
head at the foot of Main street. For
one thing, he was not Il man of many
words; and for another, he was
chilled through and thoroughly un-
comfortable.
None the less, he made shift to
thank his rescuers in fitting phrase
at the point of debarkation, and to
intimate, as a gentleman might, that
his gratitude would wait upon fit
ting opportunity to take more sub
Stantial form. Charlotte offered to
walk home, that Griswold might see
Mr.. Galbraith safe to his hotel, but
this the old man would by no means
permit.
INA, ma he sid, relapsing, as he
did now and then, into the Scottish
mother-tongue. "I'm wet as any
drowned rat, but I'm not that badly
flashed. Take the Teddy home, Mr..
'Griswold, and do you two be seeing
after yourselves. You're as wet as
I am
Accordingly, Griswold accompanied
Charlotte to her own gate, and then
went home to change his clothes.
Just what he meant to do afterwards
was not very clearly defined, but dur
ing the changing interval he made up
his mind with sudden determination.
Whatever should come of it, the
thing for which all other things must
wait must be said. He had reached
the parting of the ways; he knew, as
he might have known from the mo-
ment of love-nalling on the Belle
julie" that life without Charlotte to
share it with him would henceforth
be no more than q shadow of the
real,
He had good excuse for going
straight away back to DR.. FarnEam's.
The very least no could do would be
to call and ask if she had come
through the adventure with no worse
consequence than Il shock and Il wet
ting. And yet, when he had let him
self out of Mrs. Holcomb's gate he
did not go directly to the house on
the lakes edge. Instead, he made a
long detour, walking aimlessly and
deeply buried in thought. This thing
which he was about to do was not
to be done lightly. So far from it,
the more he pondered over it the
more he realized that it was likely
to prove the turning point in his life.
Now, that he gave himself the back
ward glance which he had steadily
refused since the morning of the
Bayou bank incident to take, he saw
that he had been living tentatively;
passing from day to day as one who
waits upon the event of the day;
looking neither backward nor for
fully, doing the thing that lay next
to his land he knew now that his
work, on his book or in the Office
with Raymer, had been purely eN-
trinsic to any well-considered future.
But now the future demanded
thoughtful consideration-wou have
it, whether or no: and, as was in
evitablc, the past colored every fore
casting picture.
For one thing, he had come to that
stone of stumbling which he had
forseen in his earliest imaginings
touching his future relations with
Charlotte. Without being unduly be-
sotted. the hope that he should not
plead with her in vain WAS almost an
assurance. If he could gain his own
consent to let the past lie buried in
oblivion, the vista of the future
opened out before him with all the
barriers to happiness brushed aside.
And yet, try as he might to resolve
to hold his peace touching the past,
point of taking her conscience UNI
awares. lie was far enough from
realizing that his own conscience was
interposing this obstacle. lie
thought, when he allowed himself to
think in that direction, that he had
settled the conscientious scruplcs for
himself once and for all. Neverthe.
less, there had been moments, brief
feeting moments, for the most part
when he would have given the rever,
sion of years of life to be as he had
been before the pistol-drawng Incl.
dent in Andrew Galbraith's private
Office. But these little uptlashcs OF
remorse had been but match flares
going out in sudden Whit of the
wind Of tinaIity. For the thing wa!
done irrevocably and could never be
undone.
In the aimlcss dctour which lee
him from street to street and finally
into Il road that brought him Out
upon the lake front far from town
these things all came up for a hear
ing, and he gave them room patient
ly, as judge hears plea that III
knows well he must disregard. Thu
storm was over, and the sun was set
ting in all the glory of the broker
cloud rack in the west. Griswold ha,
the artists eye for natures grand
eur, and at another time the sunse
would have held him spellbound. Blu
now he plodded along with hand
behind him and his head down, seein
nothing but the all too clear vista o
the past, and that other vista of tn
future which had but now become
valley of shadows.
So plodding along the lake drive
he came at length to the boundarie
of Jasper Grierson's domain, and a
most before he knew it, he was clint
ing the path to Mereside. At TIL
very veranda steps he came alive
some sense of what he was about
do, and would have stopped to weig
the consequences-to turn back,