The St. Johns herald., 1902-02-08

he was in love with tilted him, out of hand, for a richer fellow, and he was very hard hit. He went West, and was lost to sight, and the places where he had been knew him no more. If any one chanced to mention him to the girl she sm..cl tho smi'e of pitying con- tempt, which is most women's tribute to the memory of a man they have treated abominably, and said: Poor Dick" She was as mean as she was beautiful-which is not the fairy-tale formula; but she got her punishment in the end-which is.
 This is how it came about:
 Circumstances and physicians over which she had no conEol sent the rich man she had married-whose name was Kent-to spend a season on the Pacific Coast. Rents fancy lighted upon a seaport town, the only objects of inter- est in which were a break-water, in course of construction, and a spit of land upon which, tourists were assured, the skeletons of dead and gone pirates might yet be dug up. Neither these nor the adjoining shipping village, which only awaited the appropriations of de linquent Congress to become the harbor of the Pacific slope, offered to Mrs. Kent that variety and excitement which alone could make existence palatable | to her. So she decided that if there were to be any such, they must come from within herself. Therefore, as the most unlikely thing that she could hap ] pen upon, she determined to try what it might be like to lead that which is l known as a normal and healthy life going to bed when the frogs began to sing in the dismal marshes about, and getting up with the sun. 'I will take plenty of exercise" she explained to her husband; T will row for a couple of hours before breakfast, on the la goon, think"
 She experienced some real enthusi- asm about it at this point. Kent did not. He foresaw the disturbance of his own comfort, which was not great ly considered at the best of times, and he tried to discourage her; but without success.
 At daybreak she made her way across the strip of land that divided the lagoon and the sea- The hotels and cottages faced the sea, but the lagoon was the inner harbor. and there were upon it only wharves and rickety boat-houses and fishermen's huts. It was not ex- acuy a picturesque outlook, ordinarily, but the sunrise lights cast a sort of glamor over it now. Even the deep, loose sand was cool and tinted, and all traced over with fine cabaliStic lines where the lizards had dragged their tails and no one had as yet stepped. Later on, it would be blistering hot and tue marsh weeds would give out choking smell; but this early, their stunted yellow and pink blossoms had a fresh and pungent scent.
 She followed a path that led to a rough board shack, standing on stilts over the ebb-tide mud, where a sign ad- yertised that boats were builded and for rent. When she stopped in the small doorway, her figure shut out most of the light, and she could barely dis cern the man who was moving around inside. He came toward her. Her back was to the low rays of the sun, so her face was in the blackness. and only her form was as glistening white as the Angel of the Apocalypse.
 Had he a row-boat, she asked; one not too heavy, and with oars of a mod crate sweep? He was taciturn-a long shore character, probably-for he d.d not even answer, only took a pair of spoOn-oars from their rack on the wall, and led the way out to the landing Der. She followed, running against strange shapes of wood, and stumbling over piles of lumber in the gloom. When they were out on the landing, he turned about and faced her suddenly She was quite close behind him, and she gave a quick start back.
 "I thought so," he said, steadily, 'I thought the voice was like yours"
 He had had that much warning, but she had had none at all, and it might have been full two seconds before she got control of herself Then the beauty of the situation and all its possibilities fioated upon her suddenly, and she de- clded that her movement of impulse had been the best she could have made So she followed It up. She shrank back into the doorway farther still. Rich ardi" she said. covering.
 He stood resting upon the oars and scrutinizlng her stolidly He flattered himself that he was calm, not to say cool, but Mrs. Kent had a deeper than surface sight. She knew that he ap- peared cool for very much the same req son that a circular saw appears still when 1t is going fast enough. For her self and for the major part of mankind she was a very light scoffer at love; but she was no such fool as not to know that the heart which has truly loved and never forgets does have it's existence in the. flesh as we'll as in the lines of Erin's bard. So summing LID the situation with the aid of observa- lions upon his character, made rather exhaustively some five years gone by, she came to the conclusion that, when she should be ready, 1t would take her perhaps half an hour at the outside to have him at her feet as a tiger is at the feet of a trainer with whip.
 But for the present she let him just stand there. leaning upon the oars and trying to look at her disparagingly She did not believe that the man lived