The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-28


they had no love for each other.
Long ago II had been arranged that when
Alec Cameron reached his twenty-fifth
birthday he should take his cousin, Madge
Ferguson, tor his wife. This decision had
been arrived at by his father a hard-head-
ed old man. well meaning If somewhat
harsh shrewd and determined. whose will
was law 10 all depending on him. The
wonderful success of that career which had
raised him from a penniless boy to
wealthy man led him to have an exalted
opinion Of himself; to believe that all he
said and did was wise beyond dispute, and
could not be bettered by any other man.
Therefore, when, some five years before
this story opens, his niece, Madge Fergu-
son. was left in his charge by her dying
mother, he considered he would best do his
duty by her and his only son, Alec, by
making them man and wife, for the girl
had tidy fortune left her by her late ia
Their. whilst, when he reached his twenty
nth birthday, Alec would be taken into
partnership in The great manufacturing
firm that his father had founded and raised
10 its present state of magnificent prosper
fly. For lad and lass no better arrange
ment could be made, according to Robert
Cameron's mind, which never for a mo-
ment troubled itself TO consider the feelings
OF those most concerned by his decision.
Alec was just nineteen and Madge barely
sixteen when, one morning at breakfast,
whilst crunching his toast he told them
they might consider themselves engaged to
marry each other. They stared at him in
surprise, not daring to question his author
ity. but mildly accepting it on this matter,
as on every other, for his sole will ruled
their daily lives Apparently he expected
no reply, for he Immediately began to
praise the ham he was carving, which he
had bought and was, therefore, faultless.
The oracle had spoken, and his word was
beyond dispute.
The newly engaged pair had known each
other all their lives, and always had been
good comrades and cousins, but no thought
of a deeper affection or closer tie had ever
occurred to them, and at first they regarded
their new position toward each other with
some embarrassment This, however, soon
wore away in the daily intercourse of their
lives, and they remained what they had
already been-good friends and nothing
more. That their marriage was not to take
place for six years made Alec accept his
fathers decision with greater contentment.
At nineteen he was six feet high, his
and strong. Most women considered him
handsome His face was rather long, de-
eidedly dark and with delicately marked
outline, his nose acquiline, his firm lips
curving outward. his eyes of changeful
gray under heavy lashes that gave them a
grave and dreamy expression. And in this
they revealed something of his inward self,
for. hidden carefully away under the prac-
fical side Of his character inherit cd from
his father and strengthened by his daily
surroundings. lay an unsupported tender
ness and poetry, ina gination and romance
inherited from his dead mother, who had
been the descendant of a highland family
of good birth and impoverished fortune.
Under the shrewd and watchful eyes of
his father in the office all day, Alec ap-
peared typical business man, but in his
hours of leisure, when lying with wide-open
eyes on the hillside heather under the mys-
terious spell of moving clouds, or when
rowing across the green-shadowed lochs, or
when in his private room in the lamplght
of winter nights, he was a dreamer. 10
whose vision the world of fancy flung wide
its enchanted gates, giving him glimpses of
beauty and delights that must remain hope
lessly hidden from the sight of common
place humanity.
To such a man the thought of a pre-ar-
ranged marriage without love or romance,
of a lifelong union entered into because 1T
seemed convenient and practical, became
more and more intolerable as the years ad-
vanced which brought him closer and closer
to its fulfillment. What he had accepted
with indifference at the age of nineteen
grew uncomfortable to him at four-and-twen-
~, and long before reaching that age he
recognized that he had made a fatal mis-
take in agreeing to the arrangement at
first. instead OF stoutly protesting against
it and saving himself from a union that
could bring him none of that intimate hap
piness for which he longed. At the same
time he saw that to break his engagement
would be dishonorable and disloyal to his
cousin, and bring a bitter disappointment
TO his father, to whose wishes he had
seemed to accede.
Honestly, and with all his heart, he
wished that he could love Madge, whose
blue eyes and sunny brown hair, whose
fresh complexion. dimpled cheeks and WIN
some smile might readily win the affections
of any man. But through no fault or hers
or his, but through some strange perversity
of facts which neither Of them was able to
alter he knew that she was unsuitable to
MN. that she was not the WOIIldn HS uS-
sired for his wife, the woman who had
power 10 stir his heart, to respond in per-
feet sympathy to that side of his nature
hidden from the world. TO appease that
craving for affection which sometimes rose
TO climax of pain.
Occasionally, in his hours of ease, as he
smoked his pipe and INDUCED in day
dreams he pictured to himself the wife ne
would have won had choice been given him.
At first she seemed but a visionary crea-
ture with wistful eyes, who was shy of
revealing herself, but with alluring capri
ciousness and ever-increasing distinctness
she appeared to his fancy, fascinating him
and stirring his heart as it never before
had been stirred by mortal woman For
weeks he fell a willing victim to her siren
SPELL living as much possible apart from
relatives and friends, that he might have
time to commune with her, awaiting her
appearance with strange anxiety, feeling
strangely happy in her phantasmal pres
ence and painfully lonely at her disappear
ances, which his imagination appeared un-