The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1902-10-03
CHAPTER XII.
The Awakening of Lois

| The Awakening of Lois.
A week passed-the most eventful
week in the girls life-for it was
marked by more things than the steady
improvement of the patient. Lois at
tended to her school duties as regu-
larly and efficiently as ever, as she
took pleasure in them, for she saw
their results in the children. Her
afternoons were spent in the sick
room. For few days she disguised
the feeling that drew her thither I'M
der the garb Of duty. She had taken
upon herself, she told herself, the task
OF nursing the smuggler back to
strength and having assumed her bur-
den it was her obligation to bear it to
the end. This served we'll enough for
a little while. The subsequent discov-
cry that she was happy: only when
near the man and restless and dis
quieted when away from him came to
her almost as a shock.
She had never been in love and she
was at loss at first to identify the
new feeling. For at least twenty-four
hours Its classification eluded her.
Finally the truth came to her and, as
was her nature, she faced it bravely
In her own apartment, the ruddy tide
mounting to her forehead, she dived
into herself and brought up the fact
that she was madly enamored of a
man of whom she knew nothing good
and feared everything evil, man who
was certainly, in some degree crimi-
nal and might easily be villain of
supreme villainy, a man of whose
blood and training she knew nothing,
one whose former life was hidden from
her, one whose regard was disgrace
to any rightminded young woman, a
nightrider, lawbreaker, a fearless,
reckless bandit Of the lonely river, in
the grasp of one government and very
possibly with price upon his head
set by another government. Yet she
loved him.
Shrinking, half ashamed, yet feeling
secret guilty thrill of pleasure so
keen that it amounted almost to
agony, she told herself so again and
again. Every glance of his gray eyes,
every expression that fitted across
the face that was to her as beautiful
as any dream Of a Greek sculptor,
every tendril of his clinging golden
hair was with her in her lonely hours
and she Rugged the visions even while
striving desperately to Danish them.
Her brows drawn together in a heavy
frown and her lips curved in tender
smile, her bosom passiunately rising
and falling and her tiny boot beating
an unceasing tattoo upon the floor,
she fought her battle with none to see
or aid. Each drop of the wild blood
in her was aflame; every instinct of
her warm, strong nature told her that
love was love, that Eros was Eros no
matter who or what the object en-
shrined; every desire of hers was to
go to him and give herself to him and
with him to face woe and ignominy.
the laughter of enemies, the tears of
friends, to dash madly down before
that altar every cherished ambition
and, amid the scattered fragments, to
stand scorned but happy. And against
this swelling tide of emotion which
so rose that she half choked fought
every hour of her earlier life, every
maxim implanted in the days of her
childhood, every influence for good
and right that had worked in old
times in gray New England and the
strong common sense and adherence
to duty that were as much a part of
her ancestry as the singing blood OF
Provence. For long night these con-
tending forces warred within her and
ready for the duties of the day she was
pale but calm. Her better nature had
won.
The course she had mapped for her
self was plain and direct. He must
never know; no one must ever
know. She would go through her life
as she found it to the end, hiding her
hurt, wishing only good to him in
whatever troublous places his lines
might be cast, but sternly repressed,
self-contained, mistress of herself
She swore to herself that not a tremor
Of lip should betray her and she knew
that the task was likelier to be the
easier because of the shortness Of it.
For at most only a few days could
elapse ere the officers came to take him
from her to the doom of which
she dared not think. Only yesterday,
so rapid had been his recovery, he had
sat up for little while and taken his
nourishment from her hand and thank
ed her, not only in words simple and
well chosen, but with eyes that would
look upon her she knew in the night
hours of many year to come. So she
braced herself and went to her work
on that day and carried it through as
thoroughly as usual.
Il When the children were dismissed
for the afternoon she fingered In the
school-room postponing the moment
a when she should see him, though she
knew that he waited for her impatient.
! Isly. She; had grown used to seeing iiii
4 fses light np when she came. II va,
no Evidence 81 anys weakentnss 81 hel
& n. !. < - sc = - x