The Savannah morning news., 1903-03-29

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ness SIS s--a-e~- E- Do knew some
.rr~c -F -rNr- business IS Wen for he
p-,a-s 81 tr-E-r concerning the Carlow
en- Ss7s -~s G g7sTElcSs 20 take shares
s- NJ na--> company while the stool
v-sS Wy lau. tu-r u-a1ls having been
S--G 90 -roaE Sst sfsctOrv results. H.
= Sees explained with exceeding tech
~--z -.v rs rezSNDs for believing that
-a+ ~ sra wfll would strike oil
F1g wt-h ms ease Of mind regard
s-c ere herald. HAIRLESS found HIM
Ss-g .,-SS aSse5 NF apathy. He fretted
20 Er~c So 70 get back TO Plattville.
VT.r -ne prospect Of return il seemed
s~ s--y. ness glared at him from hol-
5-a- sockets and the thought of the
dreamy routine he must follow when he
us-r back gave him the same faint
~suSsz he had felt the evening after
IRE circus And. though it was partly
--s long sweat Of anguish which had
t--1-- Bad him. his apathy was pierced,
S. -.r-=S. by a bodily horror of the
<---= Of his struggle. At night he
faced the gTotesque masks of the
Cross- Roads men and the brutal odds
asain. over and over he felt the blows,
and clapped. his hand to where the
close FIRE Of Bob Skillett's pistol burned
his body.
And except for the release from pain,
he rejoiced less and less in his recov-
cry. He remembered tedious sick
ness Of his childhood and how beauti-
full he had thought the world. when he
began to get well, how electric the open
air blowing in at the window, how
green the smile of earth, and how glo-
rious to live and see the open day
again. Fft had none of that feeling
now. No petty vision came again near
his bed, and he beheld his GONZALES
cence as a mistake. He had come to
a jumping-off place in his life-why
had they not let him jump? What was
there left but the weary plod, plod,
and dust of years?
He could have gone back to Carlow
in better spirit if it had not been for
the few dazzling hours of companion
ship which had transformed it to a
paradise, but, gone, left a desert. She,
by the sight of her, had made him
wish to live, and now, that he saw her
no more. she made him wish to die.
How little she had cared for him, since
she told him she did not care, when
he had not meant to ask her He
was weary, and at last he longed to
find the line of least resistance and
follow it; he had done hard things for
a long time, but now he wanted to do
something easy. Under the new gent
us-who was already urging that the
paper should be made a daily-the
Herald" could get along without him;
and the "White-Caps" would bother
Carlow no longer; and he thought that
Hedge Holloway, an honest man, if
a dull one, was sure to be renominat-
ed for Congress at the district conveu-
ton which was to meet at Plattville
in September-these were his RESPONSE
bilities, and they did not fret him. Ev
erything was all right. There was only
one thought which thrilled him: his
impression that she had come to the
hospital to see him was not delusion;
she had really been there-as a hui
name, Christian person, he said to him
self. One day he told Meredith of his
vision, and Tom explained that it was
no conjuration of fever.
But l thought she'd gone abroad"
said Harkless, staring.
'They had planned to-" answered his
friend. They gave it up for some
reason. Uncle Henry decided that he
wasn't strong enough for the trip, or
something"
"Then-is shells she here"
mo: Helen is never here in sum-
mer. When she came back from Plat
vile, she went north. somewhere, to
join people she had promised, l think"
Meredith had as yet no inkling or sus-
picion that his adopted cousin had re-
turned to Plattville. What he told
HAIRLESS was what his aunt had told
him, and he accepted it as the truth
Mrs Sherwood (for she was both
Mr.. and Mrs. Sherwood) had always
considered Fisbee an enigmatic rascal,
and she regarded Helen's detection to
him in the light of a family scandal
to be hushed up, as well as a scaldng
pain to be borne. Some day the I'M
kind girl-errant would return TO her
wisdom and her duty" meanwhile the
less known about it the better.
Meredith talked very little to Hank
less of his cousin, beyond lightly COM
menting on the pleasure and oddly of
their meeting, and telling him of her
anxiety about his recovery; he said
she had perfect confidence from the
first that he would recover HAIRLESS
had said word or two in his delirium
and word or two out of il, and these
with once a sudden brow of suffering
and a difference Meredith felt in Hell
ems manner when they stood together
by the sick mans bedside, had given
the young man a strong impression,
partly intuitive, that in spite of the
short time the two had known each
other, something had happened be-
tween them at Plattville, and he ven
tured guess which was not far from
the truth. Altogether, the thing was
fairly plain-a sad lover is not so hard
10 read-and Meredith was sorry, for
they were the two people he liked best
on earth.
The young man carried his gay pres
ence daily to the hospital, where Hark-
less now lay in a pleasant room of his
own, and he tried to keep his friend