Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1904-07-29
CHAPTER XIV.
A CONVERSATION

~ ~ LO&NF
One graz and gloomy afternoon, late
in October, Dunstan Burbage vas
seated in a great chair beside a wood
fire in one OF the smaller rooms OF Had
ley Manor.
Throughout his illness, while his
harassed. mind wandered over the
events of the past, from his childhood
upward, and rested with agoniZing per-
sistence on the late tragedy, he had
been carefully watched and tended by
Veneto and his servant Matteo. AS he
had boosted, the Italian was skilled I'm
medicine and understood his patients
case: and to his knowledge Of herbs,
unknown to, or ignored by, the English
medical faculty, the fever-stricken man
probably owed his life.
And not only did Veneto fail 10 sum-
mon a doctor. but he likewise neglected
to announce Dunstan's illness TO the
inmates of Knowlesworth Hall.
So, taking it in turns by night and
day, Veneto and his confidential ser
want nursed Dunstan. and they alone
listened TO the rawlings of a mind
haunted by the recollections of q ter
rible tragedy. and by the horrors Of a
prison cell. 1t was only when reason
had established itself and he lay lam
guild and tranquil that Roma was al
lowed to enter his room and sit by his
bedside.
However, she felt some satisfaction,
some outlet for her tenderness toward
him, in sitting watchfully by while he
slept, I'm bringing him the food she had
prepared, or in talking or reading TO
him..
They had often talked of her country,
whose people he had learned to know
and owe during the year or so he had
lived among them, while studying
chemistry in the laboratory of an
Italian chemist famous in the scientific
world.
Roma had one day, when he was we'll
on his way to recovery, suggested that
she should give him brief lessons, and
that they should read together the
pages of their favorite poet, Dante.
When Roma put away her copy of
Dante there was silence between them
for some seconds. From where she sat
she could'see through the high window
the discorded clouds scurrying before
the wind like a routed army flying in
front of the enemy. The battlefield
was lirnitless in size and of a dull lead
color, and now IN then came sounds
like the faint echoes Of trumpets and
the cries of the pursued, as the breeze
~distractedly tore along the common or
rushed through the tangled woods.
From the wild sky, the frighted
clouds. and the sombre earth she tursed
to look at the occupant of the chair
beside her, whose sharp profile and coli
orless face were distinctly seen in the
red glow Of the Woo fire, and she was
struck by his expression of brooding
melancholy and the alert a%pprehen-
siveness of his stare, like that of a man
fearful OF a sight unseen by others, OF
some pictured fate that rose before him
vividly and ap~pallingly from out the
gloom and cast its melancholy upon
him.
As with dim eyes she turned again
to watch the interminable ranks of the
routed army in the sky, she told her
self hat although he had been de
clared innocent and set at lihertyMa
mar whose nature was so sensitive as
his would never believe himself free
from doubt of guilt in the eyes OF the
world at large until the murderer of
Richard COTE had been discovered.
Continued Next Weekly