The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1904-07-07

Copyright, 1891, bv I. C. Mcclure

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Since daybreak there had been no
change In the ceaseless lurching Of
the yacht or the dull roar of the waves
as they swept in long, heavy seas over
Its sides.
Twice Katherine had tried to leave
her stateroom and reach the cabin and
had been forced back. Once the white
faced stewardess had come to her door.
There was no immediate danger, she
assured her. They would be notified
at once II there were. If she was
nervous, Mr.. Hetherington said he
would come to her. And Katherine
bad sent back word that she was not
at all nervous, and MT Hetheringtou
need not trouble himself at all about
her.
When the girl had gone, she had
thrown herself on the couch and given
full vent to the terror that had haunted
her all night long She was afraid.
afraid with her whole heart, of the
great flashing, hungry sea, that tossed
and played with the yacht like some
huge monster with its helpless prey
and threatened every moment to hurl
1t down to death.
If Hetherington had been with her.
If they two could have faced eternity
In each others arms, with the old love
strengthening them, she would have
known no fear. But as 1t was, wild,
unreasoning, childish terror made her
tremble at every crashing wave, and
she longed for even sight of his face
before the end should have swept them
irrevocably apart.
The week at sea had passed like a
troubled dream. Whey were to have
made harbor the previous morning,
and the storm had driven them OF the
course down the southern French
coast. By this time she had thought
everything would have been over-the
brief. fearless parting with Hether-
ington, the meeting with her mother In
Paris and the trip to Berbec.
Dear, lovely, lonely little Berbec up
on the Normandy coast! The two sum
tignys classes, had been the happiest
of her life. She loved even the mem
DRY of the crescent shore line, with the
old boats drawn up on the sand and
the nets drying in the sunlight and the
brown skinned fisher boys and girls
gossiping over their baskets of silvery
scaled fish.
1t had all been arranged and settled
SO decently. rs Hetherington said.
There had never been any open quM
rels between them for the servants
and public TO gossip over merely a
quiet, courteous antagonism which re-
quired no explanation. The marriage
had not been voluntary.
1T was the blessed, stupid mothers"
Katherine said with gay cynclsm at
their last interview. Were not the
kind who settle down, Bruce. and be
married and then do nothing but give
house parties and dinner parties and
yachting parties and all the rest Of it.
You were rich and nobody IN particu-
lar, and | was poor and lorimer,
and the wise little mothers simply saw
IA chance to found Il dynasty of mutual
benefit, and we drifted until they land
I'd us under the orange blossoms. 1T
is a little tangle OF fate's skelns. We
can't go back and untangle 1t, but we
can do the Alexander trick and cut IT."
He had agreed to the separation too
readily, she thought. Even acknowl-
edglng perfect Indifference on both
sides, little hestancy would have
been desirable. He had almost seemed
cheerful when he had asked her what
she intended doing at Berbec.
"You haven't the ghost of right to
ask me-" she had told him, but there
is nothing to conceal. Martigny keeps
up his summer classes still. You know
| studied under him there and in Paris,
too when we were poor, before
She hesitated and went on with light
touch of bitterness-"before | was the
fortunate Mrs. Hetherington. There is
certain to be some of the old class left,
and can rest and study"
And be happy" continued Hether-
ington. She had not answered.
She felt that he could not understand
how she longed for the old quiet life
away from the world. 1t was at "er-
bee he had first met her. Young and
handsome, he had come to the little
fishing hamlet on yachting cruise