The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1904-02-12

would 60 to her now and tell her so.
He seemed to see himself trudging
through the scented woods TO the lit
tie cabin where she lived with her
imbecile grandmother. He stood at
her window and tapped, and she came
out to him, poor child, as she had
come 80 many time before. He
heard his own voice telling her-he
saw the gladness of her face.
Then, the madness of it all came back
over him again, and he fell heavily
back and lay still.
The stars were growing pale when
he rose, grasped his way to the door,
and went out. The air was cold, a
white mist lay across the bay. He
shivered once or twice as he unmoored
the old boat and pushed off The mist
lay down, so that the oars, as he row.
ed, seemed to cut the fog instead of
the water, and great drops Of moisture
grew, as though by some magic pro-
cess, upon the rolled up sleeves of his
shirt. 1t was all cold, clammy, ghost
ly and inconceivably still. Even the
beat OF the oars seemed muffled as he
headed for the horns of the bay.
He went slowly hugging the spec
trail outline of the rocks along the
shore The mist strcam'd past him
in wreaths and trails, like wet smoke.
He thought of the Camel Rock, and
lau ghed bitterly to himself in the
silence.
At last he struggled out between
the horns of the little harbor and
found bis fathers nets. They had
drifted little, and most of them were
empty. He drew them in, one by
one, with only solitary rouget or
rascasses struggling here and there
in the folds. One net had drifted fur
ther than the rest. He rowed after it
slowly, looking up at the veiled out
line of the shore.
Some where above him, among the
pines, was the little cabin with its
brown, sunken roof, its hedge of wild
myrtle. Somewhere above him, in the
cold mist, was the fairhaired girl he
had lost.
He found the corks, bobbing up and
down upon the still water, and reach
cd out for the net. 1t was heavy.
He leaned out of the boat to drag it
up, and the light vessel keeled over
with him >until her side lay almost
level with the ruffled water as be tug
ged at the net. He could not under
stand its weight and swore as he
hauled it in.
All at once he was still, staring be-
fore him into the water. A CLEAN
like wet gold began to show through
the brown meshes of the net.
Jean Modesto, white and still, made
one more effort and hauled the net into
the boat. Then he knelt down beside
it and began, with dreadful quietness,
to cut the brown mehses away from
the body of a girl with yellow hair.
She was quite dead. He knelt at
the bottom of the boat and held her
wet, fair head against his breast. He
had had his choice, and be had chosen.
Bread and love-love and bread. He
looked down, shuddering. This was
his choice-this.
Suddenly puff Of air tore through
the fog and lifted it high above the
drifting boat. A red light showed
in the sky-the wind had risen with
the sun.
Every instant the wind grew, and
light dashed across the boat; out of
the morning fog dark shape began
to loom.
Jean Modesto, seeing it,, lifted his
bowed head. A moment more and he
had sprung to his feet and was hoist
ing the huge red sail. Then he sat
down again and took the dead girl in
his arms. 1t was his idea Of penitence,
perhaps even of penance, though it
might not have appealed to the old
Cure of St. Maurin. Love is not
worth drowning for, be had told her
cruelty. Well, she should see.
The boat flew before the wind, the
white spray lashed like whip at
the bending sail.
In the pine wood an old woman
walled dreariIy to unheeding walls.
In st. Maurin Black Georges Modesto
swore at his missing son. But in the
tower of the Phare de St Maurin, far
above, the lighthouse keeper stood
glued to his telescope, helpless and
amazed before the spectacle of fish
ing-boat under full sail tearing straight
down upon the Camel Rock.-NelIy
K. BAssett, IN Black and White.