The San Francisco call., 1905-05-07

Ada's sake, who would live to bear his
name, to return to an empty reinstate-
merit and stife with the pulpy ashes
new life! For Ada's sake-go back,
and leave Teresa?
The visitor spoke again. When he
had asked that question child. not
woman, had been in his thought. He
had not told all he had come to say
have been to Seaham, George;
I went to Lady Noel's funeral"
His hearer started. You saw Ada p
he asked, his features whitening. You
saw her?" He clutched Dallas wrist.
She Is six years old. Did she speak
my name, Dallas? What do they
teach her Of me?"
The others tone was almost as
strained; the story he had to tell was
a hard one.
Your portrait, the large one painted
the year you were married, hung above
the mantelpiece. 1t was covered with
heavy curtain. Lady Noel's will for
bade that the child should see it before
her twentieth year. Laddie, Ada has
never heard your namei"
Dallas stopped abruptly at the look
on. Gordons face. No anger showed
there, only the dull gray Of mortal
hurt. A curious moaning sound had
Z dIiSell, IeTuuuer OF the SultIy tenn
pest that had been gathering, rapid as
anger. The cicalas had ceased shrilling
from the garden. peculiar warm
dampness was In the air and drop
of rain splashed on the marble sill.
Do you wonder" Dallas continued
after a pause, that I want you to go
back?"
Gordon made no reply. His eyes
We're focused on a purple stain Of
q fT1n Iv1ow - - II .
some caryatid upholding caldron Of
steam. all ink and cloud color, while
before 1t slaty masses of vapor fed
like monstrous behemoths, quirted into
some gigantic sky enclosure.
Z Dallas pulled the window shut.
With the action. unheralded as doom,
a great violet sword Of lightning wrote
the autograph of God across the sky,
and shock of thunder, instantaneous
and crashing like near ordnance, shook
the walls of the palace. 1t loosed the
svicious pandemonium of the tropic air
into tornado. sudden and appalling.
While the echoes of that detonation
still reverberated into the room, as
though hurled from the wing of the
unleashed wind. came Mary Shelley
drenched with the rain, bareheaded.
gasping.
"Shelley's boat has not returned"
she walled. He is at sea in the storm.
oh, / am id-afraid-aIraidl"
Teresa entered at the moment with
q frightened face, loose-haired and
pale, and Mary ran to her, sobbing.
Gordon had turned from the window,
but his countenance was void and ex-
pressionless. ''Shelley?' he repeated
vacantIy, and sat down heavily in the
nearest chair.
Teresa suddenly put the arms Of the
Weeping girl aside and ran to him.
"Gordonl" she cried, as Dallas hur-
ried forward in alarm. Gordon, what
is it?''
.England-Teresa-" he said. Then
his head fell forward against her
breast.
For twelve hours. while the wild.
typhoon-like storm raved and shrieked
over Pisa, Gordon lay seemingly in a
deep sleep. He did not wake till the
next dawn was breaking, wetly bright
and cool. When he woke 1t was TO
healthful life, without recollection Of
pain or vision.
And yet in those hours intervening.
strange things happened hundreds OF
leagues away in England.
Has genius. that epilepsy of the soul,
shackled self, which under rare stress
can leave the flesh for a pilgrimage
whose memory is afterward hidden in
that clouded abyss that lies between
its waking and its dreaming? Did
some subtle telepathy exist between his
soul in Italy and the soul that he had
transmitted to his child? Who can
tell?
But that same afternoon. while one
George Gordon lay moveless in the
Lanfranchi library. another George
Gordon wrote his name in the visitors
book at the kings palace. in Hyde
Park, London. Lady Caroline Lamb.
from her carriage seat. saw him en-
tering Palace Yard and took the news
to Melbourne House. The next morn
ing's papers were full of his return.
That night, too, she who had once
been Annabel Milbanke woke unac-
countably in her room at Seaham. In
the county of Durham. to find the
trundle-b bed in which her little daugh-
ter Ada slept, empty.
She reused a servant and searched.
In the drawing-room a late candle burn
ed, and here, in her night-gown. the
wee wanderer was found. fearless.
wide-awake and unafraid. gazing
steadfastly above the mantel-piece.
The mother looked and cried out. The
curtain had fallen from its fastenings.
and the child was looking at her
fathers portrait