Ladysmith news. [volume] (Ladysmith, Wis.) 1906-1907, 1906-11-24
CHAPTER XXI.


Alexis, in a wild and disordered
hand, which more than sufficiently re-
vealed the agitation Of his mind, wrote
thus:
Dearest. Always dearest. Your
letter cuts me to the heart. l can say
nothing in answer to it, but that my
position makes it impossible for me
either to explain or to extenuate
was not wholly honest in the morning.
I shall never dare to be wholly honest
with anybody any more. | have IN
volved myself in maze from which |
can see no possibility of escape.
scrupulous adherence to candOr and
veracity are not the common badges
of you sex, but you are the soul or
honor in that regard, and | know that
after this enforced confession you can
never respect me again. [ see no
course before me except to release you
from a compact into which | ought
never to have enticed you. Go free OF
ME, Lillian, and Of my wrecked and
broken life When you think of me at
all think of me leniently; and think OF
me as one who loved you, and will love
you till the end Good-by. Heaven
bless you. A blessing hurts nobody,
even when it comes from one so nope
less and forlorn as I am"
That was all, and if the reader wept
over it, there was little room for
wonder. 1t left with her puzzles all
unsolved, but it confirmed the chief
suspicion which had tortured her
Alexis had not dealt honestly with her.
and there was something in his life
the expense of honor. What that
something was she had no means of
guessing, but it was enough that it ex-
listed.
When woman has really given her
whole heart to q man it is difficult to
say what shock her love will not sur
vive, but in Lillan's case there had
been no such surrender. She had ad-
mired Alexis greatly, but she had al
ways found defects of his character
visible. She could anaiyze and critl-
else as no woman in love with man
could ever do yet in the history of the
world He had never been the man of
men to her, the only man, the incarna-
ton of all the eXCellences width which
the female lover bowers the he OF her
unalterable choice She grieved, but
it was vastly less for the breach which
- 70 ho SYnxyita hln II an
for the fall of one whom she had re-
spected and had once Believed herself
to love. She accused herself of shall
lowness and disloyalty. She thought
that if a woman who really loved had
been placed in her position, she would
have rushed impulsiyely to the suffer
err and would have declared herself
ready to face any obloquy for his dear
sake; would have reioiced to lift him
to his better self again, and to share
| his sorrows.
But Lillian had no impulse of that
kind, though her grief and pity were
real enough to throw her into kind
of low fever, which hung about her for
many days She kept her room and
| denied herself to visitors, even TO
Miss Molloy, who came to recapitulate
in fuller terms the news she had al
ready sent of, the surrender OF Billery.
| But Miss Molloy absolutely declined
| to be denied. and having at last Sc
cured admission under promise that
she would not talk, and would with
draw before the patient had even be
gun to be tired OF, her visit, she set
herself resolutely to work to wake her
| friend from the uninterested languar
| into which she had fallen, and sue
ceeded SO well that she was asked to
prolong her stay. Lillian had thought
she would never find heart to laugh
again, but she did laugh, and that