Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1906-01-26
CHAPTER LII.
WHICH BRINGS Us TO THE JOUR

' HILL bAkl4NHo 10 ~ LIE OClN
NEY'S END.
I may confess to you, my dears, that
Mr.. Gilbert Stairs parting TRADE did
not move me greatly, since l would set
down everything he had said to the one
acCount-the miser's.
Yet when / came to second thoughts
upon it, this account balanced but in
differently. Why should lie be so
eager to make me think small Of Mar
gery's love for Richard Jennifer? Ana
why, misliking me, as l made sure he
did, should he be so hot TO make the
shadow marriage a thing of substance?
From the miser-father's point of view,
Richard, with his goodly heritage of
Jennifer House, was a match to be
angled for; yet here was the man in
whose eye house and lands doomed
largest flying into rage because L
sought to put his daughter. in the a
Of marrying them.
l was bordering th%oughtfuliy on this,
giving the pinching old man credit for
any and every motive save that which
he had so cursingly avowed, to wit,
the furthering of his daughters hap
piness, when there came a tap at the
door and Mistress Margery entered.
Dear heart! Do they limit you to a
single candle when my back is turned ?"
she said, in mock pity: and saying it,
went to light the candles in the mantel
sconeS
The sight of her standing a-tiptoe to
touch off the candles on the chimney
breast set the old love-spell at work
to make my heart peal faster. What If
there We're a hint of truth in Gilbert
Stairs wrathful protest? What If,
after all. she cared less for Richard and
more for me?
Do not, l pray you, dears, think too
hardly OF the man who thus lays bare
the secret thoughts of his heart for
you. Twas but a passing gust of the
tempest of ~disloyalty, and l was not
swept wholly from my mornings. Nay,
when she came to sit on the hassock at
my feet, as she used to do in that other
halcyon-time of convalescence, l was
myself again and could look pom her
sweet ace with eyes that saw beyond
her TO the camp or battlefield where my
dear lad was spending himself.
For a time we sat in silence. and
twas she who spoke first.
My father has been with you she
said. II hope you did not quarrel with
him.
Mo- / denied, salving my conscience
with the remembering that 1t takes two
to make a quarrel: and / had done
none of the cursing. He came to give
me this / added. banding her the
will.
She opened the folded parchment.
reading a line of ii here n there soft
ly to herself.
-" Being of sound mind. doth be-
queath and devise to his loving wife.
Margery-' All. had you been writing
it you would o have written Ii SO,
would you. Monsieur John?"
Ills but a FORM ! would say. "All
wives are loving In lawyers speech"
She smiled up at me so like an inno-
cent and fearless child that for the
moment l could figure her no other
wise. Yet her rejoincer was a woman's.
Il say you would not have written 1t
so: is not that the TRUTH"
i would not let her pin me down.
IF | should write 1t now, II should
be written in great letters. dear lady.
Though 1t is but a form. though that
which followed was but another form,
you have not failed in any wifely duty,
Mistress Margery."
Not once?"
mo, not once. Three times you have
done what the %lovingest wife could do
to save a husbands life: and l do
greatly suspect there was a fourth and
earlier time. Tell me, little one; was
IL not you who sent the Indian to Cap.
tain Forney to tell him a patriot spy
was to be executed at day dawn in the
oak glade?"
She would not answer me direct.
Twas / who brought you to that
pass she said. speaking soft and low.
But for my riding down upon you one
other morning In hat same oak glade.
you would not nave had Sir Francis
F~alconnet's sword In your shoulder,
And but for that sword wound, moth
ing that followed would have followed
Saying this she fell silent for a space.
and when she spoke again she was be-
come by some subtle transmutation my
trusting little maid OF the by-gone
h~alcyon-time.