The Minneapolis journal., 1906-07-11
CHAPTER x
The Accident Upon the Road. =

The Accident Upon the Road. -
Was Eta Romney dead or would
the months re-create hers - &c
Evelyn believed that they would.
The intolerable sennui of her life at
Melbourne festered the atmosphere in
which such dreams as hers were born
and reared. She had that in her blood
Had the whole truth been told, it
would have set her down for a gypsy
of gypsies- true child of the road
side and the caves But the truth was
just the one thing her father hid from
her. e =.
II met your mother at Vienna,' he
ha told her once when an illness had
moved him, to that affectionate conf
dence which weakness is apt to pro-
woke. "She was Dora d'Istran, d the
most beautiful woman in the city and
one most run after. You are; like her
sometimes, Evelyn; you have her eyes
and hair, and just such a manner. She
understood me as no one else in the
t4e Ma5d dh has Ever done hsr even ny ny
face Of my family and never regretted
the day. She died when you were
eleven months old. I live again thru
that hour which took her from me
every day of my life.'
Here was no weak confession. Thru
ont his life this man had been seek
ing a good woman IS love. Knowing
in his heart that he had done things un-
worthy Of it., he sought it yet more ar
woman, his wife, had understood him
and given him Of her whole soul gener-
ously. Her death left him vagrant
once more: In vain he, miser to
others, lavished generous gifts upon
Evelyn, his child "she would love
not strike.' A keen observer of in
tuitive faculty would have said that
the man IS nature, not the woman 8, in
Evelyn Forester forbade her to re-
spond to his affection.
= Of this Evelyn herself remained quite
unconscious. Fret as she might against
her fathers unjust and inexplicable
treatment of her, she would have re-
sented hotly the suggestion that she
very obedience, she thought, must be
sufficient witness to that Tho he
made prisoner of her, she rarely ut
tered complaint. His varying moods,
now Of doting affection, now Of irrita:
tion and temper, found her patient and
silent. When he did mean thing she
cause she knew that words would not
help her. Her own life had been lived
SO far apart from his. She wished
with all her heart that it had not beer
80; but she could not justly blame her
!. self for circumstances she was in nc
way able to control.
This had been her attitude before hel
great escapade in London; it remained
her attitude upon her rsreturn to Derby
shire. She met her father each morn
ing at the breakfast table; dined will
him in solemn state at night occasion
ally received visits from their neigh
bors, and was sometimes the guest O.
the vicar Of the parish, pleasant ol!
Cambridge don, by name Harry Fill
more. But in the main Evelyn ivet
alone, in the wild glades Of the beauti
full park, down by the silent pool o
the river-just as she had lived an
dreamed in the old days of the longin
for the world. it's glamor and its gle
| ries. And now she had great secre
to take to the green woods with he1
! Day by day, as some sylph of the thick
| cts, the true Romany child reacted tn
thrilling scenes Of the brief weeks Q
triumph in London. Her hair vii
about her shoulders, her eyes reflect
| ing the dreams, she would crouch by th