Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-30

fore we knew 1t. Yet feel that I have
none of the traits ofthe Female Offender.
though in my anxiety and crazy search for
causes and excuses have even taken my
caphalic index and tested my chromatic
perception and my tactfle sensitiveness and
Faraday current! Yes. we. are both too
normal to succeed happily In the ways we
began. - =. I'shall miss you, but shall
always love YOU Oh, Jim, pray for me; as
/. daily, shall pray for you! can't write
more now. Go back to your work, though
it means being hungry and lonely and un-
happy, fight out the problem Of your am
piifer. and struggle along with your trans
mittihg camera. until you accomplish some
thing We can both take pride in and be
happy overI Some time, later. when 1
write. shall be able to explain everything
the hospital and crossed in the Kaiser VIII
helm II. There will Always be a scar-but
very small one-on my arm. That will be
the only: reminder. Goodbye. dear Jim.
and God bless and keep you, always, In the
right
She read over the letter. slowly, dispas-
sionately, and fought back the temptation
to write further, to fling more of her true
feeling into il. That, at best, would be
| only cruel kindness
AS she folded and sealei the letter she
| felt that she was sealing down many years
of her past youth. She already felt that-she
had passed over some mysterious Great
Divide, that some vast morainic loop al
| ready walled her back from her former ex
istence. And then, as a sudden, crushing
sense Of her isolation swept over her. she
broke down, in that very hour of her ironic
| triumph, and wept mserably, passionately,
hopelessly.
Her misery chung to her all that day. I'M
| til. late in the afternoon. she caught the
first glimpse of Oxford from her compart-
ment window. At one touch it carried her
for she had been little more than a child
when first taken from the dubious care of
her father-and the happiest stretch of her
life had been lived within sound of Ok
| fords tranquil bells.
| 1t had been her first plan. when she left
! the train, to take carriage and drive leis-
urely through the old university town. 1t
| would be her one hour of freedom, before
/ she protested, a human enough hesitation
before the ultimate plunge Vividly and
! infinitely she remembered the town, as she
had seen 1t from the familiar hills. wrapt in
| sunlight and purplish shadows by day, lying
| cool and dark and tranquil under the sum-
| mer moon by night, stepped In the silences
and the soft mistiness of the river valley,
| with here and there bell tinkling and
| roof glimmering through the gloom. She
| even used to say she found a strange COM
| fort in the number of these bells and in
| the thought of their wakefuness throughout
| the night. But now, through some under
ground circuit of memory, they carried her
| thoughts back to the changing brilliance of
| Broadway at midnight. to the movement
|
manitv. And, by contrast, they now seemed
| to her to toll lugubrously. The quiet city
about her. seemed tainted with antiquity,
| autumnal overshadowed by the grayness
| of death. 1t almost stfied her. She had
| forlornly hoped that the calm beauty of that
| town of bells and towers would still fall as
welcome balm on her torn feelings. Lut
she had changed-oh. how she had changed!
1t was not, she told herself, the mere fruit
of physical exhaustion. Her one desire on
that day. indeed. was to reach that condi
ton of bodily WEAKNESS which would rem
der her Indifferent to all mental blows. 1t
was only her past whmpering Tor it's own.
She still felt the sheer need of ia
tgue to purge away that inner WEAKNESS
that had settled over her soul, so on second
thought she turned homeward and went on
foot through the palng English afternoon
Often as a girl she had walked in over the
neighboring hills, and there seemed some
thing more in keeping with her return to go
back alone and quietly. And as she walked
she seemed to grow Indifferent to even her
own destiny. She felt herself as one gaz-
ing down on her own tangled existence
with the cool detachment of a mere spec
tator; yet this was the landscape of her
youth. she kept telling herself, where she
had first heard nightngales sing, where
she had been happy and hopeful and looked
out toward the unknown world with wide
and wondering eyes; but the very landscape
that once lay so large and alluring now
seemed cramped and small and trivial. 1t
seemed like play world to her. painted
and laid out and Overcrowded, like the too
connnlng stage scene OF q theatar.
The afternoon was already late when the
familiar square tower of the church and the
gray walls of the parsonage itself came
into view. She gazed at them, abstra cted
and exalted, and only once she murmured
How different; oh, how different
Then she opened the gate Of that quiet
home, slowly and deliberately and steppeds
inside. The garden was empty.
One great annihating sponge sweep
seemed to wipe five long years and all their
mottled events from her memory Then as
slowly and deliberately she once more
closed the gate. The act seemed to take on
that dignity attaching to the ceremonial
for with that movement, she pass:onately
protested to herself, she was closing the
door on all her past.
(To be Continued Tomorrow