The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-27

1 ise that l would not try to seek you for
 six months, and l kept my word. That
 was better for you and better for me. lf
 money had changed you, and money does l change most of us, you would have been ] happier for my silence. l have told you
 about the letters and that's Gods truth. l If | had not been ashamed I couldn't have l kept my word for l loved you, dear, and
 l shall always love you. When my fa- l ther sent you to MT. Gessners house,
 think he wished to find out if his good opinion of you was right or not. He said
 that you were going to carry a sword into Wonderland and kill some of the giants.
 If you came back to us you were to marry me, but if you forgot us, then he would never believe in any man again. There's $ the truth for you, my dear; l tell you be- cause it all means nothing 10 me now. 1 could not go to London and leave my fla ther in prison here and they will never release him. Alban, they will never do it
 as things are, for they are more fright ened of him than of any man in Russia. When l go away from here, 1t will be to Petersburg 10 try and see my father. There's no one else in all the world to help him, and l shall go there and try 10 see him. If they will let me stay with him, that will be something, dear. You
 can ask them that for me- when MT. Gessner writes, you can beg 1t of the ministry in Mr. Gessner's name Ask them to send you to prison Lois?" ITO send me to my father, dear" Aban sat very silent, almost ashamed for himself and his own desires The stu pendous sacrifice of which she spoke so lightly revealed to him a page in the story of human sympathy which he had l often read and as often derided Here in the prison cell he stood face to face with ! human love as Wonderland knew nothing | of it. Supreme above all other desires of ] her life. this desire to save her father, to | share his sorrows, to stand by him to the l end, prevailed The riches of the world 1 could not purchase devotion as precious,
 or any fine philosophy belittle it. He ! knew that she would go to Petersburg be- [ cause Paul Boriskoff. her father had need 1 of her. This was her answer to his selfish complaints during the years of their exile. And what am l to do If they give you l the permission, Lois?'
 ITO go back to London and marry Anna Gessner Won't you do that, Alban?' You know that I shall never do so." There was time when you would not have said that my dear" | He was greatly troubled, for the aecu- sation was very just. The impossibility of making the whole truth plain to her had stared him in the face since the mo- ment of her pathetic confession when he met her on the barge. Impossible to say
 
 looking to the right and the left for the , figure of the vision and suffering it to escape me all the time" This. he could not tell her or ever hint at. The lie cried for a hearing, and the lie was detestable | to him.
 There was a time. yes, I4ols'' he said, | turning his face from her. q am ashamed to remember it now, since you have l spoken. If you love me, you would undor- 1 stand ha nf ner's house meant to a poor devil brought ! up as I had been. It was another world i with strange people everywhere. I thought they were more than human and found them just like the rest of us Oh, that's the truth of it. and know it now. Our preachers are always calling upon
 the rich to do fine things for the poor, but l the rich man is deaf as often as not, be-
 cause some little puny thing in their own | lives is dinning in their ears and will shut | out all other sounds I know that it | must be so The man who has millions | doesn't think about humanity at all He l wages war upon trifles, his money-books ! are his library; he has blinded himself | by reading them and lost his outlook upon | the world. I thought it would all be so different, and then4somebody touches me upon the shoulder and l look up and see that my vision is no vision at all, and that the true heart of 1t is my own all the time. Can you understand that, Lois; is | 1t hidden from you also?
 Tt, is not hidden, ,Alban; it Is just as I said it would be-"
 And you did not love me less because of it?"
 T should never have loved you less, | whatever you had done"
 q shall remind you of that when we are in England together"
 That will never be, Alban, dear, unless | my father is free
 1 She repeated it again and again. Her manner of speaking had now become that | of one who understood that this was a | last farewell.
 You cannot help us" she said. ''why | should you suffer because we must? In 1 England there's a great future before you l as MT. Gessners adopted son. l shall | never hear of it, but l shall be proud be- | cause I know the world will talk about | you. That will be something to take with me, dear, something they can never rob | me of, whatever happens. When you re-
 member who Lois was, say that she is | thinking of you in Russia far away They 1 cannot separate us, dear Alban, while we | love-"
 He had no word to answer this and could but harp again upon all the prom 1 ise of his fine resolution. When the mat l ter-of-fact official came to find him, Lois 1 was close in his embrace and there were l tears of regret in his eyes.