Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-10-14


 perhaps to operate Poor cbild, It will be a terrible thing for her If this last hope fails her. too. especially now when she and Hugh are 10 make match of 1t.
 Harry's face was turned away. or the bishop would have seen it suddenly startled ITO make a match of itw To hide the flush he felt staining his cheek Harry bent to close the safe something that had darkled in some obscure depth of his being whose exist ence he had not guessed was throbbins now to painful resentment Jessica was to marry Hugh.
 "A handsome fellow Hugh"' said the bishop He seems to have return. ed with a new heart-a brand plucked from the burning You had the same alma mater. l think you told me Yonr influence has done the boy good. san derson" He laid his hand kindly cp the others shoulder. ''The fact that you were In college together makes him look up to you-as the whole par ish does." he added
 Harry was setting the combination and did not answer But through tine turmoil in his brain satiric voice kept repeating:
 No. they don't call me Satan nowr'
 The white house iu the aspens was in gala attire. Flowers-great banks of bloom were massed in the hall. along the stairway and in the window seats, and wre3ths of delicate fern trembled on the prim hung chandeliers Over all breathed the sweet fragrance of jasmine. Musicians sat behind screen of palms In corridor. and long scarlet carpet strip ran down the front steps to the driveway, up which passed bravely dressed folk. arriving in carriages and on foot, to witness the completion of a much booted TO- nance.
 For a fortnight this afternoons event had been the chat of the town. for David Stires. who today retired from active business. was its magnate. the owner of Its finest single estate and of its most important bank. From his scapeCrace boyhood Hugh Stires had made himself the subject of un- comfortable discussion. His sudden disappearance after the rumored quar- rel with his father and the advent Of Jessica Holme had furnished the com munity sufficient material for gossip The wedding had capped this gossip with an appropriate climax. Tongues had wagged over its pros and cons. for Hugh's past had induced whole some skepticism of his future.
 There was an additional element of romance, too, in the situation, for Jcs- sica, who had never yet seen her lover. would see her husband The great surgeon on whose prognostication she had built so much had arrived and had operated. The experiment had been completely successful, and Jessi- ca's hope of vision had become sure and certain promise.
 The operation over, there had re- mained many days before the bandages could be remOved-before Jessica could be given her first glimpse of the world for nearly three years. Hugh had urged against delay. If he had strin- gent reasons of his own he was silent concerning them. And Jessica. steep ed in the delicious wonder of new and lnchoate sensations, had yielded.
 So it had come about that the we'd ding was to be on this hot August aft crnOon, although it would be yet some ' time before the eye bandages might be laid aside save in darkened room. Tn her girlish. passionate ideality Jes- sica had offered sacrifice to her senti- ment. She had promised herself that the first form her new sight should be- hold should be not her lover. but her husband. The idea pleased her sense of romance
 It was sweltering afternoon, and in the wide east pailor linn handker.