The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-05-25

word urned and walked away.
 Stephen saw him go. his tall form moving amonst the tree trunks till finally 1t was lost in their massing. She was so filled with the tumult or her passion that she looked. unmoved Even the sense of his going did not change her mood. She ragged to and fro amongst the trees, her movements getting quicker and quicker as her excitement began to change from men tai to physical; till the fury began to exhaust. itself. All at once she stop ped, as though arrested by a physical barrier and with a moan sank down in a helpless heap on the cool moss.
 Harold went from the grove as one seems to move in a dream. He wanted to get away quickly, silently, unob- | served. With the instinct of habitual l thought his mind turned London-ward. He met but few persons, and those only l cottiers. He saluted them in his usual cheery way but did not stop to speak with any. He was about to take | single ticket to London, when it struck him that this might look odd, so he asked for a return. Then, his mind being once more directed towards con | cealment of purpose, he sent telegram to his housekeeper telling her that he | was called away to London on busi- ness. It was only when he was far | on his journey that he gave thought | to ways and means, and took stock of his possessions. Before he took out his purse and pocket book he made up l his mind that he would be content with what it was. no matter how little. He had left Norma nstand and all belonging 1 to 1t for ever. and was off to hide him | self in whatever part of the world would afford him the best opportuni- l ty. Life was over! There was noth- | ing to look forward to; nothing to | AAlx ott TkA Aaf Nnyou V- ing pain whose lightest element was despair As, however he got further l and further away, his practical mind began to work; he thought over matters so as to arrange in his mind how best he could dispose of his affairs, so to cause as little comment as might be. | and to save the possibility of worry or distress of any kind to stephen.
 I Even then, in the midst of his agony l of mind his heart was with her; 1t was l not the least among his troubles that he would have to be away from her when perhaps she would need him most. And yet whenever he would come to this point in his endless chain of thought. he would have to stop for l while, overcome with such pain that his power of thinking was paralyzed. | He would never. could never. be of ser vice to her again. He had gone out ot her life, as she had gone out of his life: though she never had, nor never could out of his thoughts. It was all over! stephen was gone from him who | would rather have lost the sunlight! He would never see her again! And he had no memory to bring with him l into the dark exile from her presence. All the years of sweetness, of hope, and trust. and satisfied and justified faith in each other, had been wiped out by that last terrible, cruel meet ing. Oh! how could she have said such things to him! How could she have thought them! He would have bitten out his tongue rather than have said the lightest of hard words to her. He could not have thought hard things of her any more than he could of God! "And there she was now in all the agony of her unrestrained passion. Well he knew, from his long expert ence of her nature. how she must have suffered to be in such a state of mind. to have so forgotten all the restraint of her teaching and her life. Poor, poor Stephen! Fatherless now as well | as motherless; and frfendless as well as fatherless! No one to calm her in the height of her wild abnormal pas sionl No one to comfort her when the fit had passed! No one to sympathize with her for all that she had suffered! No one to help her to build new and better hopes out of the wreck of her | given his life for her. Only last night he was prepared to kill, which was worse than to die. for her sake. And now to be far away, unable to help, unable even to know how she fared. And behind her eternally the shadow of that worthless man who had spurned her love and flouted her to a chance conner in his drunken delirium. It was too bitter to bear. How could God lightly lay such burden on his shoul- ders? It was unfair! It was unfair
 If he could do anything for her Any thing! Anything!" And so the un- ending whirl of thoughts went onl
 The smoke of London was dim on the horizon when he began to get back to practical matters. When the train drew up at Euston he stepped from it as one to whom death would be joy ous relief
 He went to a quiet hotel, and from there transacted by letter such busi- ness matters as were necessary to save pain and trouble to others. As for himself, he made up his mind that he would go to Alaska, which he took to
 be one of the best places in the as yet uncivilized world for a man to lose his identity. As a security at the start he changed his name; and as John Robin son, which was not a name to attract public attention, he shipped as a pas senger on the Scoriac from London to New York.
 His vague purpose was to cross the American continent to San Francisco, and there to take passage for the high attitudes north of the Yukon River.
 When Stephen began to regain con- sciousness her first sensation was one of numbness. She was cold in tha back, and her feet did not seem to exist; but her head was hot and pull satiing as though her brain were living thing. This state continued for a good while. She had a sensation that time had passed, and was passing. Then her half-open eyes began to take in her surroundings. For another lone spell she began to wonder why aiI around her was green; green pillars green roof with a great many win
 dows in 1t; very far away and all very still. Then came the inevitable process of reason. Trees! It Is A wood! How did I come here? why am I lying on the ground?
 All at once wakened memory opened on her its fiood-gates, and overwhelm- | ed her with pain. With her hands pressed to her throbbing temples, and her burning face close to the ground. she began to recall what she could of the immediate past. It all seemed like a terrible dream. So like a dream that only for the touch of the cool, moist, earth to the backs of her hands she | occasionally could not believe in the