The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1908-11-15
kTAN SANDERSON
eaze@~@@aBy HALLE ERAiINIE RIvts ~aa@zaaz....
by HALLE ERMINIE RIVFS

would not return. In the days of the
! Fieii she had found relief in the rougb
nard work OF the mallet. None had
entrnded IN that out-of- -the-way spot
S save tnat ono day Mrs, Halloran, led
ny curiosity, to see the grave of the
rich, man whose whim il had been Ia
nc buried on the mountain side. had
found her at her work, and her Jes.
s'ca had pledged to silence. She was
no fool, was Mrs. Halloran, and ia
learn the name of the dead man was
to put two and two together, The
guess the good woman evolved under.
shot the mark, but it was more than
that lurked beneath that prosaic exte.
rior.; nevertheless she shut her lips
against temptation, and all her moth
erly heart overfowed to the pirl who
worked each day at that self-appoipted
task, Only the afternoon before Jes-
slca had finished carving the words on
the base of the statue on which the
look or the startled man was now rest
ing: 6! will arise and 20 unto my
father
The gazer turned from the words.
with quick question, to the mound. lie
came close, and In the fading light
looked at the name on the low head.
stone. SO he had come too late!
And the son said unto him. 'Fa-
ther, / have sinned against heaven and
IN thy sight, and am no more worthy
to be called thy SOM Though for
him there could have been no robe or
ring, or fatted calf or merriment, vet
he had longed for the dearer boon of
confession and understanding. Ii he
could only havo learned the truth ear.
lier! If he might only put back the
hands of the clock!
Hours went by. Tie shadows
dreamed themselves away and dark
fell, cloudless and starry. The half
moon frightened upon him sitting move
less beside the stone figure. At length
he rose to his feet, his limbs cramped
and sti1fened, and made his way back
to the lonely cabin on the hillside.
There be found fuel, kindled blaze
in the fireplace, and cooked his frugal
supper. The shock of surprise past, he
tive and cerebral. The dead man bad
been his father; so he told himself,
but with an emotion curiously destitute
of primitive feeling. The very rela-
tlonshlp was a portion of that past
that he could never grasp; all that was
Of the present was Jessica.
He thought Of the losing battle he
had fought there once before, when
tempest shrieked without-thc battle
feat. He thought of the will he had
seen, now sealed with the Great Seal
OF Death. He was the shorn beoear,
she the beneficiary. What duty she
had owed his father was ended now.
Desoiate she might be-in need OF
hand to guide and guard-but she was
beyond the reach of penury. This gave
him sense of satisfaction. Was she
there on the mountain at that moment!
There came upon him again the pas
sionate longing that had held him in
that misty sanatorium room when the
odor of the iasniip had wreathed them
both--when she had protected and
saved him.
At last he took Old Despair's bat
tered violin from the wall and, seat
ing himself in the open doorway look
ing across the mysterious purple of the
gulches TO the skyline sown with pale
stars, drew the bow softly across the
strings. In the long-past days, when
he had been the Reverend Heury San
derson, in the darker moods of his
study, he had been used to seek the
relief TO which no now turned. Never
but once since then had he played with
utter oblivion of self. Now his strug