Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-09-01
CHAPTER Xxx.

The villa was built on a ledge of
ground between the road and the sea-
There was a stone terrace in front of the
windows of salon and dining room, below
which The ground shelved steeply down
to the rocks and blue water. The low
irregular shaped house was screened from
the road by a grove of orange and lemon
trees, with a peach or a cherry here and
there to give variety of color. In one
corner there was a whole cluster of peach
trees, which made a mass of purplish-
pinky bloom.
1t was a delicious spot, this little viii
lage Of ST. Jean, to which the Nicois
came on Sundays and holidays, to eat
bouillabaisse at the rustic tavern or to
picnic in the shade of century-old olives
and old carouba trees, which made dark
masses of foliage between the road and
the sea. George Ransome loved the place.
and could have been happy there if his
wife would only have allowed him; but
those halcyon days which marked the be
ginning of their retirement were too soon
ended; and clouds lowered again over the
horizon-clouds of doubt and discomfort.
There are women to whom domestic peace,
calm and rational happiness, is an inn
possibility, and Vivien was, one of these
women.
From the beginning her suspicious ma
ture had been on the watch for some hid
den evil. She had a fixed idea that the
fates had marked her for misery, and
she would not open her heart to the sun
light of happiness.
Was her husband unkind to her? No,
he was all kindness; but to her his kind
ness seemed only a gentleman-like form
of federation. He had married her out of
pity and it was pity that made him kind.
Other women were worshiped. 1t was
her fate to Re tolerated by a man she
adored.
She could never forget her own pas
sionate folly, her own unwomanly for
wardness. She had thrown herself into
his arms-she who should have waited to
be wooed, and should have made herself
precious by the difficulty with which she
was won.
How can he help holding me cheap"
she asked herself-'I who cost him moth
ing. not even an hour of doubt? From
the hour we first met he must have known
that l adored him.
She had changed for the worse since
they left Nice; she had grown more SEN
sitive, more suspicious, more irritable. She
was in a condition of health in which
many women are respondent or irritable
in which with some women life seems
one long disgust, and all things are irk-
some, even the things that have been
pleasantest and most valued before-even
the aspect of a lovely landscape. the
phrases of familiar melody, the perfume
of once favorite flower. He tried 10
cheer her by talking of their future, the
time to come when there would be new
bond between them, a new interest in
their lives; but she saw all things in
gloomy atmosphere.
who knows? she said. Il may die,
perhaps: or you may love your child bet
ter than you have ever loved me, and then
l should hate it
viva. you cannot doubt that my love
for our chill will strengthen my love for
YOU
This was hard upon man whose ten
derneSs anc indulgence had been bound
less, who had done all that chivalry and a
sense of dnty can do TO atone for the
lack of love He had tried his uttermost
re conceal the one bitter truth that love
was wanting; but those keen eyes OF hers
had seen the gap between them. that
sensitive ear had discovered the rift in
the lutte.
One afternoon they climbed the hill TO
the breezy common on which the light
house stands, and dawdled about in the