The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1908-12-11
THE Shadow Between"
IT
SILAS K. HOOKING.
SILAS K. HOOKING.

him! But how could she after what
had happened? 1t would be like add
ing insult to injury to ask a favor of
one who had been wronged SO terribly
by her own father.
Then she reflected again on their
last few meetings. How gentle he had
been, and yet how strong! OF his sin
cerity she was no longer in any doubt.
She had feared him at first, and
wronged him by doing 80. She knew
that now. His magnanimity, his gen
erosity, his readiness to forget the
past, struck her as being strange and
abnormal, and almost impossible.
Hence, her fear, which amounted in
one instance almost tt terror. But all
that had passed away
She admired him for his courage, his
sincerity, his magnanimity. Yes, and
there was something beyond all that.
He had told her that he loved her.
That declaration struck a new note in
her being. 1t was like a low, faint
strain of music heard in roar and
tumult Of a storm: whether it would
grow louder and sweeter and triumph
over the tumult, or whether it would
sink into silence and die, she did not
know. But it was sweet to hear its
fitful whispers now.
What love meant she did not know.
She did not even guess. The women
of the Guild often talked about it.
Some of them wrote about it. Some
of them professed in a ~jocular way to
having experienced it, but she was
convinced that it was something quite
beyond the majority of them; that in
their outlook upon life, in their pro-
gram of the future, it was a negligible
and quite unimportant thing. Mar
riage they desired. A husband to
protect them and provide for them was
worth a big effort to win. Wifehood
and motherhood were parts of the
price with a more or less sentimental
interest. But love-? Well, if it
came their way, SO much the better;
but it was no necessary part of the
program. One of the brightest girls
of their little community had recently
become engaged. She admitted quite
frankly that she did not love the
young man she was about to marry,
but he was well-to-do, and she wanted
a home of her own. She was tired, she
said, Of fighting and struggling for her
own bread.
usually built on so sordid a founda-
ton: wondered if women were in
herently incapable of love in its great
er sense; wondered if this Divine fire
touched men alone; wondered If 1t
were a reality in any case, or only a
poetic fancy.
Clement Mawgan said he loved her,
knowing as he did that she was the
child of Richard West. He had given
up home and ease and leisure for her
sake He had trampled upon his pride
and humbled himself as only the truly
great can humble themselves, and all
this in obedience to something he
called love. She did no understand
it. 1t was a mystery she had not faith
omed yet - possibly never would
fathom.
Nevertheless she was SOrry-sOrry
for his sake and sorry for her own. It
would be a great JOY u~nspeakable to
have such a friend in the great. lonely,
struggling world in which, she found
herself. She wanted help and advice
as she never wanted them before;
wanted companionship other than that
Of the women who chatted and giggled
round her from day to day; wanted
a strong arm on which to lean, a wise
head to counsel
So thinking she fell asleep.