Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-06-30
CHAPTER w

George Greswold and his wife spent the
rest of that fatal year in a villa on the
Lake Of Thun, an Italian villa, with a
campanelo tower, and long white col
onnade, and stone balconies overhanging
lawns and gardens, where the flowers
grew In a riotous profusion. The villa
was midway between two CT the boat
stations, and there was no other house
near, and this loneliness was its chief
charm for those two heart-broken mourn
ers. They yearned for no sympathy, they
cared for no panionship-hardly even
for that of each other. close as the bond
of love had been until now. Each seem
ed 10 desire above all things TO be alone
with that grief-to hug that dear, sad
memory In silence and solitude.
The boats went by in sunshine and
cloud. the boats went by under torrential
rain, which seemed to fuse lake and
mountains, villas and gardens, into one
watery chaos; the boats went by, and
the days passed like the boats, and made
no difference in the lives of those two
mourners Nothing could ever make any
difference to either OF them for evermore,
Il seemed to Mildred. 1t was as II some
spring had broken In the machinery of
life. Even love seemed dead.
And yet he was once so fond of me,
and l of him." thought the wife, watch
ing her husbands face, with its curious
look of absence-the look Of window
with the blind down.
There were times when that look Of
utter abstraction almost frightened Mil
dred Greswold. 1t was an expression she
had seen occasionally during her daugh-
ter's lifetime, and which had always made
her anxious. 1t was the look about which
Lola used to say yhen they all met at
the breakfast table.
Papa has had his bad dream again"
That bad dream was no invention of
Lola's, but a stern reality in George Ores
wold's life. He would start up from his
pillow in an agony, inuttering broken SEN
fences in that voice of the sleeper which
seems always different from his natural
voice-as IL ne belonged to another world.
Cold beads of sweat would start out upon
his forehead. and the Wife would put her
arms round him and soothe him as a
mother soothes her frightened child, I'M
I'll the muttering ceased and be sank upon
his pillow exhausted, TO lapse into quiet
sleep. or else awoke and recovered calm
ness in awakening.
The dream-whatever it was-always
left It's mark ufcn him next day. 1t was
a kind Of nightmare. he told his wife.
when she gently questioned him; not urg-
ing her questions lest there should be
pain in the mcre recollection of that hor-
rid vision. He cou!d give no graphic de-
scriptio1 OF that dream II was all con-
fusion-a blurred and troubled picture ;
but that confusion was in itself agony.
Rarely were his mutterings intelligi-
BILE; rarely d. his wife catch half q
dozen consecutive words from those hrok-
eE sentence, but oncs she heard him
say:
The cage-the cage again--iron bars
like q Wild beast y
And how that absent and cloudy look
which she had seen in her husband
face after the bad dream was there often.
She spoke 10 him sometimes. and he did
not hear. She repeated the same ques-
tIon twice or thrice. In her soft low voice,
sanding close beside him. and he did not
an<wer. There were times when it was
a,f6crlt to arouse him from that deep
distraction: and at such times the utter
hl,nkness and solitude Of her own life
weighed upon her Ike dead weight. an
almost unbearahle burden.
.4What Il TO become Of rs both In sll
che long years before usT she thought
despairingly. '.Ars we TO De always iar
apart--living in the same house. spending
al oar days together. and yet Uvzdedy
She had married before she was eizn-
esen and at one and thirty vas stih In TIE