The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1908-11-13

verger was f1dgeting with his keys.
Thank you, SIR" cried Burrow.
with alacrity. And he flung his keys
with cheerful clink on the vestry
table. He had few friends dropping
in that night for bit of supper and
game at cards. He buttoned up his
coat. Happen we shall have snow
when the wind drops, sir, or I'm much
mistaken; the sky's full of it. Good
night, sir, and thank you.'
Good night, Burrow," responded
the rector, absently.
Il knew it could not have been
Olive" Stephen Ruthen whispered to
himself again, thinking of that white
face that had broken for an instant
on his vision from behind the wind
stirred curtain.
The light had been too blurred for
him 10 discern the face with any GER
tainty; he wondered why nthat first
startled moment he had been so
strangely reminded of Olive. She had
not been in his thoughts that night.
Yet through the dusk and the gloom
of the church the old memory had
rushed up swiftly before Stephen
Ruthen's eyes-of the woman he had
loved and lost, of the mystery that for
three years had enwrapped her fate.
She had gone suddenly out of his
life; the unknown had engulfed her
so completely as to leave not the frail.
est clue by which he could trace her.
Her motive in deliberately leaving
him was, like her whereabouts,
battling enigma that three years had
left unsolved The note she had sent
him on the eve Of her flight had ex-
planned nothing-and so much ex-
planation was due to him.
For Olive Vanstone had been his
promised wife.
1t was a note penned as if under
stress of great emotion:
Il am going away, and you will
never see me again. To speak of sor
row for the pain am inficting on
you may seem like insult upon in
jury; but you must believe that. if
ANYTHING could have deferred me from
the step l take tonight, it would be
my shrinking from wounding so cru
ely the love of the best man have
ever known Only the wrong is less
In leaving you now than in having at
last yielded-you remember how long
hesiteted?-to your wish that
should become your wife. I had no
right to consent, knowing that"
Here had followed some words deeply
scored out. "Try to forgive me and
forget"
The epitaph on Stephen Ruthen's
broken love story! From that time
no hint had reached him, out of the
dark void that had swallowed her up,
CT the woman he had never ceased to
love. She had hidden him forget-as
though love like his could forget!
1t was only forgiveness that had been
easy.
Stephen Ruthen had not been the
rector of Wildfell then, but curate in
a manufacturing town fifteen. miles
distant. Olive, a girl without kith or
kin, had been governess in family
in the same town-unsympatheti
people. who had done little to make
ner lie WIN Iuem udppy.
Three years ago! Yet he could see
her now as vividly as though she
stood before him-his beautiful Olive,
tall, slender, with the slow grace of
movement in which the Southern
blood in her showed; her mother had
been Italian. He remembered her
voice, her eyes, her smile, and the soft
hair, almost black in shadow, that
cleaned like dusky copper where the
light shone through it, swept back
from the proud face in single loose
wave. Forget Olive? He could never
forget; he could never love another
woman as he had loved her-as he
loved her still!
Stephen Ruthen rose impatiently
with half SIGH. The loneliness OF
his life struck him strangely tonight.
And soon no doubt his sister, pretty,
wilful, laughter-loving Hilda, would be
leaving him. He knew that Philip
Hume, the new master of the great
foundry down in Felsgarth, meant to
asl, her to be his wife. Hilda seemed
to find pleasure in his society; Ste
rhen had little doubt what her answer
would be. and he was glad. He liked
Hume, though their acquaintanceship
was only one of months. Philip
Hume. a younger son, had succeeded
unexpectedly to his fathers great
business in Fellsgarth and the fine
old house on the outskirts of Wild
fell. He was glad that his sisters
future happiness seemed so assured,
though her going would leave him
lonely.
If only he could have known that
Olive. too, was well and happy! The
uncertainty that overhung Der fate
tortured him.
ITO think that don't know where
she is in all the wide world, whether
living or dead, cared for, or friend.
less and unhappy-or why she should
have gone away, hiding herself utter
ly from the man who would have
cared for her so much!" he whispered
to himself, brokenly-"to know that,
even II she were in dire need, 1
could not find her to help her!"