The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-30

stranger and-but why go over the silly tale again?
 The silly tale, however sang itself to him day and night like song of the joy of all the world. He had felt her lips, l though it had been but in a vision, and all his visions now, sleeping and waking, were of a time when he should touch those lips again.
 He and she and the father worked hard at the book often late into the night, but there were golden morning and silver evenings when the garden was gray in l starlight, and the white moon fell into the river and lay there looking up at her reflection in the deep, calm sky. | The aunt and the father looked on and saw that more and more, in all the hours that the book did not claim, the two were together. And they were glad. l. If only he can make her forget the other one,' said the aunt, hell never find such another-kind. gentle, sweet And clever" said the father, and pa. tient. And pretty, too.'
 That doesn't matter so much," said the aunt, but she's so modest and sweet and-she has a perfect genius for garden ing"
 And for our sort of work" the father said. 'l don't suppose there's another girl alive with eyes like hers who knows shorthand and the Egyptian and Assyrian script, and how to be always handy and never in the way T must make her forget the other man, confound him." said Neville, and wondered savagely whether the other man had ever had wild, wonderful visions in woodland places. Then came the wet day, the last of three, when the river was gray and lash ed with rain and the garden lay drench- ed and the roses bowed mud -spla s he'd. dropped and dripped. Philomela covered her head with the aunts waterproof and ran through the rain and the wild west wind to the stone summer house at the end of the terrace. Here was an un- glazed window that looked eastward; from it one could look out, sheltered and safe, at the green seething wetness of meadow and wood.
 Here he found her He came behind her as she sat on the stone seat, acd she did not turn her head.
 "Philomela," he said; his voice was low.
 Yes" she said.
 Standing at her shoulder, he put his hand under her chin and turned her face up till he could see it.
 "Philomea he said again, Ifs there any one else?' No said she.
 
 the touch that it was not for the first time. That-in the wood-it had not been i vision. It had been real-real as this, real as his despair. Yet he would be sure. "Philomela" he said her name for the third time have you ever fallen asleep in a wood?"
 ''Yes," said she. and once more the crimson flush covered neck and brow and ears.
 Tn that wood?" It lay below them drenched in misty desolation.
 "Yes"
 ''The day came home?" ''Yes."
 God forgive you. he said; turned and left her.
 He went for a long walk in the rain. That night at dinner the aunt and the father were surprised to learn that Ne ville was going to town by the early train in the morning. It was uncertain when he would return. He ate little and spoke of business too long neglect ed He should go by the 6:15 before any of them were up. He stayed up late that night, packing everythin in raging fury of en- ergy He had loved her--he did love her-and she was--that There was no room in his brain for fatigue-there was only room for this furious anger against the woman who had made him love her-and she herself unworthy of the love of any man.
 It must have 9 in the morning when, the fire of resentment beginning to burn lower, he found suddenly that he was hungry. There would be less chance of sleep than ever if he were hungry. He was not young enough to spite his stomach to be revenged on his heart. He went down into the dining room where the sideboard was. with the she erry and the biscuits and the cake. He lit the candles in the silver can dlesticks on the msntelpiece Some tn ing moved close to him.
 Who's there?" he said. The candles turned clear. and Philomela rose from the big chair that was his fathers. She wore the gray dress she had worn at dinner, and her face seemed gray, too.
 What on earth are you doing here?" he asked roughly.
 I'm waiting to see you off" she said. "You know I've got to speak to you. It can't end like this. People don't do such things"
 What things?"
 Leave women as you left me--after --Oh, how hate you! How dared you kiss me?"