The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1908-05-13

/ u duNlSe you 10 De 1901. Even Inen
you'd be sorry You know what your
future may be. You know what you
are fitted for What can you do with
out Howard? In this town your role
would be a very minor one without
Towards money, and you know It,"
Eyes, know It,"
"And your sacrifice could not help
that doomed boy"
| Sylvia nodded assent.
Then is there any choice? Is there
any question Of what to do2
Sylvia looked out into the winter
sky, through the tops of snowy trees.
Everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity
Of winter! Under 1t, frozen, lay the
rain that had scented the air. Under
her ambition lay the ghosts of yester-
day.
mo" she said, "there is no question
of choice. l know what must be-"
tinued. Colder, gloomier weather set
In, and the impending menace Of Ash
Wednesday redOubled the social pace,
eliminating in the Westervelt ball on
the eve of the forty days, and Sylvia
had not yet seen Siward or spoken to
/ him again across the wilderness of
streets and men.
In the first relaxation of Lent she
had instinctively welcomed an oppor-
tunity for spiritual consolation and a
chance to take her spiritual bearings,
not because of bodily fatigue, for in
the splendOr Of her youthful vigor she
did not know what that meant.
To ST. Berold's she went in cure Of
her soul. She was fond of Father
Curtis, who, If he were every inch a
priest. was also every foot Of his six
feet a man-slmpe good and brave.
However. she found little opportu-
nifty, save at her brief confession, for
word with Father Curtis. 1t was
fashionable to adore Father Curtis,
and for that reason she shrank from
1cnturing any demand upon his time,
and nobody else Mt ST. Berolds ap-
pealed to her.
Agatha Caithness was there a great
deal, looking like a saint in her sub
dued plumage and very devout, dodg-
ing nothing, neither confession nor
Quarters occasionally lifted eyes,
though their gaze, meeting seemed
lost in drea ny devotion or drowned in
the contemplation of the spiritual and
remote.
Plank came docilely from his Dutch
Reformed church to sit beside Leila.
AS for Mortimer, once a vestryman.
he never came at all. There was
new set Of men among whom he had
recently drifted to the unfeigned dis
gust of gentlemen like Major Bel
wether-"club' men in the cOmmoner
and more sinister Interpretation of the
word.
Mortimer stayed out at night very
frequently now; also he appeared TO
make his money go further or was
luckier at his card killings" because
he seldom attempted to bully Leila,
being apparently content with his al
lOwanCe.
once or twice Plank saw him with
an unusually attractive girl belonging
to world very far removed from
Leila's. Somebody said she was an
actress when she did anything at all
one Lydia Vyse, somewhat celebrat-
ell for an audacity not too delicate.
But Plank was no more interested
than any man who can't afford to Ell
danger his prospects by a closer ac-
quaintance with that sort of pretty
woman.
Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from
home. wife and church. and Plank fire
u1ented them, so the two men did not
meet very often, and the less they
met the less they found to say to one
another.
Though the opera was over, theaters
questionable, formal functions sus-
pended and dances ended, the pace
still continued at a discreet and dec
orous trot. and those who had not fed
to California or Palm Beach remained
to pray and play bridge with an
JUNCTION most edifying.
And all this while Sylvia had not
seen Siward.
4
istic amiabilty, the sensitive reserve,
the sweet composure which the world
had always counted on in her. had be-
come exceptions and no longer the
rules which governed the caprice and
impulse always latent. An indiffer-
ence so pointed as to verge on inso-
lence amazed her intimates at times.
A sudden, flushed Impotence startled
the habitues Of her shrine. There was
a new, unseeing hardness in her eyes,
in her attitude the faintest hint Of
cynicism. For the first time slight
sense of fear tinctured the general ad-
miration.
In public her Indifference and grow
Ing Impotence with Quarter had not
reached the verge Of bad taste, but in
private she was scarcely at pains to
conceal her WEAKNESS and inattention.
That he noticed 1t was evident even to
her, who carelessly ignored the conse-