Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-04-11

nee not yet seen SSfward or spoken to
hin 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-simple, 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
1enturing any demand upon his time,
and nobody else at ST. Berold's APP
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 dreamy 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.
TIL.
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 a world very far removed from
Leila's. Somebody said she was an
actress when she did anything at all
-one Lydia Vyse. somewhat celebrat-
ed for an audacity not too delicate.
But Plank was no more interested
than any man who can't afford to en-
danger his prospects by closer ac-
quaintance with that sort of pretty
woman.
Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from
home, wife and church, and Plank fire.
quented 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.
Sylvia was changing. The character
istic amiability, the sensitive reserve,
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 a slight
sense of fear tinctured the general adj
miration.
In public her Indifference and grow
ing impatience 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 it was evident even to
her, who carelessly ignored the conse-
Quences of her own attitude.
at the Mi-careme dance given by the
Siowa Hunt, Quarter, who was M. E.
H, led the cotillon with agreeable pre-
cision and imperSonal accuracy, favor
ing her at intervals She returned to