The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-09
THE RECOVERY. A Story of Kentucky Copyright, 1908, by
 JOSEPH \. ALTSIIELER Entered at Stationers' Hall
 All rights reserved

dOlent Of comfort and peace, half Sit ting room, half library. A great bed of coals glowed in the wide fireplace and cast warm, ruddy glow over the floor and the walls.
 The Judge would not let me go in the few minutes only that I had ex- pected to take. He was a good deal of a bibliophile and he had just secured quaint old edition of Horace that he wished to show me. After that he must recite to me one or two of the odes in his sonorous Latin, and then Mrs Wharton, Mrs. Guthrie and Ali cia came into the room.
 They made no fuss over me, because I happened to be the chief official of the State, but treated me merely as a comrade who had come in at the usual time. There was no constraint, no eX- cessive pOliteness, but an ease, a light ness like that of a well-ordered home, where everything moves with peace and harmony. It was like broad band of light suddenly shooting across the darkness of my lonely life-and ] basked in the glow.
 You must stay 10 dinner, Governor" said Mrs Wharton, and she did not neeed to ask a second time.
 The French have a phrase en famille which we cannot adequately render, but it was thus that I dined at Judge 1 pleasant it is to be in house on terms of ease with cultivated women who are all that is implied in the old-fash- toned use of the word ladies" shed the cloak of officialdom. l was not embarrassed in the presence of Alicia, fearing that the world would misconstrue us both. but l was just one of the family, an older brother perhaps who had returned from brief absence.
 The Whartons and Mrs. Guthrie car riad most of the table talk, Alicia and I joining in now and then with an oc- casional word. but my ease and light ness of spirits continued. After din- Ter we adjourned to the great library or sitting room where the ruddy light from the huge bed of coals still glowed over floors and walls. and continued our desultory conversation. I fingered two or three hours filled with the sense of home. and loath to give it up. It was past Il o'clock when at last I forced myself to leave. and all Frank fort seemed to be in bed. when l walk ed through the lonely streets to the Governors mansion. which was my house, but scarcely my home. A sleepy servant admitted me and an- other equally sleepy turned up the lights in the little parlor where I often sat.
 I too had an open fire and it too threw ruddy shadows on the floors and the walls, but the place seemed cold nevertheless. I drew up a chair be- fore the fire and sat down. Then de- spite the fire I shivered. All about me reigned a deadly silence. The sleepy servants the master home, had gone hastily to bed. Not the sound of a footstep, not the sound of a voice anywhere. I looked out of the win dow, and saw only a cold moonlight falling on cold walls. cold roofs and a cold earth I turned back to the silence and desola tion of my room. was the Governor of the State, but I verify believe that at that moment was the loneliest man in it.
 I knew what I wanted. I wanted wife, and I knew also that Alicia was not free and that I could never marry any other woman. The old thought of a divorce came to my mind, but it quickly passed. when I remembered the Alicia of the. hills I had met that afternoon. I could not. even indirect ly make any such suggestion to her, and with a sigh. I felt how empty at times was my life, although Governor of great State before I was thirty.