Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-03-19
~
~ GG
= Chapter 8 ]


&c %R across the dim summer
~ = haze of heat, negligent
~ smoking. He could see the long
white mari road bending In a broad
curve between clover stippled mead
ows, to skirt the willow green bluff
above the river. There, miles away.
on the high bank he could distinguish
the railroad bridge, a long black skel-
eton spanning 'the hole" a deep, fish
haunted pool, the deepest spot In the
river for fifty miles.
Since that moonlighted evening of
the will making Harry had learned
that the long lane had had no true
turning for Hugh. He had sifted him
through and through. At college he
had put him down for a weakling-
UNPUBLISHED, misdemeanant. Now he
knew him for what he really was-a
moral mollusk, a scamp in embryo, a
decadent. realizing an ugly propensity
to a deplorable finale. A consistent
career of loose living had carried
Hugh far since those college days
when he had been dubbed "Satan's
shadow" While to Harry Sanderson
the eccentric and agnostical had then
been. as 1t were, the mask through
which his temperament looked at life,
to Hugh it had spelled shipwreck.
Harry Sanderson had done broadly as
he pleased. He had entertained whom
he listed, had gone Stunning" had
once boxed to a finish for a wager a
local pugilist whose acquaintance he
affected, known as Gentleman JIM
He had been both the hardest hitter
and the hardest drinker In his class.
yet withal its most brilliant student.
Native character had enabled him to
persist, as the ~exasperating function
of success which dissipation declined
to eliminate. But the same natural
gravitation which In spite of all aber-
ration had given Harry Sanderson
classical honors had brought Hugh
Stires to the imminent brink of expul-
sion. And since that time, without
the character which belonged to Har-
ry as a possession. Hugh had contin-
ned to drift aimlessly on down the
broad lax way OF profilgacy.
The conditions he found upon his re
turn, however. had opened Hugh's
eyes to the p%erilous strait In which he
stood. He was a materialist, and the
taste he had had of deprivation had
sickened him. In the first revulsion,
when the contrast between recent
famine and present plenty was strong
upon him, he had been at anxious
pains to make himself secure with his
father-and with Jessica Holme. Har-
RVS mental s~ight-keen as the hunters
sight on the rifle barrel-was sharpen
ed by his knowledge OF the old Hugh,
an intuitive knowledge gained in a
significant formative period. He saw
more clearly than the townfolk who
in a general way had known Hugh
Stires all their lives. Week by week
Harry had seen him regain lost
ground In his fathers esteem. Day
by day he had seen him making studi-
GUS appeal TO all that was romantic In
Jessica. climbing to the favor OF each
OF the ladder Of the others regard.
Hugh was naturally a poseur, with a
keen sense OF effect. He could be
brilliant at will, could play a little on
PidhOb OuhJO anu NlOllhs COulu oluS u
little and had himself well In hand.
And, feeling the unconscious chord of
romance vibrate to his touch, he had
played upon it with no unskillful fin
gers.
Jessica was comparatively free from
that c%oquetry by means of which a wo-
mans instinct experiments In emotion.
Although she had been artist enough
before the cloistered years of her blind
ness to know that she was comely, she
had never employed that beauty in the
ordinary Establishments of girlish fas.
cination. But steadily and unconscious
ly she had turned In her darkness
more and more to the bright and en-
der air with which Hugh clothed all
their intercourse. Her blindness had
been of too short duration to have de
veloped that fine sense-perception with
which nature seeks to supplement the
darkened vision. The ineradicable
marks which Ill governed living had
set in Hugh's face. the self indulgence
and egotism, she could not see. She
mistook impulse for instinct She read
him by the untrustworthy light of a
colorful Imagination. She deemed him
'@ -