Martinsburg statesman-democrat. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1906-1921, 1909-04-09


y haze Of heat negligent
! ly smoking. He could see the long
white mari road bending in 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. long black skel-
| eton spanning 1.-The hole" 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 weakling-
| unballasted, misdemeanant. Now he
| knew him for what he really was-a
moral mollusk, scamp in embryo, d
| 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 it 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 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 Ear.
| ry as a possession. Hugh had contin.
ued to drift aimlessly on down the
broad lax way of profligacy.
The conditions he found upon his re.
turn, however. had opened Hughs
! eyes to the perilous strait in which be
stood He Was a materialist, and the
/ taste he had had of deprivation had
| sickened him. III the first revulsion
4 when the contrast between recent
| ramine 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
4 RVS mental sight--keen as the hunters
sight on the rifle barrel-was sharpen
ed by his knowledge of the old Hugh
/ an intuitive knowledge gained In u
/ significant formative period He saw
| more clearly than the townfolk who
| in q 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 tina! was romantic in
Jessica, elm bling to the favor of each
on the ladder of the others regard
| Hugh was naturally poseur, with 9
keen sense of effect He could be
brilliant al will. could play a little on
piano, banjo and violin could sing q
/ little and had himself wei in nand
! And feeling the unconscious chord OF
romance vibrate 10 his touch, ne had
played upon it With nc unskillful fin,
gers
Jessica was comparatively free from
that coquetFy by means of which 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 comeiy, she
bad never employed that beauty In the
ordinary Establishments OF girlish fas
cination. But steadily ard unconscious.
4 Iy she had turned in her darkness
more and more TO the bright and ten.
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 10 supplement the
darkened vision The ineradicabe
marks which III governed living had
set In Hughs face. the self indulgence
and egotism, she could not see, She
mistook impulse for instinct She read
him by the Enthusiastically light of q
colorful imagination She deemed him
@MIA Il M =