The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1910-11-03

it in her hand. The cloud of events
had cast no film over its luster, but
she looked at 1t now without pleasure.
For all its beauty 1t wasn't worth
what they were doing for it. Well,
to-day they were both of them to see
the last of it. To-day she was going
to take it to Mr.. Purdie, to deliver II
into his hands, to tell him how it had
fallen into hers in the goldsmith's shop
all of the story that was possible for
her to tell.
She had made It out all clear in her
mind that this was the right thing to
do. 1t hadn't occurred to her she
had made it out only on the hypothe-
Bis of Kerr's certainly going. 1t had
not occurred to her that she might
have to make her great moral move
in the dark; or, what was worse, in
the face of his most gallant resistance.
In this discouraging light she saw her
intention dwindle to the vanishing
point, but the great move was just as
good as it had been before-just as sol
i'd, Just as advisable. Being so very SOL
i'd, wouldn't it wait until she had time to
show him that she really meant what
she said, supposing she ever had
chance to see him again? The pos
sibility that at this moment he might
actually have gone had almost es-
capped her. She recalled it with a dis
agreeable shock, but, after all, that
was the best she could hope, never to
see him again! She ought to be CRATE
full to be sure of that, and yet If she
were, oh, never could she deprive him
of so much beauty and light by her
keeping of the sapphire as he would
then have taken away from her!
She would come down then, indeed,
level with plainest, palest, hardest
things-people and facts. Her ro-
mance-she had seen it; she had had
it In her hands, and 1t had somehow
eluded her. 1t had vanished, evapo-
rated.
She leaned and looked through the
thin veil of her curtains at the splen-
did day. 1t was one of February's
freaks. It was hot. The white ghost
of noon lay over shore and sea. Be-
meath her the city seemed to sleep
gray and glistening. The tops of hills
that rose above the up-creeping
houses were misted green. Across the
bay, along the northern shore, there
was pale green coast of hills divid-
ing blue and blue. Ships in the bay
hung out white canvas drying, and the
sky showed whittier clouds, slow-mov-
ing, like sails upon languid sea.
She looked down upon all, as lone
and lonely as a deserted lady in a
tower, lifted above these happy, peace
full things by her strange responsible
ty. Her thoughts could not stay with
them; her eyes travelled seaward. She
parted the curtains and, leaning lit
tie out, looked westward at the white
sea gate.
A whistle, as Of some child calling
his mate, came sweetly in the silence.
1t was near, and the questing, expec-
tant note caught her ear. Again it
came, sharper, imperative, directly, be-
meath her. She looked down; she
was speechless. There was sudden
wild current of blood in her veins.
There he stood, the whistler, neither
child nor bird, but the man himself
Kerr, looking up at her from the gay
oval of her garden. She hung over
the window-sill She looked directly
down upon him, foreshortened toaface,
and even with the distance and the
broad glare of noon between them
she recognized his aspect-his gayest,
of diabolic glee. There lurked about
him the impish quality of the whistle
that had summoned her.
Come down." he called.
All sorts of wonders and terrors
were beating around her. He had
transcended her widest wish; he had
come to her more openly, more dar-
ingly, more romantically than she
could have dreamed. All the amaze.
ment of why and how he had braved
the battery of the windows of her
house was swallowed up in the greater
joy of seeing him there, standing in
his "grays," with stiff black hat
pushed off his hot forehead, hands be-
hind him, looking up at her from the
middle of anemones and daffodils.
Come down." he called again, and
waved at her with his slim, glittering
stick. How far he had come since
their last encounter, to wave at and
command her, as if she were verify
his own! She left the window, left