The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1911-02-15
speeding down the shadowy cryptic
meria road.
CHAPTER XII.
The Secret the River Kept.

merla ROAD. .4
CHAPTER XII.
The Secret the River Kept.
Daunt had dined cheerlessly in the
deserted dining room. Afterward
shrinking from the gay piazzas, he
had struck off for long rambling
walk. Only the frail moonlight
glimpsing through cloudy sky, lay
over the landscape, when, returning,
worn but in no mood for sleep, he
found himself at the hill shrine look
ing down on the white hotel with it's
long red balconies, frightened here
and there by the lighted window of
some late retiring guest.
His few days at Chuzenji had pass
ed in kind of stified fever. The re-
port of Barbara's engagement had add
ed it's poisoned barb. That morning,
however, careless remark had torn
across his mood as sheet lightning
tears the weaving dusk. Tokyo was
talking of it-of him-making jest
of that sweet, dead thing in his heart:
The thought had stung his pride, and
there had grown in him sharp sense
of humiliation at his own cowardice.
The afternoon had found him riding
down the mountain trail to Nikko. To-
morrow he would go back to Tokyo
to the round of gaieties that would
now be hateful, and to his work.
He put out his hand to one of the
benches in the deep pine shadow, but
drew it back with a sharp breath. A
silver of the warped wood had pierced
his knuckle to the bone
browning, he wrapped the bleeding
member in his handkerchief and sat
down at the bench's other end, bit
terly absorbed. The vagrant, intermit-
tent moonlight touched the tumbling
water below with creeping silver, and
on the horizon, where the cloud bank
frayed away, one white constellation
swung low, cluster of lamps in gold
en- chains. But Daunt's thought had
no place for the delicate beauty of
the night
How long he sat there with bowed
head he could not have told, but at
length he rose heavily to his feet. AS
he did so he became aware of sound
below him-a football, coming toward
him. 1t crossed bar of the moon
light.
He~ shrank, and a tremor ran over
him, for it was Barbara.
She had thrown over her a loose
cloak, and a bit of soft, clinging lace
showed between its dark edges. Her
brilliant hair was loosely gathered in
a single braid, and in the moonlight
it shone like beaten copper against
the vivid pallor of her face. He sat
stirless, smitten with confusion, con-
scious that movement must betray
him. A painful embarrassment en-
veloped him, fastidious sense of
shrinking from her sight of him. He
felt dull wave of resentment that an
antic irony of circumstances should
have brought them beneath the same
roof-to make him seem the moody
pursuer, the unwelcome trespasser on
her reserve-and that now thrust him
into position which at any hazard
he would have stunned. But all
thought of himself, all feeling save
one vanished, when, with sudden pite-
GUS abandon, she threw herself on
her knees by the bench and broke
into slow sobs, shuddering and tear
less.
In that outbreak of emotion, were
not alone the pent-up pain and hui
initiation she had suffered, or the des-
perate JOY of that evenings knowl-
edge. There were in it, too, grief and
conjunction, dismay and doubt of
the future. She was engaged to Aus
ten Ware. Would Daunt ever forgive?
Would he want her-now? In the first
realization of her error wound with
the knowledge that he was so near
her, she had felt only joy; but in the
silence Of her room, shock on shock
had come the incredulous question,
the burning revulsion. A while she
had lain wide-eyed, but at length,
sleepless, she had stolen out to the
balmy, fragrant night, craving it's
peace, longing passionately for it's soft
shadows and the lowering touch OF
the mountains breath on her hair And