Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-06-18
CHAPTER III.
A Farewell.

John Stafford sat at his table by thu
open door which looked on to the garden
The room behind him was bare OF al
graceful or even tasteful ornaments few
native weapons captured probably during
small frontier wars. hung on the wal
but nothing else relieved its blank. white
washed monotony. The one photograp pr
Of his father which had once been fas
tened above the mantelpfece had beer
taken down months before. and the ole
made by the nail carefully and method
1cally filled and painted over. The room
typif1ed the man in its painful order, its
painful whitewashed cleanliness, its rigid
plainness. But the garden was the sym
boil of the hidden possibility in him, the
corner Of warm. impulsive feeling which
the world had never seen. The roses
grew up to the very steps of the veranda
they had been trained to Chamber over the
trelliswork as though seeking to gain en-
trance to his room; they spread them
selves in rich, glowing variety over the
little patch of ground, and one of thel
number. the most lovely and fullest
blown. hung her heavy head in splendid
isolation from the vase upon his table
He looked at the rose and he looked al
the garden, on which lay the first clear
rays Of the rising sun. In him stirred a
rare usefulness, rare melancholy. FOL
to him all the gentler, softer forms OF
sorrow were rare. In the last year he
had suffered, but in his own way-rlgldly,
coldly unbendingly. His lips, even in the
loneliness Of his own room, had always
been tight closed over the smothered ex-
clamation of pain. He had gone on
steadily and conscientiously with his
work. He had never for one moment
"given way to himself" as he expressed
it. But this morning he was in the
power OF that strange atmosphere '-caIl
it what you wil-which we feel when
still only half awake and which. indie
pendent of all outward circumstances.
destines our days mood of cheerfulness
or depression Strangely enough. he had
made no struggle against 1.-THE mad
yielded to it with a sense of inevitable
ness.
The inevitable compassed him about and
numbed his stern, merciless system OF
self-repression. Fate, irresistible and I'M
changeable. obscured the clear path OF
duty which he had marked out for him
self, and held him for the moment her
passive victim. 1t was no idle fancy. He
was not man in whose thought-world
fancy played any part. Nor was II the
gloomy impression which lonely tW1-
light might have stamped upon mind
already burdened with a heavy weight OF
trouble The young day spread her hale
Of pure sunshine over world OF color
the red rose upon his table bowed her
head toward him in the perfection of q
mature beauty which as yet hid no warn
ing of decay. But in the sunshine he
saw the shadow; the daylight foretold the
night: his eyes saw the withered petals
of the rose strewn before him. In vain
he had striyen to see beyond the night tc
the as inevitable tomorrow: in vain he
had pictured the rose which his careful
hand would bring to replace her dead sis
ter. The future was a blank dead wal
whose heights his foresight could moi
scale.
Before him on the table lay closed
and sealed envelope. 1t contained his
will, which half an hour before he hao
signed in the presence of two comrades
He wondered what the world would say