The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-02-23
CHAPTER XIII (Continued)

very anxious and uncomfortable. He
was fiercely jealous that she should
have found warm welcome and a
niche in which to settle down. In
language of much intensity he i'm
plored her to have pity and come
back to him, snice she had assured
him in her last letter, that she had
not met any one, so far, who was
at all likely to supplant him in her
esteem.
She rose from the table, went to
the fire, stopped over it, warming
her hands.
Il hope she said, in low voice,
that you do not mind my having
! spoken with you on-on such sub.
iects. | feel it a great privilege to
have met you. One pannot but
think-onc cannot but let ones mind
dwell on these problems of exist
ence. especially when they are
thrust before one as in this case.
And one dare not speak of them
TO any one. / suppose that, were
to say a word of the kind | have
dared to say to you today, to Aunt
Emma, that she would be so shock
ed as to be quite unable to answer.
She would think | ought not to
know of such things. Yet | might
be called upon. any day. toto make
up my mind to be a wife-to-de-
eide my own future. | feel that |
am in confusion; l don't clearly
know right from wrong
Evelyn too rose, and took up her
hat from a side table, for it was
near the time for service.
Il shall never feel shocked she
quietly replied, "by anything you
may say to me. | don't set up to
be an authority; but l am older
than you, and l am a woman who
has had a bitter experience. When
we know each other better, may
tell you about
yes. | thank you from the bot
tom of my heart. l am in a Difficult
ty at this moment. / have thought
about it great deal, and it seems
to me that it has all come without
my own fault. l find myself of a
sudden in a grave dilemma, whose
life was always so simple and so
straightforward Somehow, l think
that all this miserable thing about
Olive Fletcher has been sent to be
a help to me in making up my own
mind
The keen cold wind had swept the
sky bare of clouds when they came
out of the cottage, except in the
west, where banks of amethyst were
glowing on their upper edge with the
furnace fires of the westering sun.
The two girls walked together along
the steep village street, and into
the mission chapel. Vernon slipped
into a place not far from her friends
seat at the organ, and kneeling
down, set herself with fervor to
recapture her mood of the first
time of entering there.
1t was not easy. life glowed and |
shook like a kaleidoscope, in ever |
shifting hues and forms. Her friend |
ship with Evelyn, her sudden plunge |
into the Way of Sorrows, through |
the agency of the light, non-moral |
creature who had accomplished the |
miracle of motherhood-her happy |
life at Carronlea, unspoilt even by |
surly Jem-Lionel and his devotion |
the devotion that was going to be
difficult to deal with.
1t all formed a pageant of vary
ing color but immense interest. Her |
soul could not fight its way out
and through, to the Inner Shrine, |
where, as erst, God waited for her.
But, as before, she found that the
stiffness. the atmosphere that en-
folded her, was helping her BY
degrees the riot of the imagination
was stilled, as the tempest on the
Lake of Galilee, and in the dark
ness One approached her, walking
upon the troubled watets
Il wonder" thought the girl to
herself, after the entrance of the
priest and small choir had put
term to her silent communion. 81
if this is what they call
The whole of life seems
10 have different values
The sermon was not properly a
sermon at all, but an instruction.
Father Conroy was carefully taking
his hearers through the list of
heir Christian duties as unfolded in
he Creeds. He had almost completed
he course, and the instruction that