Middletown transcript., 1912-04-20
CHAPTER

The cabin contained large ana q
small room. In the wall between
them there was a doorway closed by
an ordinary bstten door with wood
en- latch and no lock. Closed it served
to hide the occupant of one room
from the view Of the other, otherwise
It was but feeble protection. Even
had It possessed q lock, a vigorous
man could have burst it through in a
moment.
These thoughts did not come very
clearly to Enid Maitland. Few
thoughts Of any kind came to her.
Where she lay she could see plainly
the dancing light Of the glorious fire.
She was warm, the deftly wrapped
bandage, the healing lotion upon her
foot, had greatly relieved the pain In
that wounded member. The bed was
hard but comfortable, much more so
than the sleeping bags to which Of
late she had been accustomed.
Few women had gone through such
experiences, mental and physical, as
had befallen her within the last few
hours and lived to tell the story. Had
It not been for the exhaustive strains
Of body and spirit to which she had
been subjected, her mental faculties
would have been on the alert and the
strangeness Of her unique position
would have made her so nervous that
she could not have slept.
For the time being, however, the
physical demands upon her entity
were paramount; she was dry, she
was warm, she was fed, she was free
from anxiety and she was absolutely
unutterably weary. Her thoughts
were vague, inchoate, unconcentrated.
The fire wavered before her eyes, she
closed them in a few moments and
did not open them.
Without a thought, without care,
she fell asleep. Her repose was COM
plete, not a dream even disturbed the
profound slumber into which she
sank. Pretty picture she made; her
head thrown backward, her golden
hair roughly dried and quickly plait-
ed in long braids, one Of which fell
along the pillow while the other
curled lovingly around her neck. Her
face in the natural light would have
looked pallid from what she had gone
through, but the fire cast red glows
upon it; the fitful light fickered
across her countenance and some
times deep shadows unrelieved &C
centuated the paleness born Of her
sufferings.
There is no light that plays so
many tricks with the imagination, or
that 80 stimulates the fancy as the
light Of an open fire. In its sudden
outbursts 1t sometimes seems to add
life touches to the sleeping and the
dead. Had there been any eye to see
this girl, she would have made a de-
lightful picture in the warm glow
from the stone hearth. There were
no eyes to look, however, save those
which belonged to the man on the
other side Of the door,
On the hither side Of that door in
the room where the fire burned on the
hearth, there was rest in the heart of
the occupant; on the farther side
where the fire only burned in the
heart, there was tumult Not outward
and visible, but inward and spiritual,
and yet there was no lack of apparent
manifestation Of the turmoil in the
mans soul.
Albeit the room was smaller than
the other, 1t was still Of good size.
He walked nervously up and down
from one end to the other as cease
lessly as a wild animal impatient Of
captivity stalks the narrow limits of
his contracted cage. The even tenor
of his life had suddenly been diverted.
The ordinary sequence Of his days
had been abruptly changed. The pri-
,vacy Of five years which he had hoped
and dreamed might exist as long as
he, had been rudely broken in upon.
Humanity, which he had avoided,
from which he had fed, which he had
cast away forever, had found him.
!Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit! And, 10,
his departures were all In vainl The
world with all its grandeur and its In
significance, with all its powers and
Its weaknesses, with all its opportu-
mites and its obligations, with all its
3oys and its sorrows, had knocked at
his door; and that the knocking hand
was that Of a woman, but added to
his peTplexity and to his dismay.
He had cherished dream that he
~
memory to bear him company, and
-from that dream he had been thun-
derously awakened. Everything was
changed. What had once been easy
had now become impossible. He
might send her away, but though he
swore her to secrecy she would have
to tell her story and something Of his;
the world would learn some Of It and
seek him out with Unsuitable curios-
fly to know the rest.
Eyes as keen as his would present
ly search and scrutinize the noun
tains where he had roamed alone.
They would see what he had seen,
find what he had found. Mankind,
gold-lusting, would swarm and hive
upon the hills and fight and love and
breed and die. Great God!
He could Of course move on, but
where? And went he whithersoever
he might, he would now of necessity
carry with him another memory
which would not dwell within his
mind in harmony with the memory
which until that day had been para.
mount there alone.
Slowly. laboriously, painfully, he
had built his house upon the sand,
and the winds had blown and the
foods had come, not only in q literal
but in spiritual significance, and IN
one day that house had fallen. He
stood amid the wrecked remains Of u
trying to recreate it, to endow once
more with the fitted precision Of the
past the shapeless broken units Of the
fabric of his fond imagination. -
Willie he resented the fierce, saw
age, passionate intensity the interrupi
tion Of this woman into his lifey
While he throbbed with equal inten-
sity and almost as much passion at
the thought of her.
Have you ever climbed q mountain
early IN the morning while it was yet
dark and having gained some domi-
naut crest stood staring at the far