The Colorado statesman., 1913-06-21
HER LAST LONG SIGH
BY GRACE @. RosTWIcK.


and closing the small drawers, one by
one. He was searching for photo
graph that she had kept on her desk
"a likeness taken in her early girl
hood, long before he had met her.
AS he felt clumsily about among
the papers letter fell out. He start
ed to replace it, but caught sight of
his own name in the familiar writing
and paused. He opened it with trem.
bling fingers.
Il did the best l could" he said,
slowly to himself. 81 couldn't help
not caring l thought 1 could-at
first. l thought it would come with
time. God! how hard it has been,
how bitter hard!" He passed his thin,
nervous hand wearily across his col
orless face. "At least, she never
knew, never suspected, nor cared,
either way" he said, bitterly. "She
was as Indifferent as-as l was"
81 wonder If she knows now," he
breathed. 81 wonder if she knows
and understands. She never seemed
to understand anything. l used to
wonder how anyone could feel so lit
tie and live. / tried once to tell her
how l felt and she laughed Said
1 needed something to tone me up.
Perhaps she was right. Perhaps l am
a morbid chap. Poor Helen!" he
sighed as he pored over the letter in
the failing light. He sat up, startled.
Dear" he read, 81 couldn't hope
ever to make you understand how
love you. You have just left me
cold, unloving, careless, as you always
are-and 1 (poor foolish, loving thing)
put my starved arms about your chair
and laid my lips passionately against
the spot where your dear head has
lain. Dearest, no man was ever loved
are. o, the sadness, the heartbreak
of 1t ALI
Il want you to know if you are left
and you will be-that 1 have always
cared. Dear, l know how it is with
you. l know that the bonds have be-
come so irksome that they have worn
into your very soul. If you had cared,
John, we should have been very hap
py. l love your work, your interests,
% that look! that cruelty Indifferent,
hard, careless look! 1t burns into me
as l write and l writhe under the
torture of it."
He sat with his head on his arms
for hours. Once he cried out in
agony: my God, If 1 had knownl
If had known!"
At last he climbed the heavy, dark
stairway to the room above to face
his dead. He turned back the white
coverlid with hands strangely steady
after his long vigil.
Her face was oddly girlish as 1t
was in the little photo. He felt a vast
tenderness yelling up within him as
he looked.
''If l could tell her just once and
see her smile as she used to smile
before!" He buried his face in the
clothes at her side at the recollection.
He remembered suddenly that she
had been possessed of a horror of
burial with life still existant. He
started and looked again, piercingly,
into her still face. 1t was not mar
ble-like as the faces he had seen in
death. A sudden hope clutched at his
heart.
"Helen," he cried, come back!
You are mine, child; I have always
loved you-always. didn't know.
o child, open your eyes to mel" His
face went gray with the effort of his
life. He was straining, striving
against death. the conqueror himself.
He prayed by all he held sacred. BY
his mothers memory. BY his belief
in love, by the prayers of the long
gone dead, and holding her two cold
hands in his own, he chafed and
warmed them unweariedly, repeated
ly, calling to her. pleading with her.
begging her to come back.
The passionate warmth of his ap-
peal softened the cold stiffness of her
fingers. They seemed to him to be
growing plant, human.
Helen" he called for the last time,
Helen child. it is I-open your eyes
to mel" 1t was the impassioned ap-
peal of soul to SOUL
Then slowly, wearily, unwillingly,
as of some child waking from a sleep
of deep exhaustion, the cold. white
lids lifted and the familiar eyes
looked into his own, though family
as from a long distance. The shadow
OF a smile parted the gray lips-the
lips of death.
You are going to live!" he cried.
loudly. You are going to live-for
me" He felt her cold. cold face
against his own hot cheek. He heard
her sigh-a long sigh of rapture that
was almost a sob-then blackness.
In the little study below the sick.
room-the room of resurrection-a
few hours later Atherton again fum-
bled about his wife's desk for the lit
tie photo. Again his awkward hands
tumbled the contents of the drawers
in reckless confusion, but at last they
closed on the treasured picture Tears