The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1913-09-27
which until that day had been para.

tSlOWly. ldDOriOuSly, PAIN uliys A0
had built his house upon the sand
and the winds had blown and the
floods had come, not only in literal
but in spiritual significance, and in
one day that house had fallen. He
stood amid the wrecked remains OF It
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.
While he resented the fierce, saw
age, passionate intensity the Interrupt
ton of this woman into his life.
While he. throbbed with equal inten-
sity and almost as much passion at
the thought Of her.
Have you ever climbed mountain
early in the morning while 1t was yet
dark and having gained some domi.
nant crest stood staring at the far
horizon, the empurpled east, while the
dawn came up like thunder?" Or
better still, have you ever stood with
in the cold, dark recesses Of some
deep valley Of river or pass and
watched the clear light spread its
bars athwart the heavens like nebu-
lous mighty pinions along the light
touched crest of a towering range, un-
til all of sudden, with a leap almost
OF joy, the great sun blazed in the
high horizon?
You might be born child Of the
dark, and light might scar and burn
your eye balls accustomed to cooler
deeper shades, yet you could no more
turn away from this glory, though you
might hate it, than by mere effort OF
will you could cease to breathe the
air. The shock that you might feel,
the sudden surprise, is only family sug-
gestive of the emotions in the breast
of this man.
Once long ago the gentlest and ten
derest of voices called from the dark
to the light, the blind. And 1t is given
to modern science and to modern skill
sometimes to emulate that godlike
achievement. Perhaps the surprise,
the amazement, the bewilderment. Of
him who having been blind doth now
see, If we can imagine 1t not having
been In the case ourselves, will be bet.
ter guide to the understanding Of this
mans emotion when this woman came
suddenly into his lonely orbit. His
eyes were opened although he would
not know it. He fought down his new
consciousness and would have none Of
| it. Yet it was there. He loved her.
With what JOY did Selkirk welcome
the savage sharer of his solitude. Sup
pose she had been 4 women of his own
race; had she boon old, ~ithered, hid
eous, he must have loved her on the
instant, much more II she were young
and beautiful. The thing was inev-
| table. Such passions are born. God
/ forbid that wc should deny it. In the
! busy hatntS OF ncn where women are
as plenty as blackDerries, to use Fal-
STATS smile, and where man may
sometimes choose between a hundred,
or a thousand, such loves are born, for
ever.
A voice In the night, a face in the
street, whispered word, the touch
Of a hand, the answering throb Of an
other heart-and behold! two walk to-
gether where before each walked
alone. Sometimes the man or the WON.
an who is born again Of love knows 1t
not, refuses to admit it, refuses to
recognize it. Some birth pain must
awaken the consciousness of the new
life.
II those things are true and posi-.
BILE under every day conditions and
to ordinary men and women, how
much more to this solitary. He had
seen this woman, white breasted like
the foam, rising as the ancient god.
dress from the Paphian sea- Over that
recollection, as he was a gentleman
and Christian, he would fain draw a
curtain, before it erect wall. He
must not dwell upon that fact, he
would not lnger over that moment
Yet he could not forget It,
Then he had seen her lying prone,
yet unconsciously graceful in her aban.
donment. on the sward he had caught
glimpse of her white face desperate.
ly uptossed by the rolling water; he
had looked into the unfathomable
depth Of her eyes at that moment
when she had awakened in his arms
after such a struggle as had taxed his
manhood and almost broken his heart
he had carried her unconsciously
| ghastly white with her pain.drawn
face, stumbling desperately over the
rocks in the beating rain to this, his
home. There he had held that poor
bruised slonGer little foot in his hand
gently, skil!u,ly treating it, when he
longed to press his li"s passionately
upon it. Last Of a. he had looked
into her f,ce, warr.,l with the red
light of the tire, searched her weary
eyes almost like blue pools, in whose
depths there yet lurked life and light
while her golden hair tinged Grim
son by the blaze lay on the white pill
! low-and he loved her. God pity him
| fighting against fact and admission OF