Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1914-05-15
CHAPTER Xxx.

Id1ls ~ Was ldllllk III ITO 6IcaQY
downpour which held forth promise
of ending. but with a gentle constancy
that gave the hills a look of sudden
discomfort and made disconsolate
miry pools by the roadside. The
clouds were not too thick, however, to
let through a dismal gray brightness
that shone on the foliage and touched
with gl~istening lines of high-light the
draggled tufts of the soaked blue
grass. Now and then, across the drip
ping fields, fraying skeins of mist wan
dered, to lie .curdled in the flooded
hollows where. here and there, cattle
stood lowing at intervals in a mourn
full key.
The indoors had become impossible
to her. She was sick of trying to
read, sick of the endless pacings and
purposeless invention of needless
tasks. She wanted movement, the
cobwebby mist about her knees, the
wet rain In her face. She ran upstairs
and came down clad in a close scarlet
jersey, with leather CATERS and a soft
hat.
Emmaline saw her thus accoutered
with disapproval. "Lawdy-mercy.
chile!" she urged; "you amt goin'
out? It's rainin' cats en- dawgs!"
I'm neither sugar nor salt, Emma
line" responded Shirley ~listlessly,
dragging on her rain-coat, "and the
walk will do me good"
On the sopping lawn she glanced
up at her mothers window. Since the
night of the ball her own panging self
consciousness had overlaid the fine
and sensitive association between
them. She had been full of horrible
feeling that her face must betray her
and the of her loss of spirits
be guessed.
Her mother, had. In fact, been
troubled by this. but was far from
guessing the truth. A somewhat long
indisposition had followed her first
sight of Valiant, and she had not
witnessed the tournament. She had
hung upon Shirley's description of 1t,
however, with an excited interest that
the other was later to translate In
the light of her own discovery. If the
thought had fitted to her that fate
might hold something deeper than
friendship In Shirley's acquaintance
with Valiant, it had been of the
vaguest. His choice of her as Queen
of Beauty had seemed a natural hom-
age to that swift and unfinching act
of hers which had saved his life.
There was in her mind a more OBJ
vious explanation of Shirley's altered
demeanor. Perhaps it's Chilly Lusk,"
she had said to herself. "Have they
had a foolish quarrel, l wonder? All,
well, in her own time she will tell
me-"
There wal some relief to Shirley's
overcharged feelings in the very dis
comfort of the drenched weather: the
sucking pull of the wet clay on her
boots and the firt of the drops on her
cheeks and hair. She thrust her dog
skin gloves into her pocket and held
her arms outstretched to let the wind
blow through her fingers. The mois-
ture chung in damp wreaths to her
hair and rolled In great drops down
her coat as she went.
The widest, most secluded walks
had always drawn her most and she
~instinctively chose one of these today.
1t was the road whereon squatted Mad
Anthony's whitewashed cabin. "Dah's
er mar gwine look in dem eyes, honey,
en- gwine make 'em cry en- cry" She
had forgotten the incident of that day,
when he had read her fortune, but
now the quavering prophecy came
back to her with a shivering sense Of
reality. go dah's fab en- she ain
afeah'd, en- dah's watah en- she ain
afeah'd. Et's de thing whut eat de
ha'at outen de breas'-dat whut she
afeah'd of" If 1t were only fire and
water that threatened heri
She struck her hands together with
an i~narticulate cry. She remembered
the laugh In Valiant's eyes as they had
planted the roses, the characteristic
gesture with which he tossed the wav-
ing hair from his forehead-how she
had named the ducks and the pea
cock and chosen the spots for his
flowers; and she smiled for such mem
cries, even In the stabbing knowledge
that these lear trivial things could
NEAR nothing to her In the future.
She tried to realize that he was gone
from her life, that he was the n
man on earth whom to marry would
be to strike to the heart her love
and loyalty to her mother, and she
said this over and wei to herself in
varying phrases:
you can't! No matter how much
you love him, you can'ti His father
deliberately ruined your mothers life
your own mother! It's bad enough
to love him-you can't help that. But
you can help marrying him. You
would hate yourself. You can never
kiss him again, or feel his arms around
you. You can't touch his hand. You
mustn't even see him. Not If 1t breaks