The Cairo bulletin., 1914-02-23

was sensible of the suction OF the
young mouth striving desperately to
draw the poison from the wound.
From time to time he was conscious
of white desperate face haloed with
hair that was a mist of woven spar.
kles. At times he thought himself
a recumbent stone statue IN wood,
and her great tall golden-headed
flower lying broken at his feet. Again
he was granite boulder and she a
vine with yellow leaves winding and
clinging about him. Then IL blank
a sense of movement and Of troublous
disturbance, of insistent voices that
that plucked at him, and then voices
growing distant again, and hands fall
ing away, and at last-silence.
.
the sunlight when Shirley came from
Damory Court, along the narrow wood
path under the hemlocks, and the way
was striped with bue-black shadows
and filled with signing noises. She
walked warily, hating often at some
leafy rustic to catch quick breath
of dread. AS she approached the tree
roots where the cape jessamines lay,
she had to force her feet forward by
sheer effort of will. At little dis
lance from them she broke u stick and
with it managed to drag the bunch TO
her, turning her eyes with shiver
from the trampled spot near by She
picked up the flowers, and treading
with caution, retraced her steps to the
wider path.
She stepped into the Red Road at
length In the teeth of a thunderstorm,
which had arisen almost without warn
ing to break with the passionate in
tensity of electric storms in the South.
There was no shelter, but even had
there been, she would not have sought
It. The turbulence of nature around
her matched, in a way, her over
strained feeling, and she welcomed
the fierce bulge Of the wind in the
up-blowing whorls of her hair and the
drenching wetness of the rain. She
tried to fix her mind on near things
the bending grasses, the scurrying red
runnels and Tapping shrubbery, but
her thoughts wilfully escaped the
tether, turning again and again to the
events OF the last two hours. She pie
tured Unc' Jefferson's eyes rolling up
In nj al n
arm lashing his indignant mule in his
flight for the doctor
At the mental picture she choked
with hysterical laughter, then cringed
suddenly against the sopping bark.
She saw again the Doctors gaze lift
from his first examination Of the tiny
punctures TO send a swift penetrant
glance at her, before he bent his great
body to carry the unconscious man to
the house. Again a fit of shuddering
swept over her. Then, all at once,
tears came strangling sobs that bent
and swayed her. 1t was the discharge
OF the Leydcn jar, the loosing of the
tense bowstring and it brought re-
llelx EAllti q tlAiAC SA-C biCN itANtSA'
He would get well! The thought
that perhaps she had saved his life
gave her a thrill that ran over her
whole body. And until yesterday she
had never seen him. She kneeled in
the blurred half-light, pushing her wet
hair back from her forehead and smil-
ing up in the rain that still fell fast.
In few moments she rose and went on.
At the gate OF the Rosewood lane
stood a mail-box on a cedar post and
she paused to fish out draggled Rich
mond newspaper As she thrust 1t I'M
der her arm her eye caught word OF
headline With a flush she tore it
from its scggy wrapper, the wetted
fiber parting in her eager fingers. and
resting her foot on the lower rail Of
the gate. spread it open on her knee.
She stood stock-still until she had
read the whole. 1t was the story of
John Valiant's sacrifice OF his private
fortune to save the ruin OF the in.
VOWED corporation
Its effect upon her was a shock. She