Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1914-10-29
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Inlnk you nau DetteT stop ASE II
you can" said the general to his aide.
The aide overlook her at the gate.
I'VE shall know about his excellency
before you can find out for yourself"
he said; and. young himself, he could
put the sympathy of youth with ro
nance into his tone. You might miss
the road, even miss him, when he was
without a scratch, and be for hours in
ignorance" he explained. I'm a few
minutes we ought to have word"
Marta sank down weakly on the
tongue of wagon, overturned against
the garden wall In the melee of the re
treat, and leaned her shoulder on the
wheel for support.
"If the women of the Grays waited
four weeks" she said with an effort at
stoicism, then I ought to be able to
wait few minutes"
Depend on me. I'll bring news as
soon as there is any" the aid con.
cluded, and, seeing that she wished to
be alone, he left her.
For the first time she had real OBJ.
livjon from the memory of her deceit
of Westerling, the oblivion of drear
heart-pulling suspense. All the good
times, the sweetly companionable
times, she and Lanny had had to-
gether; all his flashes of courtship,
his outburst in their last interview in
the arbor, when she had told him that
If she found that she wanted to come
to him she would come in a flame,
passed in review under the hard light
of her petty ironies and sarcasms,
which had the false ring of coquetry
to her now, genuine as they had been
at the time. Through her varying
moods she had really loved him, and
the thing that had slumbered in her
perhaps too late.
Without him-what then? It seemed
that the fatality that had let him es-
cape miraculously from the aeroplane
accident, made him chief of staff, and
brought him victory, might well
choose to ring down the curtain Of
destiny for him in the charge that
drove the last foot of the invader off
the soil of the Browns. A voice
was calling. She heard 1t haz-
lily, with a sudden access of giddy
fear, before 1t became q cheerful, clar-
ion cry that seemed to be repeating
a message that had already been spo-
ken without her understanding it.
JAt Go P4
He was not hit! He is on his way
back and ought to be here very soon!"
She heard herself saying Thank
| you'll" But that was not for some time.
| The aide was already gone. He had
had his thanks in the effect of the
news, which made him think that a
chief of staff should not receive con-
[ gratulations for victory alone.
| Lanny would return through the
garden. She remained leaning against
the wagon body, still faint from hap
] piness, waiting for him. She was
drawing deeper and longer breaths
that were velvety with the glow of
sunshine. A flame, the fame that
Lanny had desired, of many gentle yet
| passionate tongues, leaping hither and
thither in glad freedom, was in pos
session of her being. When his figure
appeared out of the darkness the
flame swept her to her feet and to-
ward him. Though he might reject
her he should know that she loved
him; this glad thing. after all the
| oh he hod nh
confess triumphantly.
But she stopped short under the
whip of conscience. Where was her
courage? Where. her sense of duty?
What right had she. who had played
such a horrible part. to think of self?
There were other sweethearts with
lovers alive who might be dead on the
morrow If war continued. The fame
sank to live coal in her secret heart
Another passion possessed her as she
seized Lanstron's hand in both her
| own.
"Lanny, listen! Not the sound OF
shot-for the first time since the
war begani Oh, the blessed silence!
| It's peace, peace-isn't 1t to be
peace?" AS they ascended the steps
she was pouring out a flood of bro
| ken, feverish sentences which per
mitted of no interruption. you kept
on fighting today, but you won't to
morrow, will you! 1t isn't who plead
its the women, more women than
there are men in the army, who want
you to stop now! Can't you hear
them? Can't you see them?"
In the fervor of appeal, before she
realized his purpose. they were or
the veranda and at the door of the
dining-room, where the Brown stat
was gathered around the table.
'T still rely on you to help me, Mar
tai" he whispered as he stood to one
| aida for har RI ontar