The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1914-10-23
2/C1| ~ 6O16S-zZ1H7Hk COM0Q//

of anguish. Yet she herself could not
marry him. The barrier was impas-
sable!
She was still lying listlessly among
the cushions when a step sounded on
the porch and she heard Chilly Lusk's
voice In the hall. With heavy hands
Shirley put into place her disheveled
hair and rose to meet him.
I'm awfully selfish to come to-
night" he said awkwardly; mo doubt
you are tired out"
She disclaimed the WEAKNESS that
dragged upon her spirits like leaden
weights, and made him welcome with
her usual cordially. She was in fact,
relieved at his coming. At Damory
court, the night of the ball, when she
had come from the garden with her
lips thrilling from Valiant's kiss, she
had suddenly met his look. 1t had
seemed to hold a startled realization
that she had remembered with re-
morseful conjunction. Since that
night he had not been at Rosewood.
Ranston had lighted pine-knot in
the fireplace, and the walls were shud-
dering with crimson shadows. Her
hand was shielding her eyes, and as
she strove to fill the gaps in their
| somewhat spasmodic conversation
with the trivial impersonal things that
belonged to their old intimacy, the
tiny Pickering flames seemed to be
darling unfriendly fingers plucking at
her secret. Leaning from her nest of
cushions she thrust the poker into
the glowing resinous mass till sparks
whizzed up the chimneys black nav
in a torrent.
How they fy!" she said. "Rickey
Snyder calls it raising blizzard in
Hades. l used to think they flew up
to the sky and became the littlest
stars. What pity we have to grow
up and learn so much! I'd rather
have kept on believing that when the
red leaves in the woods whirled about
in q circle the fairies were dancing,
and that it was the gnomes who put
the cockle-burs in the hounds ears"
She had been talking at random,
gradually becoming shrinkingly con-
scious of his constrained and stun
bling manner. She had, however, but
half defined his errand when he came
to 1t all in burst.
Il can't get to 1t, somehow, Shir-
ley" he said with sudden desperation,
"but here 1t is. I've come to ask you
to marry me. Don't stop me-" he
went on hurriedly. lifting his hand
whatever you say, l must tell you.
I've been trying to for months and
months!" Now that he had started,
it came with boyish vehemence that
both chilled and thrilled her. Even
in her own desolation, and shrinking
almost unbearably from the avowal.
touched her with pity. 1t seemed to
her that life was a strange tumble Of
unacceptable and incomprehensible
pain. And all the while, In the young
voice vibrant with feeling, her cring-
ing ear was catching imagined echoes
of that other voice, graver and more
self-contained, but shaken by the same
passion, in that iteration of Il love
you! I love you'll"
His answer came to him finally in
her silence, and he released her hands
which he had caught In his own. They
dropped, limp and unresponsive, In
her lap. Shirley" he said brokenly,
maybe you can't care for me-yet.
But II you will marry me, I'LL be
content with so little. till-you do"
She shook her head, her hair max
Ing dim flashes in the freight. mo,
Chilly" she said. at makes me