The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1914-08-13

thought had fitted to her that fate
might hold something deeper than
friendship in Shirley's acquaintance
with Valiant, 1t had been of the
vaguest His choice of her as Queen
OF Beauty had seemed a natural hon.
age to that swift and unflinching 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 was 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
So0t5 and G76 2lrt 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 clung 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 man 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. "Fo' 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 it were only fire and
water that threatened her!
She struck her hands together with
an inarticulate 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 men,
ories, even in the stabbing knowledge
that these dear trivial things could
mean nothing to her in the future.
She tried to realize that he was gone
from her life, that he was the one
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 over to herself in
varying phrases:
You can't! No matter how much
you love him, you can't! 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 it breaks
your heart-as your mothers heart
was broken!"
She had turned into an unbeaten
way that ambled from the road
through track of tall oaks and pines,
scarce more than a bridle-path, wind
ing aimlessly through bracken-strewn
depths so dense that even the wild
roses had not found them. In her
childish hurts she had always fed to
the cOmpanionship of the trees. She
had known them every one-the black
gum and pale dogwood and gnarled
hickory, the prickly-balled button
wood" the lowly mulberry and the
majestic red oak and walnut. They
had seemed friendly and plying coun-
selors, standing about her with arms
intertwined. Now, with the rain weep
ing in soughing gusts through them,
they offered her no comfort. She sud-
denly threw herself face down on the
soaked moss.
"Oh, God" she cried. Il love him
so! And had only that one evening.
1t doesn't seem just. If l could only
have him, and suffer some other way!
He's suffering, too, and 1t isn't our
Nc IGlIuGI VI uS udEIuGU any
one! He isn't responsible for what
his father did-why, he hardly knew
him! Oh God, why must it be SO
hard for US? Millions of other people
love each other and nothing separates
them like this!"
Shirley's warm breath made a little
fog against the etareyed moss. She
was scarcely conscious of her wet and
clinging clothing, and the soaked
strands Of her hair. She was so
wrapped In her desolation that she no
longer heard the sound of the perse-
vering rain and the wet swishing of
the bushes-parting now to a hurried
step that fell almost without sound on
the spongy forest soil She started
up suddenly to see Valiant before her.
He was in a somewhat battered
walking suit of brown khaki, with q
leather belt and felt hat whose brim,
stiff with the wet, was curved down