Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1914-06-16

look as he sat there, a heavy lonely
figure, that bright morning. 1t had
slipped to his face with the news of
the arrival at Damory Court. He told
himself that he felt queer
Suddenly he seemed to hear elm
voices close to his ear:
(which was 1t she lovedY Valiant
or Sassoon?"
1t was so distinct that he started,
vexed and disturbed. Really, it was
absurd. He would be seeing things
next, "Southall may be right about
that exercise" he muctered; III walk
more" He began the projected re-
form without delay, stridirlg up and
down the room. But the little voices
presently sounded again. shouting like
gnomes inside kill:
Which was it? Valiant or Sas-
soon2"
II wish to God l knewl'' said the
major roughly, standing still 1t ST.
fenced them, but the sound OF his own
voice, as though it had been pre-
concerted signal, drew together hun
dred inchoate images of other days.
There was the well-ordered garden of
Ds.mory Court-it rose up, gloomy
with night shadows, across his great
clothes-rress against the wall--with
himself sitting on a rlistic-bench
smoking and behind him the candle
lighted library window with Beauty
Valiant pacing up and down, waiting
for daylight There was sun
lighted stretch between two hemlocks,
with Southall and he measuring the
ground-the grass all dewy sparkles
ard an early robin lettering On a
| thorn-bush. Eight - nine = ten - he
caught himself counting the PAGES.
He wiped his forehead. Between
the hemlocks now were two figures
facing each other, one twitching un-
certainly, the other. palely rigid; and
at one side, held screen-wise, raised
umbrella. In some ghostly way he
could see right through the latter
see the Doctors hand gripping the
handle, his own, outstretched beyond
It's edge, holding a handkerchief ready
to futter down A silly subterfuge
those umbrellas, but there must be no
actual witnesses to the final act of
"sentlemen's meeting! A silly code
the whole of 1t. now happily oGt-
grown! The scene blurred into :. sim
gle figure budding down--tuddling
down
Which did she lover" The major
shook his head helplessly. 1t was,
after all, only the echo. become all
at once audible or shallow woInan's
lips, of a question that had always
haunted him.. 1t had first come to him
on the heels of that duel when he
had stood, somewhat later that hate
FIJI morning, holding a saddled horse
before the big pillared porch. It. had
whispered itself then from every NOV
ing leaf "Sassoon or valiant?" II
she had loved Sassoon. of what use the
letter Valiant was so long penning in
the library? Buff 1t were Valiant
she loved? The man who, having
sworn not to lift his hand against the
other, had broken his sacred word to
her! Who had stained the unwritten
with liquor! Yet, what was there a
woman might not condone in the one
man? Would she read, forgive and
send for him?
The major laughed out suddenly,
harshly, in the quiet room, and looked
down as if he expected to see that
letter still lying in his hand But the
L. oouId not still O rnOtriar VI-1SiDc
sound that was III his ears--elfn like
the voices, but as distinct--the sound
OF a horses hoofs going from Damory
Court
He had heard those hoof-beats echo
IL. his brain for thirty years.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
OF every 200 persons who live to be