Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1915-07-22
CHAPTER XxIV-continued.

CHAPTER xXIV--continued
At night as he lay in his bed in his
tent, fremont and Hammet Abou
cooled his temples with water from
the earthen bottles, where the sweet
ooze stood out humid and refreshing
on the damp clay. They gave him acid
md cooling drinks, and now and then
Sabron would smile on fremont, call
Eng him petit frere," and fremont
heard the words with moisture in his
eyes, remembering what he had said
Co the Marquise d'Esclignac about be-
sing Sabron's brother. Once or twice
the soldier murmured a woman's
name, but fremont could not catch it,
and once he said to the duke:
~Sing! Sing!"
The Frenchman obeyed docilely,
humming in an agreeable barytone the
snatches of song he could remember,
ia File de Madame Angot," I'll Tro-
Vatore;" running them into more mod
ern opera, la Veuve Joyeuse." But
the lines creased in Sabrons forehead
indicated that the singer had not yet
found the music which haunted the
memory Of the sick man.
"Sing!" he would repeat, fixing his
hollow eyes on his companion, and
fremont complied faithfully. Finally,
hls own thoughts going back to early
days. he hummed tunes that he and a
certain little girl had sung at their
games in the allees of an old chateau
in the valley of the Indre.
{ "Sonnez les matines
Ding-din-don,"
and other children's melodies.
In those nights, on that desolate
way, alone. in travelling tent, at the
side of a man he scarcely knew, Rob-
ert de fremont learned serious les
sons. He had been soldier himself,
but his life had been an inconsequent
one. He had lived as he liked, behind
him always the bitterness of an early
deception. But he had been too young
go break his heart at seventeen. He
had lived through much since the day
his father exiled him to Africa
Therese had become a dream, a
memory around which he did not al
ways let his thoughts linger. When
he had seen her again after her hus-
bands death and found her free, he
was already absorbed in the worldly
life of an ambitious young man He
had not known how much he loved her
until in the Villa des Bougainvilleas
he had seen and contrasted her with
Julia Redmond,
All the charm for him of the past
returned. and he realized that, as
money goes, he was poor-she was
poorer.
The difficulties of the marriage made
him all the more secure in his deter
animation that nothing should separate
aim again from this woman.
BY Sabron's bed he hummed his
little insignificant tunes, and his heart
/, H0nged for the woman. When once OF
twice on the return journey they had
been threatened by the engulfing SAND
storm he had prayed not to die before
he could again clasp her in his arms
sweet, tantalizing, exquisite will
the passion OF young love, there came
60 him the memories Of the moonlight
nights on the terrace of the old cha
teau. He saw her in the pretty girl
1sh dresses of long ago. the melan
ehoIy droop of her quivering mouth
her bare young arms. and smelled tn,
fragrance of her hair as he kisset
her. SO humming his soothing melo
dies to the sick man, with his voic,
s0ftened by his memories, he soothei
SAFFRON.
Sabron closed his eyes, the crease
In his forehead disappeared as thougl
hrushed away by tender hand. Pei
hRps the sleep was due TO the fac
that, unconsciously, fremont slippe
into humming tune, which Miss Red
'rnond had sung in the villa des Boz
gainviIleas, and of whose EngIisl
words De fremont was quite ignorant
~wiiI he last until Algiers. Hamme
Aboug" ~,
what will be will be. monsieurl
Ah0u replied
-He must" De fremont answeFe
ferceIy. "He SHALL"
Ms became serious and meditatiV