Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1915-03-31

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The Year Was That of the Duel: the
Date Was the Day Following the
Jessamine Anniversary.
her heart by turns seemed a cold hand
pressing upon its beating and an algid
vapor rising stealthily over it. But
her hands were hot and her eyelids
burned. Finally she reused herself.
Thank you. Emmaline," she said
in tired voice, good night now; I'm
going to sleep, and you must go to
bed, too"
But alone in the warm wan dark,
Shirley lay staring open-eyed at the
ceiling Slowly the terror was Selling
upon her, the dread, noiseless and in
tangible, folding her in the shadow OF
it's numbing wings. Was her mother
the one over whom that old duel had
been fought? She remembered the
cape jessamines. Was the date Of
that duel-of the death of SassoOn-
the anniversary her mother kept?
She sat up in bed, trembling. Then
she rose, and opening the door with
caution, crept down the stair, sliding
her hot hand before her along the
cool polished banister. AS she passed
through the lower hall, hound on the
porch. seeming her. stirred, thumped
his tail on the flooring, and whined.
Cropping her way to the dining-roomD
she lighted a candle and passed
through a corridor into a lOw-ceiIing-
ed chamber employed as q general re-
ceptacle-a glorified garnet, as Mrs.
cambridge dubbed it.
Tt showed strange assemblage! a
row Of chests, stored with winter
clothing, gave forth a clean pungent
smell Of cedar, and at one side stood
an antique spinet and a worn set or
horsehair furniture.
Shirley had turned her miserable
eyes on a bookshelf along one wall.
The volumes it contained had been
her fathers, and among them stood
a row Of tones taller than their fell
lows-the bound numbers OF a county
newspaper, beginning before the war.
The back of each was stamped with
the year She was deciphering these
faded imprints. Thirty years ago,
she whispered; yes, here it is"
She set down the candle and
dragged out one Of the huge leather
backs. Staggering under the weight,
she rested it's edge on the table and
began feverishly to turn the pages, her
eye on the date line. She stopped
presently with a quick breath-she
had reached Lay 18th. The year was
that Of the d.iel: the date was the day
following tie jessamine anniversary.
Fearfully her eye oyerran the columns
Then suddenly she put her open
hand on the page as though to blot
out the words, every trace of color
stricken from cheek and brow. But
the line seemed to glow up through
the very flesh: Died, May 14th; Ed
ward Sassoon, in his twenty-sixth
year"
The book slipped to the floor with a
crash that echoed through the room.
It was true, then! It vas Sassoon's
death that her mother mcaTned. The
man in whose arms aae had stood
such little while ago by the old dial
OF DaDlOTy court WE tIS So-A VI ChO
man who had killed mimi
ooh, Cod" she whispered, lust
when 1 was so happy! Oh, mother
mother! You loved him, and your
heart broke when he died 1t was
Valiant who broke it-Valiant-Val-
liant His fathcrl'
She slipped down upon the bare
floor and crouched there shuddering
and agonized, her disheveled hair wet
with tears. Was her love to be but
the thing of an hour, single clasp
and then, forever, nothing? His IA
theirs deed was rot his fault. Yet
how could she love man whose every
feature brought pang to that mother
she loved more than herself? So,
over and over, the wheel Of her
thought turned in the same desolate
groove, and ever and over the parox.
ysms of grief and longing submerged
her.
Noiselessly as she had descended,
she crept again up the stair. AS she
passed her mothers door, she paused
moment, and laying her arms out
across it, pressed her lips to the dark
grain of the wood
CTO BE Continued