The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-02-11
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was both bewildered and anxious. She was
always deferential, always courteous, but
she went through her days like one in a
dream. AS the winter wore on, she grew
pale and languid, more than ever like a
flower whose roots are not deeply In the
ground. Her appearance worried him
greatly, remembering the early age at
which her mother had died. Sometimes
he had serious doubts of his position. In
the watches of the night he trembled
towards surrender. Robert Underwood's
face haunted him. It seemed to him that
the father had come back to him in the
son, to argue against the old unsettled
questions.
He discovered that Fehce spent long
hours away from home engaged in some
work, the nature of which she did not reveal
to him. Ordinarily he would have de-
manded of her an account of these absences,
but the fear of OVERRIDING the matter of his
authority restrained him He never for
moment suspected her of meeting Robert, or
communicating with him. She had given
her word, and he knew that she would keep
it faithfully.
One April day he was going home earlier
than usual to ask her to accompany him on
a drive through the Park, when, glancing at
his evening paper, he saw a paragraph that
Richard Underwood had died suddenly of
heart failure that morning at his city resi-
dence
He read the paragraph through a second
time Then, with a shaking hand, he sig
nailed the conductor. He wanted to get
into the air; to think while before he faced
her; to walk slowly home, collecting his
thoughts.
AS he made his way through the throng on
the street, he tried to fix his mind on recent
events, and the inevitableness of his own
position. But his thoughts would stray
perversely to an earlier period, antedating
the quarrel. Old sunny scenes came back
to him, and CHEEKY incidents Of forgotten
summers when he and Richard Underwood
had camped together in the Adirondacks.
He remembered his comrades keen, frank
glance, his merry laugh, the trick he had of
whistling sometimes in the middle of sem
tence-
He bowed his head before this wind from
the enchanted region of vanished boy
hood. In spite of himself, a great regret
swept him. His strongholds crumbled
about him, letting in the light from lonely
spheres.
"Rchardl what allied us7 were we blind2
was I blind2"
He left alone and fearful What if the
white wings of a magnificent opportunity
had dipped forever below the horizon.
He walked on and on, pursued by his
doubt-lashed by it into a fever of I'M
accustomed thoughts and emotions. He
found himself at last in the midst of crowd
all sweeping towards an open place in the
square where platforms were erected and
band was playing. A glimmer of banners
and bright dresses was visible through the
trees, and all about him was buzz of mas
culine voices and jests. Whatever this
meeting was, the crowd was not taking it
seriously. He followed the throng-fnally
questioned by-stander.
Learning that it was a woman's meeting,
he was about to turn away, when pretty
girl thrust program into his hand. Me
chanically he looked at it. Halfway down
the list of speakers he saw his daughters
name.
Felice Burton! how strange it looked.
She was to speak on a subject whose magni-
tude startled him. For a moment, wave
of the old anger broke over him-the turn
ing of tide that was going out forever.
This, then, was her revengel How well she
had planned it, knowing the bitter mortiica-
ton he would feel, he who would permit
woman shame only on her hearthstone or
her gravestone.
But his anger sank away, for the old walls
were down, the old channels broken up.
He remembered that he had forbidden her
to write her name on the hearthstone.
Suddenly he felt great loneliness. He
seemed to stand in the midst Of desert of
his own making. Richard Underwood had
gone beyond both his hate and bis forgive
ness; and now Felice had gone from him
into the world of dissatisfied women whose
theories seemed to him less than the cries of
wandering birds
He pressed through the crowd, and at last
found himself close to the grand stand, in
which the speakers sat. A woman, with
keen, persuasive face, was addressing the
crowd. He inquired who she was; then,
looking at the program, he saw that his
little elicewould be thenext speakerbutone.
He made his way to the back of the stand,
and then at last he saw her. She was
seated nervously on the edge of her chair,
her hands clasped tightly in her lap,
frightened, apprehensive look in her eyes.
Contrasted with the other women in their
assured serenity Of long experience, she
seemed like a frightened child who had