Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1916-12-14

1pAhNANIs I
David did not believe her denial;
eve believed 1t.
"Father sent me for you. He's 60
ing to give a great dinner at the tav-
ern and you're to sit in the place of
honor. Come. you mustn't keep your
cook waiting"
And she held out her hand.
But David did not stir.
The look of haggard suffering had
returned to his face. Her loneliness
was an arrow that sent all the poison
of his despair once more burning
through his veins. For the first time
he found a voice, a voice trembling
with emotion.
Il cannot 1 cannot :.
please go!"
She opened her eyes wide and shot
a blue radiance of hurt surprise at
him. Then she went swift and straight
to the point, a womar not to be put
aside by evasions:
Indeed, 1 will not. You mustn't
stay here alone"
He had regained control of himself,
but the struggle left him deadly pale.
He could not bear to face her as he
spoke.
Il am going away. l cannot live
without you" The words were hard
ly more than q whisper.
She took two quick steps forward.
Her hand fell upon his shoulder, light
as a floating strand of gossamer. But
he felt it and thrilled through all his
being. Slowly, slowly, he raised his
head and she saw his face, that he had
gone into the valley Of the shadow of
death. In the hush of the wilderness
his scarcely audible words seemed to
fall on their hearts with the measured
beating of an memorable judgment.
What did she see in the wilderness?
A dry reed, shaken in the wind of de-
spair? But her voice rang like a song
in the morning:
ut is not brave to turn back from
the blowing. l have heard my father
say that courage should be lifted to
such a height as to maintain it's great
ness even in the midst of miseries,
holding all things under ITSELF"
David smiled.
81 call the immortal truth to witness
that no fear, either of life or death,
car appall me, having long learned to
set bodily pain in the second form of
my being. And l do now think it the
act of a coward to die"
The girl had grown paler as she read
his determination in his face, white
and rigid as a mask.
David was silent. In the morning
sunlight that dappled the little glade,
the frozen branches of the trees stood
m~Otionless. A white snowflake danced
across the space before David's eyes
and his vision followed it up, up, into
the cloudless blue beyond. In the quiet,
it seemed to Toinette as If she could
hear her own heart beating. David
spoke, again, slowly:
"And if we be %lieutenants of God in
this troubled world, do you not think
then that we have right to choose a new
station when he leaves us u%nprovided
of good reason to stay in the old?"
mo, certainly I do not" she said,
with a rebuke lovelier because it lay
in her sweetly troubled voice, "since
it is not for us to appoint that mighty
majesty what time he will help us
the uttermost instant is scope enough
for him to revoke all things to ones
own desire"
And she sealed her lips with the
moistness of her tears, which followed
still n another like a precious rope
of pearls. David suddenly realized
how ineffably sweet life was; wonder
full, tragic, joyous worthy of music
worthy Of tears.
The pistol fell to the ground unheed
ed. David took a step forward.
But she checked him.
"No," she said, "do not tell me. Doc
tor Elliott has told me all. He ant
!, Lydia have gone. Forgive me, forgive
!, me, David! Let the dreadful past &
! with them! See, you have made mi
> cry-aren't you sorry? And by thi'
> time there's no dinner for either O
' u.s."
. They laughed together. They wer,
! young.
"T1l get dinner for you" promise,
David. II knew a butchers son one
upon a time"
"Once upon a time" she repeated
THAT sounds like a story. That's tn
way they always begin"
And so it was the beginning of
story; but David did not tell it to he
then.
They went home together.
AT Toinette's door, little Mr.. O'Bar
non hailed David with a shout.
II sent my dove into the wilderness,
he said, his eyes twinkling, "but your
the most stable olive branch l eve
saw"