Judsonia weekly advance., 1921-08-25

Donatello's had been the hand; but hers had been the look, except for which the hand had not been lifted.
 She turned to her fellow-criminal, the youth so lately innocent, whom she had drawn into her doom, and pressed him close, close to her bosom, with clinging embrace that brought their hearts together. "Yes, Donatel- To, you speak the truth" said she. My heart consented. The deed knots us together like the coil of serpent They threw one glance at the heap of death below to assure themselves that it was not all a dream-then turned from the fatal precipice and made their way back into the city arm in arm and heart in heart
 An agreement had been entered into before the moonlight tragedy had taken place that the four friends should meet next morning in the Church of the Capuchins to study to. gether Guido's famous picture of St. Michael and Satan. Thither at the hour agreed upon Miriam and Dona. tello turned their steps. Conscious of secret guilt, they were the more anxious to keep casual engagement
 But, when they drew near the church, Kenyon alone was waiting for them. Hilda had promised to be of the party, but she was not there. The three pushed back the heavy curtain and entered the nave, only to have their gaze arrested at once by con spicuous object. On a slightly elevated bier lay the dead body of monk, tall candles burning at his head and feet. The rigid figure was clad in the brown woolen froek of the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over the head but so as to leave the features uncovered. Something seemed to act like a mag net upon Miriam. She passed between two of the lighted candles and looked down. My God l' she murmured, ''what is this?" She grasped Dona- tello's hand and felt him give con vulsive shudder. No wonder that their blood curdled. The dead face of the monk gazing at them beneath its half closed eyelids was the same visage that had glared upon their naked souls the night before as Donatello had flung him over the precipice. What did it mean? Kenyon drew near, perceived their agitation, and started to say something But Miriam laid her finger to her lips and quietly said, Hush" From the shadowy church the tree emerged into the Roman sun light, Kenyon to go in search of Hil- da, but leaving a darker shadow still to settle down upon the lovers. The young Italian was petrified with hor- TOT Miriam tried to cheer him, assur ing him of her undying love. But she met with no response. They parted, almost as strangers, it being agreed that Donatello should seek lis castle in the mouEtains.'
 Thither. in the summer, Kenyon went to pay long-planned visit. He found the poor faun sadly changed. The idea of a lifelong penance had taken firm possession of Donatello. He was intent on finding some meth cd of self-torture. Kenyon, knowing now something of what had happened. arranged with Miriam that she should he in the public square of Perugia OF specified day, near the statue of Pope Julius. There the lovers met again. The sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed the youths affection. They needed one another Kenyon cheered and en- couraged them. Their two lives flowed together and the great bronze statue of the Pope, his hand outreached in a pdpal benediction, beneath which they bad met, appeared to impart blessing cn their marriage,
 So Kenyon vent back to Rome to woo the gentle E' ia. whose sensitive soIl was burdere@ hy the knowledge Of the awful guilt of her friends. The secret weighed upon her heavily. She sought .ke seclusion of great churches, and at last, Protestant though she was, she found relief by pouring out in the confessional at St. Peters the story of the crime that she had wit messed.
 But for Miriam and Donatello the end was not yet reached. The seEse of sin had awakened in the faunlike youth what human love could hot as suage Miriam could not rid him of the idea that he must surrender him. self to iIstice. Kenyon had glimpses of the Iair, now taking part in revei- ries, but again concealed behind hsbiii- ments of woe. In a desolate spot in the Campagna Miriam at fast dis closed the mystery surrounding her own past. It was the story of a mar riage to be for2ed upon her from which her soul revoited. She escaped, though not without unjust suspicious of a crime. Concealing her identity she gave herself to art. Then, in the Cat acombs, the man whom she 1oathed half brute and half religious maniac had reappeared, logging her steps and threatening to disclose her to the world--with what catastrophe the sculptor knew.