The Wilmington morning star., 1947-04-26
CHAPTER ~FORTY-THREE

LIN
When Sherry was gone, it was
as though an emptiness closed
around Lex, a vacuum Of lonell-
ness for her. He struggled with
himself in an effort to dismiss it.
Why should he miss her more now,
knowing she was hundreds OF
miles distant, than he had when
she was in Chicago? They had
often been apart, weeks had usu-
ally elapsed between their meet
ings. Now she had been gone only
a few days. Yet desolation ripped
him and the need to see her, to
speak with her, was a hunger
nothing could assuage.
His first conscious realization OF
how much he was going to miss
her had come that Sunday when
they sat together on the bank OF
the little stream. But his conscious
Mnad had been the last part OF
him to grasp the implications OF
Sherry's departure. AL the rest OF
hix. his blood, his bones and
sinews, the very cor of his being,
naust have aware Of what h
had come to mean to him, OF what
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him, unacknowledged, ~unrealized,
Tor a long time. The hours they
spent together, his knowledge that
she came often to the farm, must
have fed his growing hunger suf-
ficiently to keep its edge from de-
veloping into this empty. urbear-
able ache that gripped him now,
against which he could not fight.
He had thought her a friend.
Now he knew he loved her. 1t was
as simple as that. How could a
man be so blind, so lacking in I'M
Outstanding Of is own self, his
inner feelings. Lex wondered. He
loved Sherry and he was engaged
10 Kay: their wedding day was
only a scant few weeks off. A
sense Of nightmare wrapped him
about, q feeling Of being trapped.
Vet it was a trap he had fashion
cd with his own stupidity, into
which he had gone of his own ac-
cord.
Lex tried to think things
through, to dig into the past IL an
honest effort to uncover the roots
Of this dilemma in which he found
himself. When he first met Kay,
he had been instantly and strongly
attracted. Her smouldering dark
beauty, the ardor that broke
through like a flame, these things
were not easy to resist. Nor had
Lex tried to resist them. He had
thought he loved Kay. All the time
he was away from her, the feeling
he had accepted as love had burned
IN him, making the hideousness OF
wal bearable, turning his thoughts
from the horror of the present to
a future he and Kay would share.
Any man might have made a SINH
lar mistake in evaluating his feel
ines. It was afterward, when the
change in himself, his new dreams
and aspirations, had tended to
slienate Kay and him, that he
should have had the Judgment to
examine his love more closely, to
be sure Of its reality. But he had
lacked that judgment. He had tax
On too much for granted the
strength Of his feeling for Kay,
even after he had met Sherry and
had her for his friend. That was
the blindness for which Lex could
not forgive himself.
And yet. in a way, it was under
standable. He thought: It's like
when you stare at a candle flame
in the darkness. It seems big and
bright. Then, when daylight comes,
you scarcely notice, it you're star
Ing at the candle hard enough.
That's what I did. not realizing
that my love for Sherry, my real
love, was all around me like sun
shine, lighting and warming my
whole. life.
Now, when he had let her go
aW ay from him, when it might be
forever too late, he knew. Knew
that she was everything to him,
the air he breathed and the blood
in his veins and the beat of his
heart. All the things that were so
much a part of him that he scarce
~ realized they were there. And
Sherry was a part of him, too, a
part of his heart. Only he hadn't
realized it.
He should have known on SC
many occasions. All the times
when his lack Of response to Kay
had Tiled him with a sense Of
confusion and futility. The win
TER night on the bridge, when Sher.
rvs kiss had stirred him so deep
E. The awful time of her sisters