Year: 1877

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room was cold and duh without him


A comfortable old room it was i'm itself
too, and endcared to him by thousand
associations connected with his happy
bOyish days of free, loving, unfettered
intercourse with Archie and Kathleen.
! Would that intercourse ever be free and
unfettered again, he wondered? Had
his brothers. love for Kathleen been
nipped i'm the bud soon enough, and
eflectually enough for their respective
barques to float serenely over the sea OF
family life for the future? All that
must depend on Kathleen, he reminded
himself. If she had the tact and truth
fulness, the grace and generosity which
he believed her to have, il would all be
well.


lie had been standing at the window
as these thoughts passed through his
mind, looking down into the north
plantation, which looked a mysterious
uncomfortable place enough in the cold
starlight. Presently he remembered
Kathleen's words at dinner about the
avenues being at their loveliest when
the snow was on the ground, and the
moon was up. In a moment he had
opened the window and gone down to
the edge of the belt of trees. A step or
two more and he was under their black
shadows, and then he looked back at
the light in his mothers window, and
saw the reflection of her figure moving
about the room; and, half unconsciously
longed the more for happiness in his
marriage, in order that portion of the
reflected brightness of her children's
lives might pass in his mothers.


cts late in the day for her to begin
to enjoy herself" he thought, "but it
will be more perfect enjoyment to her
than she's ever known if all goes well
with Archie and me-"


The thought hardly crossed his mind
when whispering voices caught his ear.
A wOman's form rustled in the bushes
close to him, and he saw his Kathleen
standing with her head on a mans
shOulder-that mans arm encircling
her. In an instant he was by her side
still in the shadow of the trees
speechless with grief and shame, and
outraged love and trust; he was unre-
cognised, and Archie's startled instincts
caused him to raise his hand and strike
the invader a heavy blow.


He reeled and fell, and when they
bent over him and shrieked his name in
their horror and fear, no answer came,
for the sharp edges of a jagged stump
of tree had cut into his brow, and it
was dead heart Kathleen tried to con-
vince of her fidelity, in spite of appear
ances.


His mother believed Archie, when he
knelt and told her he was innocent of
the great otfense of raising his hand
knowingly against his brother-be-
lieved, and loved him, and suffered for
him, even as she loved and sorrOwed,
and suffered for, and lamented Rupert.
But Archie had to take his trial in spite
of her faith in him, his trial by the
laws of his country-that was soon past.
The trial that was never over, was his
vivid remembrance of how his brothers.
life and his own honor had been sacri-
feed.


He never renewed his wooing Of
Kathleen, indeed, he never saw her
again after terrible day of the inquest,
when she was dragged before the jury
to give evidence against him. When it
was all over, he left the service and the
country, leaving his mother to take care
of the broken, penitent girl, who had
been the cause of robbing her of both
her boys; and Kathleen knew that there
was justice in his course, though there
was little mercy in it.


ru.nuru.suuu,,u-ur.suuu