The Darlington news. (Darlington, S.C.) 1875-1909, October 25, 1894, Image 3
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BY @ IOTA.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The next day Strange went
down and told Mrs. Fellowes
more or less about it, and put
his wife entirely into her hands.
People were less surprised
than might have been supposed
at Strange’s suddenly-organized
expedition. He had broken con
ventional laws now for so long
that if he had settled down into
a solid every day life, without
some characteristic protest, he
would have been regarded rath
er as a fraud.
The first possible companion
his thoughts fell on, was Bry-
don.
“It would be bringing him
out into the wilderness with a
vengeance,” he said, and as* mings mio mue neaps,T|__
matter of fact it was just what a ^ er kind; when that was
land into which Strange meant
to penetrate, and of which he
certainly possessed a most inti
mate knowledge, Gwen used to
watch him with a curious cold
sort of pain, and wonder if he
were human, till one day Mrs.
Fellowes found out the exist
ence of these ghastly entertain
ments and stopned them.
One morning when Mr. War
ing was thus engaged, his wife
sped away in a half furtive fash
ion and shut herself into the
children’s nursery. Kneeling
down by the drawers she began
to pull out great heaps of soft
white lawn and lace and creamy
flannel, then with much puzzled
: doubt she set to sorting the
things into little heaps, each
Brydon wanted at the time, and
he was overjoyed at the offer.
When Tolly heard of the pro
posed move, he came to a firm
resolve to be in it. At first
Strange absolutely refused to
take him, but at last his persist
ence became so annoying that
he gave in, but not till Tolly
had taken the most powerfully-
expressed oaths of abstinence.
When all this was settled.
Tolly looked up with a grin and
remarked deprecatingly:
“If you ’adn’t given in to take
me straight, I meant to reach
you crooked at Suez, sir; I never
intended, your honor, to let you
face them black varmint, with
out me.”
Strange looked at the hideous
grinning creature, that one good
puff of wind could blow off the
face of the earth.
“Do you know you lire an
idiot, Tolly?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tolly cheer
fully.
“And that you’re very likely
going to your death?”
“Not when you’re about, sir;
death and you ain’t mates.”
“You’re to go with Bell to-day
and get rigged out,” said
Strange.
Yes, sir, thank your honor,
but I’ve took notice of them
pants and sich as were sent to
your honor and ’ave bordered
the same for myself ban in’ a
worser quality.”
“Well upon my word!”
“Arrivin’ at Suez without no
thin’ to suit the climate might
’ave inconvenienced your honor”
remarked Tolly with bland con
sideration. “I have likewise
perwided a breechloader and a
rewolver.”
“Oh, have you? Bring me
those weapons without a mo
ment’s delay, and then go with
Bell and get your outfit; I pay
for those pants, and now, don’t
go about the place crowing over
the other servants.”
“Oh Lord, sir, il you were to
hoar them over my teeth you’d
take back that order. Seein’
likewise that the teeth came out
of your honor’s own pocket and
are a credit to your establish
mei t, as the dentist hisself
said.”
“Will you be good enough to
go to the devil, Tolly, I’m busy.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tolly, and he
took himself off to crow con
scientiously the rest of the day.
For the next two months
Gwen comported herself to the
satisfaction of no one; she was
reticent with the Fellowes, and
her mother simply appalled her.
Mrs. Waring’s nervous gentle
little attempts at being a moth
er; the delicate tendrils she kept
constantly throwing out in he*
daughter’s direction; her queer
quaint experiments in the ex
pression of the emotions, simply
worried Gwen to death. She
refused to let herself see the
pathos of it all, or to be touch
ed.
Indeed, as lime went on and
her weakness grew more ap
parent to others, the demeanor
of her mother grew into a terror
to her. She would fly from it
to her own room, where she
would sit with her idle hands
lying in her lap in a quiet agony
of loneliness.
It was a point of honor with
her to keep herself calm; she
ate and drank too, and she rest-
ed_obediently whenever Mary,
who had taken the physicial
part of her under her charge,
said she needed rest; she drove
when the old woman prescribed
air, and walked when move
ment was supposed to be neces
sary. She was a mere autom
ation in her absolute yielding to
orders concerning her health
During this time Mr. Waring
made a wild attempt to expand
into a father. He would issue
from time to time from his lib
rary with a bundle of random
papers in his hand, and enter
tain Gwen with discourse grave,
and gay, mostly concerning
Africa, of which continent he
had rather a- poor opinion and
which he painted with lurid
colors.
As he reeled out anecdotes of
the gruesomeness of the climate,
the impracticability of travel
ing, the hideous forms of dis
ease assumed, the congenital
villainy of the natives, more es-
ially of that portion of the
mm
A
done she went softly out, and in
a few minutes returned with
old Mary.
“Has my daughter provided
herself with those little things?”
she asked nervously.
“I don’t know, ma’am; I was
thinking of speaking to her on
the subject.”
“These are good, are they not?
The lace seems to me to be real
and I do not see any holes.”
“Lord, ma’am, they are like
new, it Isn’t likely that I’d have
my clothes lorn after two bab
ies, I’ve brought a set through
six, ma’am!”
“Do the fashions in these
things change, Mary?”
“Bless you, no, ma’am! Set
up long-clothes babies with
fashions!”
“Mary, would you be good
enough to get me a pretty bas
ket?”
“You couldn’t have a prettier
one than this one, ma’am,” said
Mary, pulling out the old lace
and muslin one that had held
the belongings of her own baby
children.
Mrs. Waring took up the
thing and examined it curious
ly, and thought of the awe with
which she used to regard it.
“Do babies nowadays use
these things?” she asked.
“Lord, ma’am, yes, and will
till the millennium.”
Mrs. Waring put the little
ihings in delicately, one by one.
“Now, Mary, I will take them
to my daughter,” she said with
a little quiver of her lips.
She knocked gently at her
daughter’s door.
As it happened she could
hardly have come at a worse
time. Gwen had just escaped
from her father; beside, for three
weeks now, there had come no
news from Strange, and in spite
of herself she was all on edge
with unnamed terrors.
When Mrs, Waring’s knock
came, she was sitting listlessly
looking out of the window.
“Oh, I am so sickening tired,”
she said, “and I wish ehe would
not always knock in that tre
mulous way.” So she harden
ed her face and threw the door
open.
Her mother gave a quick little
swallow and came forward fal-
teringly, while Gwen still held
the door open and watched her.
“Will you please close the
door, dear Gwen?” she asked.
Gwen complied, and then
came toward the basket and
lifted one of the white frilly
things carelessly.
Suddenlv the truth flashed on
her and she trembled with in
dignation, while her mother
stood pathetically before her,
like a criminal at the bar.
Gwen was the first to speak;
her mother’s face touched her
in a vague way.
“Won’t you sit down, moth
er?” she said, in her cold gentle
voice. “Do you wish me to
have these things? I am so
very much obliged to you. I
ordered some before I left Lon
don, but I believe it is always
better to have a reserve stock
of everything.”
“I thought I would like to see
a child of yours in the little
things,” faltered her mother
A horrible feeling came on
Gwen that her mother was
about to cry. She took out one
or two of the things
“That is lovely lace,” she
said hurriedly, “better than any
the woman showed me. I had
no idea you had any interest in
such matters.”
Then one fervent wish took
possession of her, that her moth
er would complete her gift and
go, but she was not to be de
fivered just yet.
Mrs. Waring was on her waj
to the door with bowed head
when suddenly with a short
smothered cry she turned anc
faced her daughter. She saw
the quick recoil in the girl’s
face, and with a supreme effort
the small fragile creature calm
ed herself and sat down.
“Gwen.” she said, looking at
the tall woman brooding gloom
ily above her, then set the bas
ket on the bed, “will you try to
suffer my love, dear? I cannot
ask you for yours, I have not
earned it, I never knew what it
was to be a mother till too late.
But, dear, take the love I bear
you gently, don’t recoil from
me as you did just now,”—
Gwen winced “as you’ve done
many times. I will not intrude
on you, dear; I have made a
mistake to-day in asking you to
accept those things.”
“No, no, mother,” interrupt
ed the girl.
“Yes, dear, I have; I do not
reproach you but you are hard
and that fault is mine more
than yours. When you were a
iittle child, Gwen, did you ever
wish for my love—I mean the
ordinary outspoken natural love
that women give their child
ren?”
Mrs. Waring bent forward
and looked into her daughter’s
face with wide eager eyes.
Gwen looked into the upturn
ed face and her heart sirred
with pity, then a dreary feeling
came on her that the time was
too solemn for lies.
“I longed for it every day
that I lived,” she said in a slow
reluctant voice, turning away.
“Ah, and now it is too late< I
did cling to that last delusion, I
did hope that in the careless
vigor of childhood, in the fresh
joy of a young animal, you
might have forgotten to want
the outward signs of mother
love. Gwen, Gwen dear, let
your child grow into your heart
with every breath, and God
keep you from suffering such as
mine!”
She stood up softly and was
about to go, but Gwen stopped
her.
"Mother,” she cried, “you
couldn’t be expected to under
stand children; you were meant
for intellectual uses altogether!
It seems to me hard and unjust
that you should now be hamper
ed with these feelings. Why
can you not go back to your old
peaceful life? You were happy
in it, now your work is interfer
ed with, and you are not happy.
' wish I could do anything for
you, I wish I could satisfy you!”
Ah, dear, you don’t know
how very little love would still
my pain, but I don’t think that
even if you would, you could
give it to me—I don’t think you
understand, dear, what love is.”
“Mother,” said the girl, in a
low curiously soft tone, “I do
not.”
Directly she had made the
confession a horrible feeling of
shame came on her.
“She knows everything of me
there is to know now!” she
thought, with a dull ache, “I
wonder what use she will make
of it.”
After a long wait she got
some little idea. Her mother
came and stood beside her sil
ently for a minute or two, then
she stooped down and kissed the
girl’s hand tremulously, took up
ler basket with its burden, and
went out of the room and up
stairs.
Gwen Ipoked at the little dent
made by the basket on the bed,
and a new rush of loneliness
flooded her.
. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
There was always a sort of
studious hush over Waring
Park, encompassing the whole
place as in a garment, but one
day a change crept suddenly in
to the nature of the hush, it lost
all at once in culture and grew
full of trembling awe; for Mrs.
Waring lav upstairs on her
jreat oak bed, her blue eyes
ooking out of her thin face full
of a piteous longing.
She had only a slight attack
of pleurisy, nothing to account
for her quick run down, but her
mart was very weak and irre
pilar, the old doctor said, and
le asked for an opinion from
town.
The shock of the thing had a
queer effect on Mr. Waring,
even from a physical point of
view.
As he sat hour by hour and
watched her in a dumb vague
horror, one hand always in his,
his breath came in short gasps
with strong pain, his eyes grew
congested, his lips turned a dull
blue, and dried and cracked, the
very blood slowed in his veins.
The old doctor sounded him
anxiously as soon as he noticed
his condition, and found his
lungs as sound as a bell. It was
only that the two were abso
lutely one flesh; she could suffer
nothing and leave him untouch
ed. She was so sorry for him
and whenever she could gather
up her strength for the effort,
she put a great strain on her
self to breathe naturally, but
hour by hour her power over
herself grew less, and her
breathing more constantly la
borious.
And Gwen? Fear had found
her at last, and it tore and tor
tured her. She knew very little
of sickness, and in this sickness
of her mother’s there was a pale
ghastly shade of some other
thing that touched the infinities.
She went in and out. of her
mother’s room in a vague search
alter duty, but she never touch
ed even her bed; she was afraid
of the awful shadowy thing, and
more afraid still of her mother’s
eyes following her hungrily.
No softening grew in her eyes,
no love—only fear.
And so the days wore on and
the hush fell closer round the
house, and crept into the hearts
of those that dwelt there.
Yet there seemed small cause
for it all; the doctors saw no
tangible reason for alarm, and
yet they were uneasy and came
frequently.
It was the eighth day of the
illness, just as twilight was
falling.
Mrs. Waring had had her bed
moved near the window that
commanded the Park, and she
was looking wistfully out on the
south terrace watching Gwen
walking up and down.
Gwen, in obedience to her
promise to take care of herself,
always chose this particular
walk, bathing herself in the
sunlight and drinking in great
draughts of thq sweet clear air
that came across a healthy hill
in the distance, and trying to
gather up shreds of happy
thought to feed her loneliness
with, and to soothe the vague
aching that seemed to have
made its home in her.
“Mary,” said Mrs. Waring
suddenly,—her husband had
been literally dragged out for a
drive by the old doctor—“will
you call Gwen, but first give
me that tonic. I feel as n I
would slip away in spite of my
self, and I know,” she murmur
ed softly to herself, “there is
something I ought to say.—Are
her eyes still sealed as she
walks there communing with
her own sad heart?” she thought
as she looked out at Gwen.
“Will love never touch her—
never? Will the child’s life open
the gate—or—must it be the
death of that little child?”
She shivered down into the
bedclothes, and shut her eyes.
“Ma’am, dear heart, drink
this,” said Mary, softly raising
lier, and with a. great leap of
her heart she saw death on the
white face, “drink it, my dear
ie,” she repeated returning un
consciously to the old term of
thirty-nine years ago, and kiss
ing the little furrows between
the brows. “You are very
young, dearie,” she said, softly
stroking her hair, “not fit io he
a grandmother!”
A soft pink flush crept into
her cheeks “Will you please
call Gwen?” she murmured.
When Gwen came in, < her
mother’s eyes were closed and
her face like marble.
She shivered and half turned;
a horrible inclination to fly took
hold of her, but she drove back
her cowardice and came swiftly
up to the bed, one of her full
sleeves touched it, and she drew
it away.
Her mother’s eyes opened just
in time to see her little action,
she shivered, and Gwen’s heart
began to ache in a new spet.
It all seems so hopeless,”
she thought, “it is so terrible to
hurt her, so pitiless, and under
bred.”
She stooped over her, a tress
of hair escaped from her coil
and fell on Mrs. Wanng’s cheek.
Neither of them touched it for a
minute.
The mother felt a sudden long
ing to ruffle it softly as she had
once done to a village baby’s,
and to feel the soft silkiness slip
through her fingers, but she re
strained herself and only breath
ed a little quicker.
“You want me, mother?” said
Gwen gently, lifting up her
head and fastening up her hair.
“Yes, I want you, dear.”
She closed her eyes and rested.
Gwen moved uneasily, the stillr
ness oppressed her, and some
change m the sick woman’s face
made her heart feel tight. Pres
ently Mrs. Waring drew a long
breath and threw off seme of
the clothes feebly. ^
They are so heavy,” she
said. Mary lifted her higher on
the pillows. “Yes, that’s bet
ter, thank you, and now, Mary,
go and rest. My daughter will
stay with me.”
Gwen heard the resolute mas
terful use of the word in abso
lute terror; she had a coerced,
trapped feeling, and for a min -
ute a passionate revolt shook
her. What was she to do, to
say. She felt as if she were
caught in a mesh of bleeding
quivering nerves, she found her
breath almost imperceptibly,
for fear of touching raw sur
faces ■>
“What is it mother?” she
cried out.
There was • tone of appeal in
her voice, born of her terror
Thjf strengthened her mother;
sherelt older than her child and
with a power to protect hei. The
ghost of a smile moved her
mouth and flickered in her
eyes.
“It is death, dear,” she said.
with gentle gravity.
Gwen stared at her and in
uncomprehending rigid way she
repeated—“Death, death!”
“Yes,” whispered the woman,
“it is hard to realize—I have
been so strong, but life has been
losing its hold on me for some
time, I think. Gwen, let me
take your hand, dear, touch me
as if you were used to it, as if
you had tumbled oyer me and I
had played with you ever since
you can remember.”
Gwen’s hand shook as she
gave it with white lips and
wide eyes. What waa that
growing shadow on the small
face, what waa this bringing
such confidence, such a eui
compelling air of possession in
to the timid eyes?
Mrs. Waring gave a soft far
away little langh, that made
Gwen’s blood turn in the ghastly
listening silence.
“I saw the other day a young
mother, a little creature with
blue eyes and yellow hair and so
young—so young—put her little
baby's fingers into her mouth,
and bite them softly in play,
and the baby laughed and kick
ed. Jubelte! Why does Eng
lish sometimes fall so short? Ah,
Gwen, I wish you could have
it, nothing is like it, nothing—”
Gwen stirred in anguish, her
brain was surging wildly, her
whole heart and soul were pros
trate in one wild prayer for help
from the horrors that were clos
ing her in. There was no idea
of God in the prayer, howev
er.
"Humphrey, Humphrey.
Humphrey!” was the only
thought that possessed her, and
tried to break aloud in sound
through her dry lips.
Then her mother’s eyes closed
again and she murmured in her
half sleep; when she aroused
herself after a few minutes her
gentle eyes were bright and
wild. She caught Gwen’s dim
pled pink fingers and put them
into her mouth and she set to
bite them softly and kiss them
with little ripples of a girl’s
laughter, and her few wrinkles
smoothed themselves and the
sweet rosy color came again in
to the thin cheeks, and she was
a careless, happy young mother
playing with her first Mild.
Mr. Waring had come softly
into the room some minutes be
fore; he paused and peered ea
gerly forward, and then there
leaped into his eyes a blinding
agony; he swayed, shivering,
and dropped on his knees by the
bed. But of this Gwen saw
nothing.
As her mother kissed, and bit,
and mumbled over her hand,
and half sang little quaint
snatches of baby song, and took
her pretty fingers one by one
and told them with low silvery
laughs “this little one went to
market and the other stayed at
home!” and broke out in a loud
er ripple as “the little one cried
queak!” her own baby “leapt in
her womb” and the scales fell
from her eyes and her heart
melted within her, and the
breast of her dying mothep was
as an open book to her; she
could read all the love there and
the remorse and the infinite sor
row.
Gwen’s heart stopped and her
breath refused to come—she
would have died then. Her soul
hovered shuddering on the
threshold of life, but her baby
stirred imperiously and pulled
it back, and then a torrent of
tears came to her help and left
her with soft moist eyes, a child
by her mother’s side.
Mother, oh, mother!” the in
finite tenderness in her voice
smote into her own heart and
made Mr. Waring rise quickly
and wait trembling with fear
and a great awe, “mother, oh,
my darling—speak—touch me—
love me, your child, Gwen—!
“I will not let thee go unless
thou bless me.” The picture
involuntarily rose before Mr.
Waring’s eyes as he murmured
the words.
“Speak to me once, mother—
I know everything, now—every
thing—do you her, darling?”
But the mother still kissed
and played with the trembling
clinging fingers, and sang; her
eyes looked up full of sunny ir
responsible happiness, and saw
things of which we have not
thought in our philosophy.
'Mother, oh my mother!”—
but still she babbled on, smil
ing.
Mr. Waring came forward
with bowed head, silent, in fear
ful reverence.
It was not for him to speak or
interfere; the ground whereon
he stood was holy ground.
“Mother, mother, mother!”
The babbling had now grown
drowsy and low, and Gwen had
to bend close to catch it, then it
ceased, and the mother lay very
still. Gwen turned in terror
and saw her father.
“Help, help!” she cried, “she
must speak—oh, God! she
must!”
Her father took her hand, and
bending softly he took her
mother’s, and held the two in
his, and one soft shivering moan
broke from him; then father and
daughter stood in the palpita
ting silence and waited breath
less, but the silence grew and
spread like a net around them,
crushing hearts, and the breath
ing of the woman grew less and
and her face whiter and
men, in had no balm and less
outlet, she could not cry nor
strive, she could not throw her
whole soul against fate and fall
back with the pain dulled from
sheer tiredness.
Every day with the little
white mother lying cold on her
bed, she still walked in the sun
on the south terrace, and cher
ished her child, but virtue had
gone out of her.
“She will kill me,” Mrs. Fel
lowes told her husband, “if she
looks like that long! she’s not
tragic, not an atom, nor dramat
ic; I think she must look like
Dante did“when he stood before
the gates of Saint Uario.”
“Yes, one hardly dares think
of the girl, walking, and eating,
and sleeping; and she looks
1 saw her.
1«
then a strong cry rent the
of awful silence and Gwen
forward as one dead on
mother’s breast.
veil
fell
her
im
CHAPTER XXXIX.
“Waaever grief like unto my
grief!” has been the cry of each
wrung heart throughout ail
ages—the truth is, there ie a
dreary family likeness among
tnem til, ana a horrible absence
of originality.
In this particular Gwen
Strange could score over the
whole sad brood , her grief vas
aloof, alone, it differed in every
point from the kindly race of
younger than ever 1 saw
What is he doing now? I must
go up soon.”
“Sitting holding her hand, ex
cept when he is told to come to
his meals. Of course, knowing
the man, one could describe his
grief to a T. It’s just himself.”
“What will time do for the
two, I wonder?”
“There is something gone
from Gwen that no time will
give back to her: I wish, oh, I
wish I knew how it was at the
end. Did that woman go down
into the grave still seeking her
lost motherhood? Oh, John,
John, God in heaven help wo*
men! 1 wonder if He knew
quite eyerything when He made
us; He is all masculine. I don’t
think Hd altogether did or He
would have stayed His hand and
have had mercy.”
“My little Ruth, my poor little
wife, life even for us is hard!”
“But it is simpler; it is the
complications which put barbs
on our arrows, the vague yearn
ings quivering in us ignorantly,
not with the knowledgable,
healthy hammer-strokes of men’s
anguish; and our bodies are
nearer our souls. Think of
Gwen with her unborn child un
der that heartful of unnameable
pain! John, it’s only three
o’clock—will you drive me into
town? The market is full on—I
must see some women who are
too stolid for nerves—oh—the
letters, and one from Humphrey!
John, he’s down with fever, and
Brydon’s only half-way
through!”
“ ‘Not a man-jack of the
blacks—being mostly christian
ized—is worth his salt. Only
for Tolly we’d cave in altogeth
er, the fellow’s a brick, and
serms like developing the begin
nings of an intellect, just in the
nick of time too; never in all
my life was 1 so knocked into a
cocked hat as by this fever.’
“Look at the writing, John,
it’s shocking.
“ ‘As tor Brydon, he had a
narrow squeak; he’s out of the
bush now, but as weak as a rat.
On the whole the sand flies are
worse than the fever. Don’t
dwell on this touch of fever to
Gwen, it’s really of no conse
quence, but it’s an awful nui
sance on account of delay.
From here we go on to a place
about a hundred miles off, to
where we have traced Broad.
Hitherto the blacks have been
friendly, but beyond the hills I
hear we are to look out for
squalls. Don’t expect many
letters after this, as the modes
of conveyance are very casual
and untrustworthy, neither can
I count upon receiving your let
ters safely. I will hurry there
and back with all possible speed.
I know you will always see
Gwen at least once a day.’
“See, John, I can hardly read
it, what is it? Oh, ‘love for you’
and something for the rector I
can hardly read.”
“We will go in on our way to
the market; the ponies are at
thedoor.”
Gwen was in ber boudoir
when Mrs. Fellowes went to
her. She was sitting with a
bundle of papers in her hand.
She thrust them into a drawer,
and ran and as it were got into
the other woman’s arms, and
lay there with a short audible
movement of pain.
“Tell me just how you think
my husband is,” she said. Mrs.
Fellowes started. “Ah, you’re
afraid too!” cried Gwen.
“Gwen, I know really very
little; those attacks are always
very sharp, hardly ever danger
ous except with bad constitu
tions, John says—he has been
reading up a medical book about
African fevers.”
“ ‘Bad constitutions and com-
E lications,’ the book says, I
ave it; and he has a complica
tion in some sort of sun-stroke.”
“Gwen!”
“Yes,” she went on in a quiet
level voice. “He missed the
last mail by some idiocy of the
blacks, and he walked ten miles
all through a swamp to catch it,
with the fever still on him;
when he got home he was half
delirious. He lay and it seems
turned his heart inside out, both
audibly and on paper, see, I
have it all here in these sheets!”
she said, with bitter irony,
catching ber breath, as she took
them out of the drawer.
“Gwen, my Gwen, what do
you mean?”
“I mean he lay there and told
out into words—blatant awful
English words—on to these
sheets, how he loves me, me! but
in words no other man ever be
fore used, or dared to use, or the
soul of every loved woman
would have been annihilated
long ago, they are not fitted to
bear such magnificent burdens!
—He told, too, in precisely the
same uncompromising way
what he wants of me, and what
he considers I am capable of in
this line. Mrs. Fellowes, I know
just exactly what it costs him
to go away! Nothing is hid.
Then yesterday—”
She stood up rather wildly—
“Do you know that yesterday
I learned in one choking gulp
the grinding truth of my poor
mother’s poor tragedy of life. I
learned too,” she said slowly,
throwing out her arms softly,
with a pathetic gesture ,of ap
peal, “all in one blinding second
my own infinite love for her;
but there was no time to tell, she
died first. I am crushed with
knowledge, I am spared nothing,
and then—ah, sickness is degra
ding! Delilah’s shears are
nothing to it! To think that
here in my hands I hold the
whole unsuppressed heart of a
man!”
“But, Gwen, I cannot grasp
it—how came you by all this
knowledge? Humphrey was too
ill to write all that big bundle of
sheets.”
“He wrote, as he spoke, in de
lirium, part of it is absolutely
maniacal, but my God! there is
truth enough in it! I see Hum
phrey’s poor sick naked soul in
every line!”
She hid her face and moaned
softly.
“But, love, I don’t understand
—how came you by those
sheets?”
“Brydon sent the letters. Poor
boy, he wrote a little humble
scrawl himself, that has a touch
of pathos in it.”
“I think Brydon was the more
delirious of the two! What bus
iness had he meddling in mat
ters too big for him?”
“Oh, he’s young and very ro
mantic, and—have you ever
heard of that picture he painted
of me?”
“That sketch for your moth
er?” she said softly.
Gwen winced.
“No, oh no, one he came down
and made of me the day I was
married. It is a beautiful, sexful
mother-woman; it was to that
woman Humphrey wrote those
things! I am the rival of my
own picture.”
Mrs. Fellowes jumped up and
knelt, weeping bitterly, at
Gwen’s knees.
“Gwen, send for Humphrey,
yon are his first duty, he will
come in spite of that miserable
missionary who never had any
business venturing his nose
where no one wanted it—he will
come to you at once!”
For a second Gwen stared
frozenly at her; then she drew
herself a little away.
“But why, whyshould I?” she
asked. “Can you not see, my
God! can you not see that I am
not ready for him?”
The cold gray of her
turned to a vivid red, and
got up hastily and went to
window.
[to be continued.]
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she
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