Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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^ JEAN tCorTBir.Hr. KorLr.T CHAPTER XXI. (Continued.) She drew a little awa.v from him. the flush deepening in her face, touchtim Knnntlfnl foi^ii f!>!lin<r nn>n tf? ?U? im UVMUVUU. ?..?V V . the law at lier throat; her lips trembled with her speaking. "John Winthrop," she said. "I am a proud woman. As I tell you. I could tied it in my heart to hate myself for loving you. were it not that hatred has died from my heart. You saved my life the other day. Perhaps you think that I did uot know it? But for that alone I do not love you. Why should 1? Would uot any man have saved a woman so? And why should I forgive you that old wound to my pride, to my truth, to my womanhood? Now. thinking that you should have believed me guilty of perjury at that trial and sworn against the truth for the saving of a few more dollars, perhaps. from my husband's fortune, I J fool ilie hot shauie in tny race that i can still say that I love you. According to the exact measure of your jus- ( tice I should let you die aud yield not j odc kind word. Were I a man perhaps . 1 would do it. But I am a woman, nud it may be that a woman's injus- ^ lice makes her weak." His face was working strangely; his hold on her hands tightened; his eyes held hers. "Alecia!" he said. "Alecia Graham, who told you that there was ever such j thought of you in my mind? Do you not know that such belief of you i would be impossible to any one? j Would I. loving you, accuse you of 1 such perjury? I believed you utterly, j I believed you even when my will, lighting with my heart, bade me condemn you. Always in my thoughts 1 you have been everything that is i good, though I struggled to argue it down. I knew my heart long ago. j an* struggled with it. No woman had such power over me before: and would I. I urged with my heart, allow the one woman who must hate me to possess such power? It has been a bitter battle from that day. and I am defeated, in spite of the will I had ,J-J 1" flnr Tioln tho priUlfU LliySt"i 1 VVCIWU1C ?UJ pu?M %?v heart might hold; but I never accused you of wrong. Alecia. Who suggested such thought to you?" The sweet lips closed tightly over the knowledge; she shook her head; her eyes p*ere exquisite in their light and color. "What does it matter?" she said, steadily. "Perhaps one is too ready to believe ill of even the one whom one loves. I hold no hardness in my heart toward auy one. John Winthron." He was silent for a moment, lying with closed eyes, no great change upon him save the short, steady breathing. Then opening his eyes upon her. he said slowly, and with a touch of his old sternuess in Lis weak voice: "Perhaps I know who told you that. Alecia. If I do. as you say?what matter? Love should not too readily believe ill. All that is gone. I am only very happy, knowing that you love me." Theu. by and by. he whispered faintly: "You forgive me. Alecia ? every^ thing?" inil alia nnswered softlv. her low voice like music in its tenderness: "I forgive you everything, John, dear?for us both." Again the gTay eyes closed with peace upon the face, but the kneeling woman did not move or turn her eyes away lest his should open, seeking hers. The minutes ticked away upon the clock across the room. Twenty minutes ? thirty ? forty-tive?fiftysixty minutes?one hour. And still 110 other change upon the sleeper; and still the woman did no: rise from her knees or remove her hands from his. One of the physicians, believing that death had come unrecognized, crossed *be room and stood beside her with his eyes upon the quiet face among ;he pillows. Then he stooped and laid his fingers lightly over the pulse in the thin, sinewy wrist. "I congratulate j-ou." lie said, gravely, his eyes upon Mrs. Winthrop's gentle face, although he knew that he was also speaking to this other immovable woman. "The fever has iUrutU. tit* nm icvuivii ujuuuu. But Alecia did not move, did not speak, did not. apparently, comprehend the meaning of his words or turn her eyes from the peaceful, sleeping face. With a swift movement of her hands as though in gratitude. Mrs. .Winthrop moved around the bed to Alecia's side. Laying one hand tenderly upon her shoulder, she said, sweetly and brokenly: "Come away, Mrs. Graham, dear, and rest. Thee has saved his life." CHAPTER XXII. Jff'f OBAIN FROM CHAFF. ' Moonlight over the ocean and the \ ! 3 3Iob:I. KATE LUDLUM., .'J 'i'm;'; Soks. J??T. I golden path across the waters like a road to the Celestial City! Jewels scattered along the beach where the breakers threw their spray, murmur- | leg a stroug. deej?. musical song of | lnvo nnd the nvide of llU- I lUt- MUIIU o ?v?x J man hearts! Silence ami peace and l>eaut.v. Eveu the sand hills were formed in mysterious heaps of golden light, and shadow stretching away to the beach. Alecla Graham was sitting at her window in the full tide of this glory o! moonlight, her pale-blue wrapper making more exquisite the pale beauty oT tier face and the golden hair loosened about her shoulders. Hjr hands were lying idly in her lap, very slim frail and white upon the blue of her gown. She was smiling with her face turned toward the soft rshadows beyond the window's circle of radiance. Beatrice was sitting tli^re. hidden by the fall of lace drap?i*.v and the intense light within the -window. Her face was unseen, but her voice was sometimes very stern and sometimes lo*v with tenderness and love. "And in spite of everything. Alecia ?rememberiug all the old. cruel wounds from his hands?you love him. and have told him that you do?" "I spite of everything. Bee." "And you are not ashamed to own it ? ven to me. Alecia. in your pride and w!?l? lvoteorintf ton. WUIUiillUUUUi null mm >niiuj?M|K deruess in your voice! Why <lo I not hate you as I believed that I should If ever you gave your love to that man ?your enemy and your husband's enemy." "I have somewhat also to forgive," said Alecia very softly. "Have you forgotten that I told you it would be difficult for me to forjfive you had you deceived me. Bee?" A tremor iu Beatrice's voice. She leaued forward into the light of the window, reaching'out her hands. "But I did It because I loved you. Alecia. I could not believe that you truly could ever love that man. and I wished to remove him from your life. Would I wound you knowingly, you "beautiful dear? Have you not had l enough sorrow in your life? Have I not put away the hate fr6ra my heart for this man because of you?" "But your hatred was unjust always, Beatrice," said the sweeter voice, steadily. "I told you from the first that he was an- honorable man." "But I believed that you defended him' only because of your kindly , heart." said her sister, in a low voice. I "Alecia. would I hurt you willingly? I am very proud, too. but I would not ! ever have set up my prule against _ I your happiness had I ttnir It ; was your happiness." Silence between them, eloquent with i the call of those distant breakers and ! the cry of a night-bird upon the beach. ! The house was perfectly still save for ' thoSe ijtfifids from without. Then ' Beatrice rose from ijcr chair ana went ! over to her sister. Kneeling; at her j side she took the two slim hands wlth in her warm hands, holding: them ; closely asd with tender recklessness j of sorrow, her lifted face beautiful in the moonlight streaming through the window. "Alecia! Alecia!" she said, bitterly, i "My sister, look right down into my soul and see that there remains not : one atom of hatred there, not one ; thought that is not kind, not one wish : hut for your good. .If Johu Wlnthrop j holds the power to grant you the hapj piness that you deserve, it he loves ! you as you should be loved. If he has ! descended from his heights of arrogance and pride to acknowledge that I there are purity and goodness and ; truth in a woman's heart, then John ! Wlnthrop shall have the right to win i yrur love and make your happiness! ! While I cried out against your softness of heart, was I not cruelly hard? I claiming the tenderness of womanhood! Would I not have crushed my 1 own heart in my pride and uuforgivt*uessAlecia! Alecin! Here, with I my heart bare to you. see that I 1 meant only love!" ) Alecia stooped very tenderly and P essed her smiling lips to the mouth \ of the girl. "Dear little Bee!" she said. "Always my brave girl! Could I doubt your love, when only you have thought of me?" Tender silence again between them. The lifted face and the down-bent taee touched with the night's light and softness. Then, the sound of light feet in the passage, a moment's pause, and the door was flung wide open without warning, and into the room full in the glory of moonlight, with loosened hair and trailing dress and white face, came Jessica Gray with her eyes of Are. Beatrice shrank down becide Alecia;but Alecia did not move. "So!" murmured the l!quid voice. "So! But Mrs. Graham has courage to brave her heart and her pride and yield her love to the man who was ' once her husband's murderer!" Au answering flame i.i AleciaVeycs and in her quiet face, hut her voice was sweet and low and perfectly steady. <. "Miss Gray herself is daring." she said. "May I ask what she may mean by her words?" Jessica laughed scornfully, flinging out her hands with a gesture of passion. "Has the new love eradicated old memories so soon?" she asked. "Is is not Mrs. Graham's new lover who murdered the old?" "Your words are exaggerated. Miss Gray," said Aleeia. a touch of coldness creeping into her voice. "No one murdered my husband as you so recklessly state. And what has Miss Gray to do with my life of the past or future?" "Then she lied!" cried Jessica fiercely, with a movement of her hands toward the girl still kneeling beside her sister. "I heard her say it myself! It was in France. She said it openly. | Upon the station platform she said that John Winthrop murdered your | husband, and that she hated him for ! it?and that you hated him for it!" "And was Miss Gray acting as eavesdropper?" queried Alecla. steadily, her eyes never moving from the flaming face. "IIow else should she have heard what was not Intended for her, and which she could not comprehend!" "And I did not lie!" cried Beatrice, starting to her feet in swift defiance. "The leopard shows her claws too soon. I think!" "But the leopard can kill sometimes!" cried the swift, liquid voice. "I heard your words. Beatrice Field, and rreiuembered your cruelty to his 3 ?i... ^,,1,1 T moiiier, ami hiij siiuuiu i nut M?ri.i-.i-. But I would not tell of your words. I would bide Ills crime, I said, if ii were crime! And. after all. you sit there facing me. and love hint!" "And shall I account to Miss Gray , for it?" queried Alecia. in her cold, steady voice. "I hate you!" cried the girl. passionately. with a .sresture of her excited hands. "I hate you both?I hate you all. even her. with her quiet speech ?his mother?for she kept me still when I am going away to-morrow. I could nor breathe the same atmosphere with you?It would stifle me. strangle nie. kill me! I am going away, but I came to-night to tell you my hate! What Las he to do longer with my life?" She flung out her hands as though to ] fling from her this scene of memory ' * ? >*! tirv?colr?CCl\* finH" auu jmiu, uiiu iuiucu uuu-<.?w.,. loft the room, the door swinging softly behind her. CHAPTER XXIir. DEFEATED INDEED. The lilac of sunset over the world, struck here and there with gold, where the last rays lifted above the horizon and lay like a .benediction upon the shimmering track on the water, across which a sail parsing caught snow-light Upon it the glory. The old group of friends were gathered in the pavilion around Alecia Crahaui and John Winthrop. Some were sitting upon the benches ranged across the floor, others, less thoughtful of appearances, chose the steep steps leading to the sands as giving better opportunity of watching the sunset effects on the ocean and cloud. All were chatting in an undertone as I though the quiet sceue touched them ; into reverence. ''How strangely the mist creeps in from the sea as soon as the sun sets!" said Alecia. She spoke only to her companion, and he hent beside her. his pride in her glowing in his steady eyes. He was very pale and still weak from that long illness, but dally new strength was returning, as though his happiness gave new life when all else failed. He smiled now into her lifted eyes. Words were scarcely necessary between them, and long silence sometimes fell ere one replied to the other. "It is strange." he said slowly, "but it seems to me. Alecia. that my sun has only just risen and no mists threaten Its peace." "That is pretty," said Alecia. laughing. "but not practical, John. I wonder at you sometimes. You are so different than I thought. You kuow I used to think " "Well?" as she paused, his eyes very steadily upon her face. She was looking across the water to the distant sails, now softly darkening in the twilight, and a wistfulness was on her face that brought an added tenderness to his. With suddeD fierceness he bent nearer i.er. "Whatever you thought," he said. vehemently, his voice startling her, "what does It matter now. my dearvst? Alecla Graham, only heaven knows how I love you!" By and by. she said softly, as though .following out the line of thought wakened by watching the distant ships: "The longer one lives the more sure comes the knowledge that we can change not one inch the fulfilling of life's plans. We say. In our pride, that such and such shall come, and find, as the days go by, that only the mills of God grind steadily, John, and exceedingly fine." "But always," said John Winthrop, reverently, drawing lier eyes from tho darkening sails by the steady power of his gazet "always, with infinite jus^ -s I ? - . | tiee, dearest. and beyond the rraeh of : human comprehension or hate or i pride, so bringing the best of life's I good in what seemed perhaps to us but humiliating defeat?as I was defeated." "And. perhaps." added Aleeia, gravely, after a long silence, her chin resting in her hand, her elbow upon the back of the bench, her eyes still searching for the sails in the tender darkness, "as I was defeated, too, John! May not a woman's injustice be sometimes as cruel as a man's?" Knt John Winthron would not an ! ?wer. [The End.] The Colonel's Answer. . Lieutenaut-Colonel Hugh L. Scott, of the United States Volunteers, forI rnerly captain of the Seventh Cavalry, is known iu the army as an officer who probably knows more about Indian sign language than any other living man. , At one time Colonel Scott made a standing offer to any redskin who could show a sign used by any tribe which he did not know. The colonel is also peculiarly absent-minded, a fact which was emphasized at his marriage a few years ago. As he stood at the altar with his bride, the officiating clergyman asked him the usual question as to taking the woman beside him to be his wife. The colonel placed two fingers upon his left eyebrow. After an embarrassing pause the clergyman repeated the question, and again the two fingers went solemnly to the left eyebrow. It was not until the best man poked the bridegroom in the ribs that he came back to earth and articulated "Yes."? New York Sun. J. H. WEDDIIN HARP\ 29 L Trade Street We are leaders in our business, prepared to supply the requirern ' : We sell Syracuse Steel Beam ""# =='=-== THE / amerm T' HE AMERICAN MONTH is commended by Statesmen, others prominent in the worl nation in sifting the actual news froi tation of current events in their just freedom from daily-paper sensatior want to know what the world is doir to judge from the letters teceived comprehensive, and labor saving I timely contributions on important writers. Its reviews of other mag , work. It is profusely illustrated. 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