The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 25, 1895, Page 12

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1895. “You never heard the story of the Yokol?—didn’t ever know that was the name of the canyon? Haven't oeen long in these parts, have you? It's peaceful- looking enough, yawning therein the sun; | nothing much to mark it from the thou- sand other canyons that make the foot- hills of the Sierras. That road that winds steeply up its length goesto a sawmill, just the same as the other roads in the ner canyons. Yet, once, sir—not so many vears ago—I sat here in this same spot with my back against this same old ppened anywhere but in California, would have been the theme of many a poet's thyme. of mine? They were like that the next time I looked in the glass after that morn- ng I'm thinking of. “Turned white in a day! wow about that. It might have been Tell you about it? I'd rather not just Ah, thanks—good whisky, that, first class; s vou've been here longer than I thought. Well, just down there in the other side of the canyon where you see that flat place by the lone tree there was a cabin. A fellow we called Curry—don’t recollect his other name, if I ever knew it—lived there with his wife and baby. It was a girl baby and as pretty as a picture. But the mother of the baby, sir—Curry’s wife—there’s the rub. “Beautiful 1 don’t know. What is it the old boy says about glory, Jeannette, our gold-brown halr, my Your eyes had a swimn And they matched w pet. That's something like she was, only not exactly. 5 There are some women that you can’t describe, you know. You just love them. I hadn’t been in the house a week till I was in love with her through and through. Mind, now, I'm not saying she was in love with me. I'm only telling you about my own feelings. She was the kind of woman a man respects the more he loves her. Oh, yes, I know— In the wey that sins are reckoned, But I know, too, that if an angel beckoned, Standing close by the throne on high, And she adown by the gates infernal Should open her loving arms and smile— Well, I'd go down there—that’s me. I drove Curry’s other team. He had a contract for hauling lumber from the mill to Visalia, and I ouly lived during the times we were at the cabin when I sat and watched Curry's wi Harness and un- harness, load lumber and unload it, drive through the dust and sun and back through | the sun and dust, Sunday and Monday, | week in and week out—it was all the same tome. Ilived with butone thought, and that was to get to the cabin and sit and watch Curry’s wife at her work, and help her a little when she would let me. I don’t remember whether he paid me my wages or not—have a sort of hazy idea that he did not. T mostly made of holding the baby my pretext for staying in the house. It cut all its front teeth on my forefinger, So things drifted along till Curry put on another team, and hired Kance to drive it; ’twas then the disturbment in my heart begun. Kance had lived in Kansas one time, and that’s how he got the piece of a nickname. Kance was a handsome fellow. He was taller than I, and his silky mustache drooped over a mouth as sensitively sweet asa sweet woman’s. There was & boyish frankness in his manner, anda a winning sort of something in his face that won even me. He had not been with us a week till I knew he was in the same fix I was—in love with Curry’s wife. I knew the symp- toms. The first time it dawned on me was once when I saw him passing the clothes- line, where one of her dresses was hung out to dry—he raised the sleeve of it to his lips. He didn’t know any one saw him. I was sorry for him. I think I hated him a little, tco. Butitdidn’t agree with Kance. I think his conscience was less pacific than mine was. He lost appe- tite and grew thinner, and he’d blush like agirl if she spoke to him or came near him, but he worked harder than ever. The care he took o’ that team of his must have made them think they were in a livery stable. On the morning of the day I'm thinking about—it was Christmas, an’ so’s this, and this is the first time I've been kere since—on that morning Curry had brought a turkey and some cranberries and things and we were going.to have a day off and a regular Thanksgiving time of it. We were only hauling from the foot of the grade there and had more time at the house. 1 was picking a pumpkin for Curry’s wife and Kance was holding the baby. It could walk quite well, but never got much chance to when either Kance or myself was about the house. He was tickling its throat and making it laugh. Iremember it reached its hands to its mother — she just worshiped that child and Kance knew it, too—so she went over laughing 2nd stooped to take it, It caught both hands in her hair and pulled her head down to its face. Her soft, seavy, shiny hair was within an inch of Kance’s mustache and quick as a flash he kissed it. I knew it was an impulse and that she did not know he had done it; Isaw the hot blood surge up to his cheeks and glow darker through the sunburn on his throat. He glanced at me, I glowered back at him—my heart at that moment was hot with rage: I had never dared to do that. He untangled the baby’s hands from its mother’s hair and went out of the house. 1 {ollowed him out to the corral. He was talking to Curry, and as I came up I heard him say: “No, Curry; I've made up my mind to go and I'm going. We've only two more trips to make and Bill can make four instead.” Bill’s my name, you know. 7ANE) o) and saw a tragedy which, if it had | You see these white locks | Oh, Idon’t| ree or four years before I looked again. | RIGTTAS ThNOIOL Writfen for the Qall by ) “But, Kance, I haven’t the money to | pay you till I sell that lumber!” Then Kance said back to him: MQIGE SHITTIS ~ tant rumble of thunder. The air was warm and drony; it made me sleepy. I ceased to watch Kance and fell into a biown study. Suddenly I heard him give a yell—such & yell as I never heard out oy the mouth of a man. My first thought was that he had chopped his foot off, and the next that flashed through my brain was that Curry’s | wife would take care of him till it got well. But I looked up in the thousandth part of the time 1t takes to tell it, and saw him running toward the cabin like a matiman; he was shouting something to Curry. 1 saw Curry look up the canyon and then make a wild break for the cabin, too; the dog went capering and barking close at his heels. I looked up that way, but you see that jutting point of rock there shuts off the view from here, and I could not see anything. 1 knew something was up “Oh, never mind about that. When you get it buy a Christmas present for the baby | and your—your—and—the baby’s mother.” The blood was playing hide and seek in my face. Curry looked at him curiously. Is’pose he thought Kance’d blow it in the first day he was 1n town anvhow, but Kance was not that kind. rest o’ that wood, though, before I go,” Kance hurried to say, and he started quickly up the side o’ the canyon there. I watshed bim going, and I could not help admiring the lithe swing of his body and his perfectness of form. He was a princely looking fellow, I bad to admit it life. But the devil, or something worse, was in me that day. I followed him up there. You see where that big liveoak is over there? He was chopping right on this side of it. He’d cut down a tree a day or two before, and was chopping away at | it like his soul was at stake. He stopped when I came up and 1 spoke to him. “Rather sudden, ain’t it, your going | away?’ said I. “Don’t know as it is,”’ sald he. | been thinking about it several days. a sort of a migratory animal.” | “Kance,” I replied, *‘I know why you're going away. You're in love with Curry’s wife.”’ | | He looked straight into my eyes without | flinching and deliberately said to me: | “Bill, you're a dam’ scoundrel!” Kance | never wasted words nor beat around the | bush when he had anything to say, and when he didn’t have anything to say he didn’t say anything. I knew what he | meant perfectly well. He meant ‘That | woman’s an angel, Bill, and you're a scoundrel for @ragging her name up here | | between us.” And the worst of it was, I knew he was right, and I wanted to apolo- | gize. but instead I said, sneeringly, “You're | a bigger man than I am and you've got an | | eye in your head.” | 1 felt the meanness of the words before | they were out of my mouth. He threw the | | ax as far as he could send it out, stood up | straight and tall as a young sapling: ‘ ! “What do you want, Bili?"’ his eyes asked the question most as much as his mouth did. “I don’t want anything,” I said grufly and turned to leave him. | “Bill!” That one word was all he said, | but there was something in it so kind o’ | pleading and touching like 't 1 looked ! back at him. He held out his hand. | I'dgive my soulif I had taken it and | “I've | I'm | | the princeliest man on the earth”—but, as | | I said, the devil was in me and when I| “T’ll cut the | to myself, and L knew he wouldn’t 'a done | 2 mean, underhanded thing to saved his | though. I heard a queer noise, too, all of a | suaden, which I didn’t pay much atten- | tion to in the confusion of wondering what i was the matter; and I started to go down | and see what in the world they were in | such a hurry to get to the house for. I | knew it wasn’t the baby—I could see it | playing on the floor. I knew it wasn’t Curry’s wife, "cause I could hear her sing- ing. Every single little detail of that scene is | photographed on my brain as vividly as | though it happened yesterday, and will | stay there till my dying day. Kance’s hat | flew off as he ran, the sun shone full in his face and I tould see from here that it | was whnite as death. 1 don’t know how | he ever got down the way he did with- | out breaking his neck; you see how steep it is. He got to the cabin as quickly us | Curry got there from the corral—which wasn’t half as far away as he was. Curry’s wife came out to empty a panof water and they all three met in the yard. Kance said to Curry—I heard him just as plain as I hear my voice now: “Take | her, Curry; I'll bring the baby.” I could see the little thing playing in the square of sunshine just inside of the door. He ran to and caught it up in his arms, | and as he whirled to come out it laughed Fand snatched a twig from the limb that dangled over the door. Then—it struck them. “What struck them?’ you say. ‘Why, the cloudburst of the Yokol that I've been telling you about. In one minute thére was nothing left— corral, horses, wagons, cabin, dog, baby, Curry, Curry’s wite, Kance—all gone, and I stood here alone, with a hell of rushing water at my feet. I don’t know why I didn’t jump in and drown myself; don’t | know why I did not do anything, or why Idid. A few hours afterward it was past. The sun still shone. I wandered aimlessly down there over the soggy earth; down there where you see the canyon widens, and what do you think I ran across first? Let me have another pull at the flask—yes, i the first thing I ran across down there was a little white chubby hand sticking up through the hard-packed clay and sand; and it was holding tight the little twig with a leaf on the end of it, which it grabbed from the limb that had dangled over the door. I cried when I saw that hand—just sat down by it and cried. It was foolisn, I reckon, buta man will act foolish when he’s alone with a thing like that. Besides, I knew 't Kance was under there, too; I hadn’t. Now Kance saw that water coming; he A VINDICATION. They call me cold! A bad and bold 0ld bachelor, they sa¥. Alack-a-day ! And likewise woe! They do not knows A woman-hater I, Misogynists Who say a woman never would be missed! By all the gods of old! Me! Col Why, s If Pd my way To-morrow’s paper'd advertise my bliss In terms like this: “Marrled: By Rev. Bishop Jones, Last night at 8, George Henry Bones, To Jennie Dobbs and Maud Kazo0, And Helen Winks and Polly, too; To Mary Barnes and Annie Smith, To Florence Green and Fairy Frith, To Birdie Wilkins, Sallie Brothers, And six or seven lovely others.” Me! Cold! Misogynist both bad and bold ! Whatever else T am, that's what I'm not! Great Scott ! The truth, if you would know, the rein that checks, In short, is this: I love the whole sweet blooming sex! e —_—— TWO0 CHRISTMAS DAYS. Wrtfen for Tflegi{ CALL L.\D@W@Mbm. I. CHRISTMAS, 1891. It was Christmas morning in Lun(_lon. Daylight came-through a yellow fog into the shabby room in Finsbury Square where Evelyn Haughton looked wearily out on to the chill beginning of the Yule season. The smallest possible fire smoked rather than burned in the yawning grate piled two-thirds full with bricks to condense what blaze might incidentally rise. But so far that morning the efforts of Sarah Ann, the ill-paid only servant, had failed to make any blaze. Evelyn was young, slender, blue-eyed and the possessor of a mass of naturally curling yellow hair. She had had her romance, but it was | dead to-day. Indeed, sheheld in her hand | at this moment the letter which told her it was quite over and beyond recall. She had already been downstairs and | prepared her aunts’ toast and tea, with numb fingers at the smoky hearth in the cold, stone-floored kitchen beneath and had taken it upstairs to the cheerless bed- rooms. There were two of the aunts—widow and maiden—with an annuity of £60 between them. They still had a fifty-years’ lease of the old house in Finsbury Square, where the family had lived for a hundred years, s0 that there was no fear of their losing the roof from above them; and an old clerk—a friend of the family, as they i always explained—roomed, or rather “lodeged” with them. Then, too, Evelyn | sang in the choir of the old gray church | across the square, and that was all the income they had. A year before Evelyn had become en- given him a good hearty grip and said to | knew, come life or death, he’d never let | gaged to Hugh Marsden, a bank clerk. A him—jastlike I warited to—*Kance, you're | g0 of her baby —and sure enough he few weexs later she had lost all her small | fortune by an unwise investment on the | part of her guardian, who had full discre- “ THEN IT STRUCK THEM . . . glanced at his face and saw the wistful, half-sorrowful curve of his lips I thought how softly it had pressed itself on Curry’s wife’s head and I stalked away without a word. I saw hisface palea little in the side glance I had of it as I turned away, but I didn’t look back till I crossed the canyon and climbed up here and sat down by the old pine. You see, we were just even with each other. He was sitting on alog with his elbows on his knees and his face in his bands when I looked back. Thanks, yes; I'll take another drink; there’s nothing like whisky to wash the lump out of a fellow’s throat. You see, Kance and I had camped together all summer and fall. Directly be got up and went to chopping again. The sun was beaming down on him, and the ax made a glittering streak in it, but up in the moun- tains it was raining and there was a dis- | knew when he started to the cabin that ne | never could make it and get back; he | knew he was going to his death. He was | & man, Kance was, brave, gentle, loving | Kance. Well, he had the privilege of dying with Curry’s wife and I—I hadn’t. They got them out and buried them—and | that’s all, stranger, 'xcept when I die I | want to o where Curry’s wife and Kance | went. Don’t make any difference where it is or what it is—that's the place I want to go to—and I'll go straight to Kance and take him by both hands and I'll say to him, “Kance, I'm sorry.” He'll know what I mean. A Memory. Littie hands of aces, Chips of celluloid, Elongated taces— Pockets that are void. BoB Davis. THE CLOUDBURST IN THE YOKOL.” tion to do as he saw fit with the money for her benefit. 5 Hugh had postponed their marriage on one pretext or another, gradually steeling ing a brilliant marriage. Of course he said I had not ceased to please his American ear nothing of Sallie Compton and her £300 a year. : “Marry some one more worthy of you than I am and be happy,” the letter said. “‘As for me, I shall never marry any one. Ilove you too well to burden my con- science with a loveless marriage.”” Thereupon she had had some fine womanly dream of making a great singer of berself, winning mon-~y and laurels and flinging them at the feet of her beloved, but tris dream had been rudely broken to- day by a letter her aunts received from the mother of Sallie Compton, who had been their school friend, telling of Sallie’s en- gagement to a young bank clerk named Marsden. Oh, the shame of it! He had already made sure of her successor before he had jilted her! Oh, the weariness and shabbi- ness of life and poverty! She laid her golden head on the dusty window seat and shed a few homesick, lovesick tears, and thought she wished she were dead. But she must hurry to put on her best dress, very threadkare; her best hat, all out of season, and the cloak and shoes that ill kept out the damp ana cold, for she must sing at the church that evening. When she came in ready to startthe aunts were playirg cribbage by the fire, which had an extra scutile of coal piled on in honor of the holiday festival. They had opened one of the few remaining bottles of vort for their early dinner, and under these genial influences they were comfort- able for once, and kissed Evelyn with more than usual affection as she went away. One card dropped from a hand as she stooped. She picked 1t up,for her aunt, and idly noticed that it was the ace of diamonds. She hurried across the square and into the road. She was thinking of her aunts at home, happy and engrossed with their game; both refined, precise, conscientious, learned (as became English gentlewomen) and affectionate—but selfish. She was thinking pityingly of herself and scorn- fully of Hugh Marsden. Full of her woes and her hurt pride she did not hear the yell of warning or of horror. She only felt the blow which knocked her down, and the sickening crush of a horse’s hoof on her arm, and terrible pain. She thought that she was going to die, and knew that she wanted to live, and then for a few minutes the pain bereit her of sense. A little later she heard loud talking, and found herself beneath a lamp-post, with a man’s kind brown eyes looking down at her. The sexton came hobbling out and told who she was and where she lived, and the man unceremoniously picked her up and carried her across the square. No healthy young woman, however sylph-like, is a featherweight, and as the young man paused at the bench in the center of the square to get a more comfort- able hold on his slipping burden, ke noticed something clutched in ber unin- jured hand. As he turned it about he recognized that it was a playing card—the ace of diamonds. * “‘My fate card! Odd that she should hold it!” he muttered. In her absent- mindedness she had brought it away with her from the house. L. CHRISTMAS, 1894. Itis Christmas morning in S8an Francisco and Evelyn stands as she did three years ago looking out of the window. But what a difference! The house is on Pacific Heights. The window is wide open, looking out upon the blue bay mir- ror-like in its stillness. Curtains of point lace stir softly with the faint breeze. Rich bowls of cut glass hold exquisite La France roses whose fragrance steals faintly out to meet the scent of growing violets from the garden beneath. The whole room is a picture of chaste elegance, and Evelyn, plumper, fresher- looking and silken-gowned, feels her heart swell with gratitude to the wonderful fate which has thrown her into this beauti- ful haven of rest and happiness. There was nothing so very startling in it all, looking back. It had all seemed to come about so naturally. The young man who snatched her from under the horses’ feet, thus saving her life, and carried her home with a broken arm, was a well-to-do American who fell in love with her, caught her bruised heart in the rebound and mar- ried her within six months. After a year’s wanderings on ‘the Continent and in the United States he "had brought her to a house he owned in the beautiful Bay City, which to her seemed like some dream out of Paradise, with its lovely park, its ever- blooming roses and its soft autumn sun- shine. She never tired of the roses and always carried them with her or had her rooms full of them. The old house in Finsbury square was kept warm the year around now; plenty of portin the wine-cellar and plenty of coals in the grate; another servant, stronger tea and more butter on the toast, besides new furniture and a fresh pack of cards a month if they chose to have them — these were among the increased comforts. There was a wonderful cribbage-board of real ebony inlaid with real ivory just ar- riving there now as a Christmas present from that fairy city over the sea, where Evelyn had pitched her permanent tent. Her husband, Irving Rolfe, is not un- usual in any way—good looking and manly—but called a ‘‘crank’’ by his friends in the matter of his one superstition. He had observed that on the eve of any great event in his life which augured well for him he always found in his very path the ace of diamonds card. When a boy of 17 he had gone to the Colorado mines, where he had staked out his claim and worked indefatigably for months. Nothing came of it. One aay it became a question in his mind—*Shall I give it all up, or shall I try a little longer?” To determine his action one way or the other he took a pack of cards in his hand and said: “I will cut; a black card I go, a red card I stay.” He cut the ace of dia- monds and staid. Witnin twenty-four bours he had struck the finest lead in the section and his fortune was made. That'was the beginning of his snpersti- tion and the thing had now ceased to be a matter of speculation with him; it was a fact. When he saw the card in Evelyn’s hand he was just as sure that she was to be his wife, and the right wife for him to secure as he was when he stood at the altar with her. His wealth, which to Californians seemed moderate, to his wife seemed boundless affluence. Never to think before she bought any article of her desire; never to his heart against her beauty and charm. He had recently met his friend Compton’s sister, who had £300 a yearin her own right, which no guardian could have touched, even if she_had not outlived the age of guardians. She was not pretty, nor particularly bright, but she had influen- tial connections, and they would no doubt help him to a better position in the bank. The delightful, magnetic charm of Evelyn he would always recall with regret, but it was a luxury he could not afford. So he wrote this letter under the depres- sion of the gloomy Christmas sky. He begged her to relesae him, as the engage- ment must necessarily be long and he feared she might lose the chance of mak- walk in mud and rain, but to have a pair of sleek horses at her disposal; no rat- tling omnibus nor even the finer luxury of a hansom cab, but her own carriage, soft- cushioned, easy-rolling, and servants and an adoring hushand to anticipate her most careless wish. Her big, amiable husband found tears in her eyes as he came in from the garden with a bunch of violets he had gathered with his own hands for her. ““Is wifie homesick for England on this Christmas morning?”’ he asked caress- ingly. *Homesick?’ and she smiled through her tears. “I was thinking this, i in her little, precise English way, which cramped past, which seemed like a grim dream? For it was the voice of her old lover, Hugh Marsden, and there he sat, shabbily attired, with a plate before him, filled full of charity’s Christmas cheer. He had not married Sallie Compton, after all, but had, in his turn, been jilted forone with more money. There was a little difficulty, too, about some money which disappeared from the bank. There was no actual proof against him, but he was known to have debts, and—well, they intimated to him that his services were “no longer required.” So he had- gone to Anustralia, and drifted thence to Califor- nia, knowing nothing of Evelyn’s history during those to him barren years. He often deplored his action toward her, and imagined her still in her shabby frock, making toast on foggy mornings or shiver- ing in her seat in the choir. Evelyn was silent all the way home, and | as the carriage drew up beneath the stone- pillared porte cochere of her handsome home she said: “I have a plan by which I can dispose of some of my little fortune, if it. meet your approval. I was thinking we might give some to Hugh Marsden to start him anew in the world. Let him have one more chance. The question is whether it would be a real charity.” “Suppose vou cut the cards,” said her husband. “That's the way I settle all perplexing questions. Here is a deck— red, yes; black, no. It won’t be a charity, and no use doing anything for him.” With a hand that trembled a little—for she so much wanted it to be “ye: Evelyn lifted a few cards and exposed B ¢ cut. It was the ace of diamonds. in these years of familiar companion- ship. “I was thinking—two Christmas days! Could there be a greater contrast between this and the day I first met you? I think the ace of diamonds must be my fate card,too, for you know I held it when you found me fainting in the streets; and don’t you remember the day we were walking on Kearny street and I turned a card over with my foot and found it was your card? Weil, that was just a little while before I got the letter from my old guardian telling that my little fortune had unexpectedly come back to me.”” *“Weil, and has my darling decided what to do with it yet? You know you are to spend it all 1n charity.” “I have just been thinking of that,” she said, “and some of it shall zo to the Sal- vation Army. I believe that to be the greatest charitable organization in the world.” That afternoon they drove to the ‘“Life Boat,” the central rescue station of the ‘“‘army,” to witness the grand Christmas dinner given to the hungry of the great city. It was a novel scene to Evelyn, and one she would never forget. | Long tables were spread with a sumptu- | ous feast in a basement, which bhad for- merly been a resort of the lowest charac- ters. The red-shirted “‘soldiers’ and poke- bonneted hallelujah lassies were silently serving food out alike to the professional tramp, the seen-better-days man, the gen- teel vagabond and the disappointed immi- grant. ’ “My God! Evelyn!” Gouid she be awake? Did some ghost from the past speak to her—that cold, —= morning, warm and calm, The last mist wreath but just A moment lifted from The soft Italian slope. !'ls The maestro culls here and there a leaf and smiles, Expectancy indulging, like some happy youth, This is the day at last, at last Fidelio! He sings Fidelio! "Tis on his birthday—ay ‘We two, my boy and I, established that—the day From which we might a birthday count; It was the day I found him—sleeping—lost—a little gypsy boy, No more than five at most. * Seventeen with me! then he To-day is twenty-two. How fastly fly the years! Dear lad, my staff and stay. Yes, 1 remember well— I murmured bitterly (may God forgive), my fate Seemed hard and bitter; and then into my life, to cheer God placed the little one. And I remember, too, My joy to note his ear so faultless and the tone So pure and effortless. My song-bird—Marco !—but I named him Theodore—so truly gift of God Was he to me! To-night he sings Fidelio! [Hums aria.) And him have I versed deep in music lore, and craft— A willing listener. ““Come, let us build with care A tone to-day.” In vain his silvery laugh, so sweet, ‘Would ripple as he coaxed, ““Ah Padre mio, sing, Just sing what thou wouldst have— Or on thy flageolet 8o play.” Then would I try to frown, and straight essay Intricate turns and rapid runs in semitones— And trills on trills. He'd shake his curls, and sing the same. Then I lauzhed, too, or wept for joy. Still have I e’er Maintained the voice it should be built— Ay, tone on tone— 'Tis craft nigh lost, I know. But built, ay built until The drill has rendered it all automatic. Nay, Full second-nature. That no passion e’er could move Or alter, save to color in the sentiment. To-night he sings Fidelio, Fidelio! And here I muse on builded tones, when he, with voice Fresh as a morning thrush. That trill last night; to think He doubled it, because he saw I was so pleased— 'Tis such an angel voice— And yet I fear? Fear? Fear? I must be crazed. To-night he sings Fidelio. No, 'tis scarce a fear! (The word affrighted me.) The voice thrills with its fresh, glad spontaneity, So delicate and rare. What if a sudden shock— Shock? Papa Sento in. Go in and take some stuft That strengthens nerves. A shock, And this same night he sings. [Sings.] Ah, there he comes—he heard. My Theodore so! Jesu! what's that? Ah, me, Thou'rt reeling—fainting! Oh, why moan ye like & thing Struck voiceless with wild grief? Suspense is killing me. Look! look at me; for see I'm trembling sore, But calm. Calm, calm because to-night, you know, Fidelio, “False! False! She’s false to me.” She false? Marcone, she? I know not any she. Thou irightenest me. Now, stilll And answer calm: “Thou didst, then, love? And she is false?"’ Cease quiv'ring so. To-night, to-night, you know, Fideliol I love that air. “Fidelio? I—sing—Fidelio. ’Tis that— I cannot sing! Oh, God! oh, God! I cannot sing— “Not sing,” he said, “not sing. I think Iam too old. I seem all shaken, bent, I've lived so long, Pieta. Grief insupportable! She’s false to me! False! false! She was so beautiful I loved her even still, Though I had proved her false. I must have raved with grief, She laughed. 'Twas then, 'twas then that I forgot her—thou— And everything. And then in one mad moment wild I flung her at my feet and held her supple throat ‘Within my grasp. Thus, thus To laugh—to langh at my grief A devil must thou surely be. And then—'' “Then? Speak!” It seemed as if I heard the singing as afar, And straight I let her loose. I think 1 did not kill. I know no more until I saw thee here. To-night I cannot sing. It seems as if I know not how.” “Not sing Fidelio!” His trembling hands sought out To reach a resting place; down low he bowed his head; The wind blew gently through the vines. The doves Swirled round and round—coo, ¢oo, c00-00, €vo, coo! A butterfly flew by. Hissoul bad fled.