The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 4, 1904, Page 5

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY"' €ALL. aind then sat down inthe chair by the t where Blake had been sitting ced his hand and gave render. came on the door. Young Blake unlocked it and stood opposite it. His face w§s pale now. “He shan't dome near you,” he whispered to Sibylla aver his shoul- der. She made no sign. She sat resting her clasped hands on the table and gazing ntent toward the door. There was no sign of confusion or of guiit about her. Her face was com- posed and ca Young Blake's fists we clenched. He seemed to keep self still with an effort. door opened and Grantley ap- red on the threshold. He was very the rain dripped from his hat as took it off his head:; salt spray g on the hair over his ears. He ook himself as he shut the door be- nim. Then he looked from Si- a to Blake and back to Sibylla, at last fixing his eyes on her. You can't come in here,” said “T'll come outside with you f 3 llke, but you can’t come in here.” Grantley took no netice. werpe on Sibylla. m I too late, Sibylla?” he asked. Yes,” she answered tranquilly, “too late.” ¥ A sudden flush swept over Grant- ley’s face, but in an instant his usual pallor had returned. - “In the se in which I spoke i that true, Sibylla?” She shrugged her shoulders a little. She seemed composed and almost careless as she answered with a touch of contempt: “No; but it is true, for all that.” CHAPTER XVIL The Upper and the Nether Stone. “Then you must come back with me,” said Grantley. oung Blake sprang forward a step, aying: “By God, no!” Neither of them heeded him: their eyes were on one another. Already the fight was between the two, and the two only. “Do you really think that?” she ask- ed. “I domn’'t know how you come to be here—I suppose Christine warned somehow; but it’s by mere acci- dent you are here, and that I haven’'t gone before now. It makes no differ- ence. You're mot in time, as you call it. The thing is settled already; it was settled when 1 planned to come. when I came. What meant doe count. Do you really think I shall come back now’ “Yes, you must come back now.” Back to that life? Never! Of course you don't know what it was to me and I don’t suppose I could tell you. You wouldn’t understand.” Blake threw himself into a chair by the window. He was helplessly impa- tient of the situation. Grantley came a little nearer the table and stood there, to all seeming impassive. The appearance was not very deceptive. He was not now dominated by emotion; he was possessed by a resolve. His ove for his wife was far buried in his His eyes ? FOR PUZZLE ANSWERS ROROSIOIIO RSSO eart: his et purpose was all he knew. I don't see what you had to com- lain of,” he said coldly. “The way ~ve lived was vour choic not mine. But I'm not going to discuss that. I'm here to take you home to your hus- band’s house and to your child.” ‘I've faced all that a thousand times 1d answered it a thousand times. It 't move me now. You'd better go away, Grantley.” Again Blake rose; he did not lack physical courage. “I'll go with you. I'm at your ser- vice,” he said “But outside; you shan't stay here.” He waited a moment for an answer, but getting none, nor so much as a look, sank awkwardly into his seat again. Grantley spoke to his wife. “I know what happened. Before you did this you fogged your mind with all sorts of fantastic ideas. You're not the woman to do this kind of thing easily.” “Fantastic ideas! Yes, they'd seem 80 to vou. The fantastic idea of hav- ing something to live for, some life, something else than a prison, than re- pression, than coldness. I had lots of those fantastic ideas, Grantley.” You had your chiid.” “I tell you I've faced it.” She pressed her fingers Dard into her cheek and frowned. “The child made it worse,” she jerked out flercely. “Seeing you with the child was—" She shook her head with a shiver. Grantley raised his eyebrows. “As bad as that?” he asked mock- ingly. He paused, and went on: “But this is all beside the point. Supposing it was as bad as you say, what then? You had made your bargain; you chose to take me: you relied on %our own opinion. Say it was & mistaken opin- fon—what difference does that make?” “It does make a difference. I'm not called upon to throw away every chance of happiness because of one mistake.” “That’s just what you are upon to do—in civilized society. “You don’t actually propose stract argument?” she asked. under these circumstances?” smiiled derisively. “Oh, no! But your point of view compelled a protest. I'm not here to argue; I'm here to take you back—or, if you won’t come, to tell you the con- sequences.” “I'm prepared for the consequences,” That gave young Blake another chance. He rose and came forward. “Yes, she is—and so am 1,” he said; “and that ought to end the matter be- tween us. We’re prepared for the trou- ble and the scandal and all that; and I'm prepared for anything else you may think proper to ask. We've weighed all that, and made up our minds to it. That's the answer we have to give.” He spoke in a low voice, but very quickly and with passion; evidently he had hard work to keep control of him- ‘When he finished speaking, there a moment’s silence. He looked from Grantley to Sibylla, then went back to his chair; but he drew it nearer and listened intently, “It is =0,” said Sibylla. ““We've made up our minds to all that.” Crantley passed his hand across his brow—almost the first movement that he had made. He was about to speak when another short fit of vehemence caught hold of Sibylla. “Yes,” she cried, striking the table with her hand, “and it's better than that life of sham and fraud and failure ,, called and heartbreak! Yes, thousand times better!"” He let the gust pass by, and then spoke slowly, as though he weighed his words. “Those are the consequences to you and your—your friend here,” he said. ““Have you thought of the consequences to me?” “To you? Am I so necessary?’ laughed bitterly. . “And to the boy?" ““Not so bad as growing up in such a home as ours!” she flashed out fierce- ly again. “Oh, that’s the way you argued that?” he said with a smile. “T was rather wondering. “However there are other consequences still.” He came yet a pace nearer to her, so that he was close to the table, and rested one hand on it. “There will be other conse< quences still,” he said. “I don’t ac- cept the position you propose for me. I dof’t accept these consequences which you have been so good as to face and decide upon. I refuse them totally— both for myself and for my son I re- fuse them utterly. It's fair you should understand that. I refuse them root and branch.” Blake leaned forward, ready to spring up. The idea of violence came into his head, the idea that Grantley might be armed. Grantley noticed his move- ment, and at last addressed a word to him. “Don’t be afraid. I don’t mean that,” aid, with a short laugh. bylla spoke to him, sadly now. You can’t refus It's put: out of your power. This thing must be. It has become inevitable. There’s no use in talking of refusing the consequences. They won’'t be as bad as you think."” “It’s not inevitable; it's not out of my power. It's entirely in my power to accept your consequences or not to ac- cept them, to face them or not to face them; and I have decided. I won't be, and T won’t be known as, what you're making me; and your son shan’t have to confess yoy his mother before men.” Young Blake looked at him with a puzzled impatience, Sibylla with a slow pondering glance. She twisted a ring on her finger as she asked: “What do you mean by that?” “In this world nothing need happen to us that we don't choose to bear. and nothing to those who are in our power that we don’t choose to accept for them. “What are you talking about?"” asked Blake fretfully. “It sounds all non- sense to me.” He leaned back with a scornful toss of his head. This sort of thing had lasted long enough, in his opinion. ell me what you mean,” said Si- bylla, leaning forward across the table. Grantley announced the resolve that possessed him, born of those bitter meditations, of those intolerable plc- tures of the future which had formed themseives in his mind as he battled through the storm to Fairhaven. He uttered it not as_.a threat, but as a warning; it was, as he had said, fair that she should understand. “If you persist. I shall kill Frank and myself to-night.” Blake broke into a thousand, She he a Aoud scorntul laugh, sticking his hands in his pock- ets. Grantley turned toward him, smiling slightly. “Oh, this isn't a melodrama, you know,” Blake said, “and we're not to be bluffed like that. Don’t be so damned absurd, Imason! On my soul, I've had enough of this business with- out having to listen to stuff like that!” “Do you think it's bluff and melo- drama?’ Grantley asked Sibylla. “Do you think I've no real intention of do- ing it?” She looked up at him intently. “You love yourself more than the boy, and your pride more than life or happiness,” she said slowly. He frowned, but heard her without inter- ruption. “So I think you might do it,” she ended. “Sibylla!” ward aeain. A gesture from her arrested his speech. He rose slowly to his feet and stood listening. “l may be made a fool of. “I don’t make a fool of myself. If I pledge myself to you to do it, you know I shall do it, Sibylla?” “Yes, then agreed. “‘Oh, but it's nonsénse, it's rank mad- ness, It’s—it’s inconceivable!” Blake broke out. “I do now so pledge myself,” said Grantley. Sibylia nodded; she understood. She leaned back in her chair now, regard- ing her/husband thoughtfully. Grantley’s pale face was set in a fixed smile; he met her gaze steadily. “It's madness—you’'ll be stopped!” Blake burst out. “I can’t believe you mean it. Anyhow, you'll be stopped.” “By you? Will you send for a police- man? Or will you tome to my house and stop me? Nothing can stop me unless you kill me. Is that your choice?* He spoke to Blake, but he looked still at Sibylla. Blake came near and scru- tinized the pale face with eyes whose expression grew from wonder and in- credulity into a horrified apprehension. The silence now seemed long. “Ye: said Sibylla at last, “it’s like you. That’s what you’d do. I never thought of it; but I'm not surprised. It's you. It's just that in you which has made my life an impossible thing. You sacrificed me to it. You would sacrifice yourself and your son. Yes, it's you.” She put her hands up before her face for a moment, pressing her fingers on her eyelids. Then her eyes sought his face again. “But, Sibylla—"" cried Blake. “Yes, he’d do it, Walter,” she inter- rupted, not turning round. Elake took two restless paces to and fro and sank into his chair again. “You understand now. It lies with you,” said Grantley to his wife. “I've told you. I was bound to tell you. Now it lies with you. Again passion seized her. “No, no, that's faise! It doesn’t lle with me. It lies at your door, both the crime—the hideous crime—and, I pray God, the punishment!"” “I'm not talking about the crime or the punishment,” he said coldly. *“I take those on myself as much as you like. What depends on you is whether the thing happens. “That’s all I meant to_say.” Young Blake was staring at now as if fascinated by his firm and hide- ous resolve. Slowly it had been driven into Blake’s brain that the man meant cried Blake, leaning for- ou would do it,” she what he said, that he would do the “thing. The man looked like it, and Si- bylla believed he would. He would kill himself—yes, and the pretty child with whom Sibylla had been used to play. He could see the picture of that now—of Sibylla's beautiful motherhood. His heart turned sick within him as he began to believe Grantley’s somber pledge. “It's a lie,” said Sibylla in grim de‘- fiance. “Nothing depends on me. It's the evil of vour own heart. I've noth- ing to do with it.” “It's with you to bring it about or to prevent it.” “No!" she cried, rising to her feet in the agonized strain of her heart— “No, no! That's a lie—a lie! On your head be it! Ah, but perhaps it would be best for him! God knows, perhaps it would be best!” “So I think,” said Grantley quietly. “And you accept that?” “No, I acknowledge no responsibility —not a jot.” “Well, leave the question of respon- sibility. But it's yvour will that this shall happen sooner than that you should leave this man?” ° “Sooner than that I should come back to you, that life of ours begin again, and ¥Frank grow up to a knowl- edge of it!” “And it's my will, sooner than that he should grow up to a knowledge or how his mother ended it. That's set- tled, then?” “It's mno bargain!” she protested fiercely. *“You have settled it.” “But it is settled?” he persisted. “If vou do it, may God never par- don you!” o “Perhaps. But you kpow that it is settled 7" . She made no answer. “You can’t deny that you know. be it.” A He faced her for a moment longar: her figure swayed a little, but she stooa her ground. She was not beaten down. And she knew the thing was settled, unless by chance, at the last, pity should enter Grantley’s heart. But she did not believe pity could enter that heart; he had never shown her that there was a way. The smile rested still on Grantley’'s face as he regarded his wife. She looked very beautiful in her flerce de- flance, her loathing of him, her pas- sionate protest, her refusal to be beat- en down, her facing of the thi She had a fine spirit; it did not know de- feat or cravenness. She was mad with her ideas. Perhaps he was mad with his. And the ideas clashed—with ruin to her life and his, and the child's. But she did not bow her head any more than he would bend his haughty neck. “At least you have courage,” he said to her. “It is settled. And now I'll say good-by and go. I'll interrupt you no more.” It was his first taunt of that kind. It seemed to pass unheeded by Sibylla; but young Blake’s face turned red, and he clenched his hands; but not in anger. A wave of horror passed over him. He would not interrupt longer what his coming had interrupted—that was what Grantley Imason meant. would leave them to themselves while SO NGOG NG So . he went back alone to his home, and there found the sleeping child. But his idea of that—the picture of the one house and the other—was too fearful. How could the two bear to think of that? How could they stand there and decide on that? It was unnatural, revolting, alien from humanity. Yet they meant it. Blake doubted that no more, and the conviction of it un- manned him. He had been prepared for scandal, he had been ready to risk his life. Those things were ordinary; but this thing was not. Scandal is one thing; tragedy another. This grim, unyielding pair of enemies threw trag- edy in his appalled face. It was too much. A groan burst from his lips. “My God!” he moaned. They both turned and looked at him —Sibylla gravely, Grantley with his rigid smile. , “My God, I can’t bear it;” writhing in his chair, as though in keen bodily pain. “It’s too awful! We —we should think of it all our lives. I should never get rid of it. I should see the poor little beggar's face! I can’t stand that. I never thought of anything like that. I never meant any- thing like that. Poor littie Frank! My God, you can’t mean it, Imason?” “You kn@wv I mean it. It's nothing to you. The responsibility is ours. ‘What do you ccunt for? It was you or another—that's all. Neither my life nor my son’s is anything to you.” “But It would—it would always be there. I could never sleep at nights. I should feel like—like a murderer. For pity’s sake—"" He came toward Grantley, stretching out his hands for mercy. Grantley made no sign. Blake turned to Sibylla. She, too, was stiff and “still, but her eyes rested on him in compassion. He turned away, and threw himself into the chair again. A convulsive move- ment ran through his body, and he gave a loud sob. Sibylla walked slowly away to the hearthrug, and stood looking at the agonized young man. Grantley waited in immovable patience. The thing was not finished yet. “The horror of it!” Blake moaned al- most inarticulately. He turned to weak rage for an instant and hissed across to Grantley: “If I had a revolver, I'd shoot you where you stand.” “That would be better for me, but not better for the boy,” said Grantley. “I can't| understand you,” Blake gasped, almost sobbing again. “Why should you? My account is not to be rendered to you. If I've ruined my wife's life—and you've heard her say I have—if I take my own and my son’s, what is it tc" you?” In Grantley's slow measured words there breathed a great contempt. ‘What, he seemed to say, were any great things, any stern issues, to this unmanned hysterical creature, who dressed up his desires in fine clothes, and let them beguile him whither he kneWw noty only to start back in feeble horror at the ruin that he had invited? ‘What was it all to him, or he to it? It s he or another. The real battle was still between himself and Sibylla. With what eyes was she. looking on this young man? He turned from the collapsed figure and faced his wife again. But her eyes were now on Walter Blake, with a pleading, puzzled, pity- ing look. The next moment she walked quickly across the room and knelt down by his side, taking one of his hands in both of hers. She He was began to whisper consolation to him, praying him not to distress himself, to be calm and brave, tenderly repreoach- ing his lack of self-contrcl. She was with him as Grantley had seen her with the child. He wondered to see that, and his wonder kept his temper under command. There did not seem enough to make a man’s passjon rage or his jeaiousy run wild, even though she whispered close in Blake’s ear and soothingly caressed his hand. “Don’t be so distressed,” he heard her murmur. “It’s not your fault, dear. Don't be frightened about it.” He tried to shake her off with a childish petulance, but she persevered. Yet she could not calm him. He broke from her and sprang to his feet, leav- ing her kneeling. “I can’t face it! he cried. “It will happen,” said Grantley Ima- son. “If not to-night—if anything pre- vents me to-night—still very soon. You'll hear of it very, soon.” The young man shuddered. “The poor little chap—the poor in- nocent little chap!” he muttered hoarsely. He turned to Grantley. “For heaven’s sake, think again!” “It’s you who have to think. I have thought. I've little time for more thought. You've all your life to think about it—all your life with that wom- an, who is the mother of the child.” “Why did vou torment him?” broke out Sibylla angrily. But she rose slowly and drew away from Blake as she spoke. Grantley ~shrugged his scornfully. : “The fellow has no business in an affair like this,” he said. “He'd better get back to his flirtations.” ""“I never thought of anything like boe The repetition came from Blake like some dull forlorn refrain. He put his hand to his throat and gulped with a hard dry swallow. He looked round table where some whisky stood, and took a drink of it. Then he half stag- gered back to his chair, and sat down ail in a heap. His limit was reached. He was crushed between the upper and the nether stone—between Grantley’s flinty prige and the ruthless fanaticism of Sibylla's ideas. Between them they would make him, who had wanted to be good, who bad had such fine aspira- tions, such high-colored dreams, such facile emotions, so impulsive a love— between them they would make him a murderer—a murderer in his own eyes. ‘Whatever hands did the deed, to the end of his days conscience would ery out that his were red. Sibylla sighed. Her eves were very mournful. She spoke, as it seemed, more to herself than to eéjther of them. “I wanted to make him happy, and T've made him very unhapoy. I can do it, but he can’t do it. I mustn’t ask it of him. He would never be happy, I could never make him happy. Even if T could be happy, he couldn’t; it's too hard for him. I don’'t know what to do now.” Grantley neither snoke nor moved. “T've no right to ask it of any man. Nobody could agree to it, nobody could By God, I can't!” shoulders the room, made for a- face. Then she disengaged herselt from his grasp and turned around to her husband. “I'm ready,” she said. “Let us go" Grantley bowed slightly, went to the door, and opened it for her. She locked back once at Blake, murmuring: “For having loved me, Walter,” and kissed her hand to him. With no sign of impatience Grantley walted. Himself he took no a2:d of Blake, but followed Sibylla out of the rcem in unbroken silence. ‘When he found himself alone, young Blake sprang toward the door, Fiving a cry like some beast’s roar of rage and disappointment. But his feat car- ried him no more than half way. Half way was all he ever got. Then he reeled across to where the liquor was, and drank some more of it, listening the while to the paces of Grantléy’s horse on the stone flags outside the inn. As they died away he finished his liquor and got back into his chair. He sat a moment in dull vacancy, then his_nerves failed him utterly and he began to sob help- lessly, like a forsaken frightened child. As Grantley Imason said, he had no business in an affair like that. CHAPTER XVIL ‘Wandering Wits. Grantley’s pride was eager to raise its crest again. It caught at the re- sult of the struggle and claimed it as a victory, crying out that theére was to be no pointing of scornful fingers, no chuckles and winks, no shame open and before the world. The woman who walked by his horse was a pledge to that. He was not to stand a plain fool and dupe in the eyes of men. If that thought were not enough, look at the - figure young Walter Blake had cut! Who had played the man in the fight? Not the lover, but the husband. Who had won the day and carried off the prize? The woman who walked by his horse was the evidence of that. Who had known his will and stood by it and got it?. The woman answered that. He bore her off with him; young Blake was left alcne in the dingy inn, balked in his plan, broken in spirit, disappointed of his desire. The night was still and clear now. Eroad puddles in the low-lying road by the sea and the slipperiness of the chalky hill up to the cliffs witnessed to the heaviness of the recent down- pour as the flattened bushes in the house gardens proved the violence of the tempest. Bpt all was gone now, save the sulky Reaving of big rollers. A clear moon shone over all. They met nobody; the man who had vainly watched for the yacht had gone home. Sibylla did not speak. Once or twice she caressed Rollo, who knew her and welcomed her. For the rest she strudged steadily through the puddles and “set her feet resolutely to climb the sticky road. She never looked up at her companion. The brutality of his pride rejoiced again to see her thus. Here was a fine revenge for her scorn- SN LL LN NAOOSONIRI0I005005 SEE endure it. There’s misery both ways now."” She went to Blake, who was sitting in the apathetic stupor which had follow- ed his raving outburst. Again she knelt by him and whispered to him soothingly. At last Grantley speke. “It would be well if we were home before it’s light and the servants up,” he said. She looked across at htm from beside Blake's knee. She looked long and searchingly. His smile was gone; his manner and air were courteous, how- ever peremptory. “Yes, it would be well,” she said. She rose and came a little way toward him. “There’'s no help for it. I can't es- cape from you. I'm bound to you in bonds I can't loosen. I've tried. I've stood at nothing. I wish to heaven I could! Going back is like going back to death. But perhaps he’s right. Bet- ter my living death than the thing you meant to do.” She paused and ended: “I'll go back to the child, but I will not come back to you.” “You give all I've asked,” Grantley with cold.politeness. She looked reund at young Blake with a pitiful smile. “It's the only way, my dear. With this man what he is, it's the only way. I must leave you alone.” Blake leaned toward her with a pas- sionate cry of pain. She reasoned gent- ly with him. “But you know _the alternative— you've heard it. We can't help fit. This man is capable of doing it, and he would find out a way. I don't see that we could do anything at all to stop him. Then when you heard it, it would be so terrible to you. You'd hate yourself. Oly and, my dear, I think you'd hate ghe! And I couldn’t Jpear that. No, must be reason- able. There’s no other way.” Blake hid his face in his hands. He made no further effort. He knew that her words were true. Sibylla walked into the bedroom, leaving the two alone. Neither now moved nor spoke. The storm outside seemed to have abated, for the rain dashed no more against the windows, and the wind was not howling round the walls of the house. It was very still. Grantley Imason presently be- gan to button his coat, and then to dust the wet off his hat with his coat sleeve. - Sibylla came back in her hat and cloak. “We must get something to carry you,” said Grantley. “I wonder if we could raise a cart here!” “How did you come?” “I rode over.” % “I don’t want a cart. I shall walk beside your horse.” “Impossible! At this time of night! And such a night!” “I shall walk—I must walk. I can’t sit in a cart and—" Her gesture explainéd the rest. Strug- kling along on foot, she might keep her wits. Madness lay in sitting and thinking. “As you will,” said Grantley. She had begun to draw on her gloves; but when she looked at Blake she drew them quickly off again, and thrust them into a pocket of her cloak. She walked past Grantley to Blake, and took hold of both his hands. Bending over him, she kigsed him twice. “Thank you for having loved me, ‘Walter,” she said. *Good-by.” FBlake said nothing. He held her hands and looked up imploringly in her said ful words, for the audacity with which she had dared to bring him within an ace of irremediable shame—him and the child she had borne him! She was well punished. She came back' to him perforce. Was she weary? Was she cruelly weary? It was well. « Did she suffer? It was just. Woe to the con- quered—his was the victory! Even in her bodily trial his fierceness found a barbaric joy. But deep within him some mocking spirit laughed at all this, and would not let its jibes be silenced. It derided his victory, and made bitter fun of his prancing triumph. “T'll go back to the child, but I will not come back to you.” “Going back is like going back to death.” “Thank you for having loved me, Walter.” The mischievous spirit was apt at remembering and selecting the phrases which stung sharpest. Was this triumph? it asked. Was this vic- tory? Had he conquered the woman? No, neither her body nor her soul. He had conquered —young Blake! The spirit made cheap of that conquest, and dared Grantley to make much of it. “Rank blank failure,” said &he spirit with acrid merriment. “And a lifetime of it before you!” The world would not know perhaps, though it can generally guess. But his heart knew—- and hers. It was a very fine triumph that— a triumph fine to win against the woman who had loved him, and counted her life worth having because it was hers to give him! Through the blare of the trumpets of his pride came this piercing venomous volce. Grant- ley couid not but hear. Hearing it, he hated Stbylla, and again was glad that she trudged laboriously and painfully along the slimy oozing road. The in- stinct of cruelty spoke in him. She had chosen to trudge. It was her doing. That was excuse enough. atever the pain and labor, she had "her way. Who was to blame for it? They passed the red villas, and came where the Milldean road branched off to the left at the highest point of the downs. From here they looked over the cliffs tQat sloped toward their pre- cipitous fall to the sea. The moon was on the heaving waters; a broad band of silver cut the waves in two. Grant- ley brought his horse to a stand, and looked. At the instant Sibylla fell against the horse’s shoulder and caught at his mane with her hands, holding herself up. Rollo turned his head and nosed her cloak in a friendly fashion. A stifled sob proclaimed her exhaustion and defeat. She could walk no more. The day had been long, full of strain, compact of emotion and struggle; even despair could inspire no more exertion. In a moment she would fall there by the horse’s side. Grantley looked down on her with a frowning face, yet with a new trfumph. Again she failed; again‘he was right. “Of course you couldn’t do it! Why did you try?” he asked coldly. “The result is—here we are! What are we to do now?” She made no answer; her clutch on Rollo’8 mane grew re tenacious— that alone kept her up. “You must ride. I'll get down,” he said surlily. Then he gave a sudden laugh. “No, he can carry us both— he’s done it once before. Put your feet on the stirrup here—I'll pull you up.” She made né sign of understanding his allusion. He saw that® she was dazed with weariness. He drew her up and set her behind him, placing her arm about his waist. “Take care you don’t let go,” he warned her curtly, as he jogged the horse on again, taking now to the turf, where the going was better. Her grasp of his walst was limp. “Hold on, hold on,” he said testily, “or you'll be slipping off.” There was no hint of tenderness in his voice. But Sibylla recked nothing of that now. With a long-drawn sigh she set- tled herself in her place. It was so sweet to be carried along—just to be carried along, to sit still and be car- ried along. She tightened her grip on him, and sighed again In a luxury of content. - She let her head fall against his shoulder, and her eyes closed. She could think no more and struggle no more; she fell into the blessed forget- fulness, the embracing repose, of great fatigue. The encircling of hér arm, the con- tact of her head, the touch of her hair on his neck moved him with a sudden shock. Their appeal was no less strong because it was utterly involuntary, be- cause the will had not part in the sur- render of her wearied-out body. Mem- ory assailed him with a thousand recollections, and with one above all. His face set in a sullen ob- stinate resistance; he would not hear the volce of his” heart answering the appeal, saying that his enemy was also the woman whom he loved. He moved the horse into a quicker walk. Then he heard Sibylla speaking in a faint, drowsy whisper: “Good Rollo, zood Rello, how he carries us both—as easily as if we were omne, Grantley!” She ended with another luxurious sigh. It was followed by a little shiver and a fretful effort to fold her cloak closer about her. She was cold. She drew nearer to him, seeking the warmth of con- tact. “That’s a little better,” she murmured in a childish grumbling voice, and sought more comfortable resting for her head on his shoulder. He knew that her wits wandered, and that the present was no more present to her. She was in the past—in the time when to be near him was her habit and her' joy, the natural refuge she scught, her rest in weariness, the end of her every journey, when his arms had been her home. Certainly her wits must be wandering, or she would never rest her head on his shoul- der, nor suffer her hair to touch his neck, nor speak nor sigh like that, nor deliver herself to his charge and care in this childish holy contentment. ‘Wandering wits, and they alone, could make her do anything of this. So it was not to be regarded. How &hould any sane man regard it from the woman who had forsaken her child and sought to dishonor her home— whom he had but just torn from the arms of a lover? He was afraid. Hence came his usm- moning of the hardest thoughts, his re- sort to the cruelest names. He braced himself to disregard the appeal she made, to recall nothing of all that her intimate presence thrust upon his mind. He would not be carried back across the gulf of the last year, across the chasm which those months had rent between them. For here was no such willing submission as he asked. It was all unconscious; it left her re- FOLLOWING PAGE . O bellion unquelled and her crime unex- piated. Yet he waited fearfully to hear her voice again. Whither would the errant wits next carry her? Whither must they carry her? He seemed to be able to answer that question in one way only. They must go right back to the beginning. With a sense of list- ening to inevitable words, he hear her soft, drowsy whisper again: “Let’s ride straight intc the gold, Grantley, straight into the gold, and let the gold—" The faint, happy murmur died away in a sigh,.and her head, which had leen raised a moment, nestled on his shoul- der agaim. It had come—the supreme touch of irony whi e had foreseen and dread- ed. The e wits had overleaped the stupendous Wgulf; they crimsoned the coid rays of the moon into the glory of° summer sunset; they colored desolate ruins with the gleaming hues of splendid youth. Her soul was again in the fairy ride—the fairy ride which had led whither? Which had led to this! Nothing that waking wits, or an ingenuity pointed by malice, " might have devised, could have equaled this, She might have searched all her armory in vain for so keen a weapon. Nay, she would have refected this, the sharpest of all; no human being could have used it knowingly. It would have been too cruel. He listened in dull terror for a repetition of the words. They had not come again. What need? He heard them stii and a groan broke the seal of his lips. “My God, must she do that?” he muttered to himself. “Get on, Rollo, get on!"” For now, the triumph faded away, the unsubstantial pageant was no more. There was no blare of trum- pets to . deaden the mocking voice, The little victory stood in its con- temptible dwarfishness beside the magnitude of his great defeat. That the past had been, that the present was—that was enough. The fairy ride and the struggle in the inn—they stood side by side and bade him gaze on the spectacle. Beside this it seemed as though he had suffered nothing that day or night—nothing in the thought of ridicule and shame, nothing in the Jealousy and anger of a forsaken man. This thing alone seemed to matter— that the past had been that, and that the present was this, and that they had been so shaped in the hand of him, the fashioner of them. Then suddenly, with a quick twist of thought, he was bitterly sorry for Sibylla, because words and memories which come back like, that, unbidden and of themselves, when the wits are wandering, must have meant a great deal and had a great place once. At stuch a time the mind would not throw up trifles out of an unconscious recol- lection. The things which have been deepest in it, which have filled—yes, and formed it—those were the things that it would throw up. In themselves they might sound wild trifles, but they were knit to great deep things, toward which they stood as representalrves. They expressed nethermost truths, however idle and light they sounded. When she babbled of riding into the gcld and sank her spirit in the mem- ory of the fairy ride, she went back all unconsciously to the great moment of her life and to its most glorious prom- ise. She spoke of the crown of all her being. [Continued Next Sunday.]