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CHAPTER XIX.
HE feebly fluttering hands had dropped
to her side; the breath came slowly, al
most in gasps through the scorched lips.
Life seemed at its lowest ebb in the
breast of the helpless girl.
The woman, who stood beside her,
gazing at her with wide, dilated eyes,
seemed suddenly terror-stricken. The
life that had come between her and love,
T
the life that stood between her and wealth was fast
going out. Yet she stood there trembling with hor
ror.
“It is too late, too late to do anything now. She
is dying,’’ was her thought. Then aloud she groaned:
“Oh, God, is this my work?”
“Yes, murderess!”
The stern, intense whisper went through her as if
it had been the sudden thrust of a sword. She turn
ed quickly; she was face to face with Nemo.
She hardly recognized the man. His stooped form
was erect, his face majestic in its gray sternness;
he towered above her like an avenging Angel. For
an instant, his eyes burned her with their terrible
accusing, then he silently pointed to the door, and
without a "word she staggered towards it, leaned
an instant on the door frame, then fled to her room.
There, she crouched for an hour, shaking as if with
ague, as her soul was unveiled to her and she saw
its dark depths and realized its possibilities of evil.
Nemo turned quickly to the girl who seemed drift
ing beyond human aid. Fear seized him as he saw
her death-like appearance.
“Did the vision come too late ?” he muttered, bend
ing over her in anxious tenderness. Then straight
ening up, he sent a glance around the room, noting
the restoratives near at hand. Instantly, he set
about applying these; he filled the rubber bags with
hot water from the kettle on a spirit stove and put
these to her feet and her body. He rubbed her hands
and breast with brandy and forced some of the stim
ulant between her lips. He worked swiftly with des
perate eagerness, his face darkening with an agony
of dread as he saw no change in the white face, the
glazing eyes.
Ten minutes more of rubbing with brandy and
mustard, of applying hot water and injecting strych
nine hypodermically in the veins, then, the hermit
stopped and stood looking down at the unconscious
girl, despair beginning to chill his heart.
“I will try; it is the last hope,” he muttered. His
face grew set and tense; his mouth was closely com
pressed; his eyes fixed themselves on the half-open
eyes of the girl, as he bent over her, with a look
intense, concentrated, a look that seemed calling her,
commanding her back to life. Nearer and nearer he
bent; his gray beard swept her breast; his mouth
breathed into her ears a whisper scarce louder than
a breath. Then, slowly he straightened himself, and
looked at her. A slight change had come over her
face. The gray pallor was less marked; the breath
came more easily. His eyes still kept their compell
ing hold upon her; his face was death-like in its
paleness. Part of his life seemed to be going into
her, for now her half-dropped lids trembled; then
lifted and a gleam of life came into the glazed eyes.
In another moment, they turned upon Nemo and a
faint ray of recognition lighted them. Her lips
moved as though trying to shape his name.”
“Yes, it is old Nemo! He is caring for you, my
dove. Will you try to take this for him?”
It was a spoonful of liquid nourishment. She swal
lowed it with little difficulty; then lay looking at
him, a vague inquiry in her eyes. He answered it
tenderly.
“All is well, my sweet,” he said, “only now you
must sleep. Shut your eyes and sleep. Sleep,” he
repeated, in tones of soft command, waving his hand
gently back and forth.
Her eyelids dropped; her features relaxed and the
gray paleness softened into a more life-like hue as
Death gave reluctant sway to his twin brother Sleep.
Nemo drew a deep breath, and the stony rigid
ness of his face was broken. A smile, ineffably
TRIAL AND TRIUMPH
A Story of the Conflict of Good and Ebil —Mary E. Bryan.
The Golden Age for November 10, 1910.
sweet, stole over his rugged features. He withdrew
his eyes from the face of the sleeping girl. The
smouldering fire in their depths was quenched by
tears, as he lifted them heavenward;
“Merciful God, I thank Thee,” he said.
The night was gone. Faint amber streaks appear
ed in the east. A pale, roseate ray stole through the
blinds of the room, making the night lamp look like
a belated ghost.
A mocking-bird in the crape myrtle tree beneath
the window started from sleep, shook his wings with
a sharp flutter and uttered a joyous trill. It failed to
wake the sleeper. She lay wrapped in a deep, a life
giving slumber.
The note of the bird had roused the nurse. She
started up from the lounge, where she had slept pro
foundly during the fateful hours, and stared bewil
deredly at Nemo. He raised his hand to command
silence, then approaching her, he said sternly:
“Take your place here, and keep it until another
nurse comes to relieve you. It is through no thanks
to you or the treacherous woman who took your
place that the patient is alive.”
He stepped noiselessly from the room .and into the
fresh, dewy air, colored rosily by the first rays of
the rising sun. At the gate he encountered "King,
who had come from the hotel at this early hour to
learn the result of the crisis night. He had scarcely
slept; he looked pale and haggard. “Is she better?”
he asked huskily. Nemo frowned the scowl of dislike
and defiance that always darkened his face at sight
of King.
“She is better,” he answered briefly, and passed
on.
CHAPTER XX.
Sylvia convalesced rapidly. Once the grasp of the
disease was broken, her youth and her splendid vi
tality asserted themselves. Soon, she was able to
send messages of love to the children and thanks to
Samp and others who would have turned her room
into a bower of bloom. Postal cards, fruit, roses and
dainty confectionery came constantly from King, but
it was not until Sylvia had been sitting up for some
days that he was allowed to see her.
Faith was in the room with her when he entered,
but after awhile, she went out and left them to
gether.
Seated in a wide-armed chair by the window, where
the soft air caressed her cheek and stirred the little
rings of hair on her forehead, Sylvia was looking
delicately lovely. She wore a white kimona with a
pale blue shawl of fleecy wool around her shoulders.
She took a cluster of white buds out of the bunch
of tea roses, King had brought her and fastened it
on her breast. She glanced up at him, smiling.
“It looks out of place, I know,” she said. “Roses
do not become such a ghost as I am now.”
“On the contrary,” he said, “they accord with you
completely. “The same tender whiteness belongs
to both, the same delicate grace, the same pathetic
sweetness that moves one to sympathy and —”
He broke off abruptly. Then, bending close to
her, “Sylvia,” he went on, “I have never told you I
love you, but you know it. You must have long
known that you were the dearest thing on earth to
me.”
She was silent. A faint rose color fluttered in her
cheeks. “You have felt that I cared for you, Sylvia,
cared for you greatly?”
“It seemed so strange that you should care for
me,” she said, at last, raising her eyes to his. “I, a
little country girl and you a great man of the
world.”
“I a great man, Sylvia!” he said, laughing. “Why,
my dear little girl, I am only a newspaper scribe with
a little local reputation. And I am not a man of the
world at all. Now, Sylvia, I hope you won’t fancy
me the least bit of a great man, because then you
will surely not care for me. You know, you care
only for people you are sorry for. Well, you ought
to be very sorry for me. See, how thin and haggard
I am! I have scarcely slept since you took ill. And
I am the most solitary fellow in the world. I have
no near kin people. I have no intimate friend; I
have no home; and the idea of home is very sweet
to me. I can’t bear a boarding house, so I have
bachelor lodgings, just two rooms, where my meals
are sent me. If you could see how dusty and littered
those rooms are you would feel a little pang of pity
for me. I am sure. My old dog is my old comrade.
I sit at night and stroke his head and —dream. Now,
are you not sorry for me?”
She laughed, a silvery little peal of mirth, the first
that had escaped her since her illness.
“Yes, I am very sorry for you.”
“Then 1 shall ask you, as the minister asked his
congregation, how much are you sorry? What will
you give towards helping my pitiful state? Will you
give the little hand that lies there on those roses
like a fresh-fallen snow-flake? Will you give it to
me Sylvia?”
■ He held out his palm and looked at. her plead
ingly.
She hesitated. She raised her eyes to his timidly,
but with a searching, earnest gaze. What she read
there, seemed to satisfy her. She put out her hand
and laid it in his.
His strong fingers closed over it tightly, then re
laxed, as if fearing to hurt her. He bent his head
and pressed his lips reverently to the delicate hand.
He did not try to kiss the mouth whose sweet curves
he had so often admired. A great reverence for this
girl’s purity, her flower-like innocence, chastened his
passion and made his love a worship.
“Dearest, I thank you for this most precious gift,”
he said, his tones vibrant with emotion.
And this was the man, whom men called indiffer
ent, and women called cold and haughty!
He sat by her almost in silence, holding her hand,
watching the lovely tangle of her long lashes, as the
lids dropped and again were lifted, the faint, chang
ing color on her cheek, the stirring of the light little
curls on her forehead.
I can hardly realize my happiness” he said at last.
“I have been so lonely in heart and life, it seems
strange that henceforth I am to have a hand in mine,
a comrade, to walk beside me, a wife to make home
for me. Home!” he repeated softly, his eyes gath
ering mist.
He shook his head, laughing, as if to rouse him
self.
“I must hustle, and begin to make that dream
home a reality,” he said. “I must look around for
a nice, quiet building spot in Altamont and begin to
build us a home upon it. Shall it be a bungalow
after the pretty fashion of the one Charley is having
built on your grounds near Mystic Lake?”
“Is it finished?” she asked. It was begun not
long before I was taken sick.
“It is nearly completed. And it has already been
bought by a Dr. Yent —Charley introduced him to me
yesterday—an unusual looking man, tall and erect
with a military carriage. His close-cropped hair and
his small, pointed beard intensely black, give him
the look of a foreign officer. Indeed, he comes from
Mexico, and he has an Indian servant. He is unmar
ried, and he will keep a bachelor house in the bun
galow. By the way, he seemed much pleased with
your cousin, Miss Harland. They had been intro
duced to each other, and he walked beside her to
her school. Who knows, but —” Sylvia shook her
head. “I wish I could believe Faith would ever
marry,” she said.
“She would make a charming mistress for that
artistic little . bungalow. Charley told me you de
signed it, Sylvia, and if it pleases you, I will build
our little home in Altamont after the same model.
When you are well enough we will drive up and
pick out the lot.”
“Did you know I own a good many lots in the city—
and houses, too?” Sylvia asked. “I have several
houses in the grand residence part of the city.”
He looked at her in amazement.
“Sylvia, are you jesting?”
“No, indeed; I am quite serious. Do you know of
the Rushfield property?”
“You do not mean to say that you are the heir of
the Rushfield property?”
“Yes; Mrs. Rushfield was my grandmother on my
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