Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

J ; --j. * ' ' . - • • - - - “Ah. you shall never say you justice and trull) from a French sol dier and failed to get them! 1 hate anted keep his identity unsuspected by every "Child, are you mad?” you. Never mind why. I do, though you never harmed me. I came here for two reasons—one because I wanted to look at you close: you were not like anything I ever saw; the other, be cause 1 wanted to wound you, to hurt you, to outrage you, if I could find a way now. And you will not let me do it. 1 do not know what is in you.” The inborn truth within her, the na tive generosity and candor that soon or late overruled every other element in the little one, conquered her now. She dashed down her cross on the ground and trod passionately on the decoration she adored. ■ I disgrace it the first day I wear it! iYou are right, though I hate you, and you are as beautiful as a sorceress! There is no wonder he loves you!” “He! Who?” “The man who carves the toys you give your dog to break! All, how he loves you! When lie was down with bis wounds after Zaraila, he said so. But he never knew what he said, and he never knew that 1 heard him. You are like the women of his old world. Though through you he got treated like a dog, he loves you! And you think it insult, I will warrant—insult for a soldier who has nothing but his courage and his endurance and his her oism under suffering to ennoble him to dare to love Mine, la Princess Coro na! I think otherwise. I think that Mme. la Princess Corona never had a love of so much honor, though she has had princes and nobles and all the men of her rank no doubt at her feet, through that beauty that is like a spell!” “You speak wildly and at random, like the child you are,” the grande dame answered her with chill, contemptuous rebuke. “I do not imagine that the person you allude to made you his confidant in such a matter.” “He?” retorted Cigarette. “Fie be longs to your class, miladi. He is as silent as the grave. You might kill him, and he would never show it hurt. I only know what he muttered in his fever.” “When you attended him?” “Not I!” cried Cigarette, who saw for the first time that she was betraying herself. “He lay in the scullion’s tent where I was, that was all, and lie was* delirious with the shot wounds. Men are often”— “Wait. Hear me a little while be fore you rush on in this headlong and foolish speech,” interrupted her au ditor. “You err in the construction you have placed on the words, what ever they were, which you heard. The gentleman—he is a gentleman—whom you speak of bears me no love. We are almost strangers. But by a strange chain of circumstances lie is connected with my family. He once had a great friendship with my brother. For rea sons that 1 do not know, but which are imperative with him, he desires to I After He Comes i Sp c P he has a hard enough time. Every- >| gj thing that the .expectant mother fj can do to help her child she should ft do. One of the greatest blessings ^ tf .she can give him is health, but to ;*■ •j do this, she must have health her- self. She should use every means ^ 4 to improve her physical condition. She should, by ail means, supply £ 5? herself with ^ Motlier 9 ® | FriendL | It will take her ^ through the crisis easily and T* quickly. It is a liniment which ts> gives strength and vigor to the >p muscles. Com- (> tnon sense will £ ishoiv y o u & that the » stronger the muscles are, X which bear the » strain, the less g pain there will be. ^ A woman living in Fort Wayne, Ind., says: “ Mother's Friend did ^ wonders for me. Praise God for fo your liniment.' ’ fr Read this from Hunel, Cal. %. “ Mother’s Friend is a blessing to & all women who undergo nature’s X ordeal of childbirth.” Get Mother’s Friend at the & drug store. $1 per bottle. k THE BRADEIELD REGULATOR CO., | Atlanta, Ga. & Write for our free illustrated book, “ Before ft. Baby is Bom.” fj Job Printing of all claaw*. _ one. An accident alone revealed it to me. and I have promised him not to divulge it. You understand?” Cigarette gave an affirmative ges ture. Her eyes wore fastened sudden ly. yet with a deep, bright glow in them, upon her companion. She was beginning to see her way through his se .. r(> t_a secret she was too intrinsical ly loyal even now to dream of betray ing. “Then you will cease to feel hatred toward me for so senseless a reason as that I belong to the aristocracy that offends you. and you will remain silent on what 1 tell you concerning the one whom you know as Louis' Victor?” Cigarette nodded assent. Tlie-s’j'Jen fire glow still burned in her eyes, but she succumbed to the resistless intln- eiic-e which the serenity, the patience and the dignity of this woman had over her. “lie is of your order, then?” she ask ed abruptly. “Ho was, yes.” ,r Oh. lie was!” cried Cigarette, with her cold irony. “Then he must be al ways. mustn’t lie? You think too much of your blue blood, you patricians, to fancy it can lose its royalty, whether it run under a king’s purple or a Corpo ral’s canvas shirt. Blood tells, they say. Do you want me to tell you why he lives among us, buried like this.' “Not if you violate any confidence to do so.” “No, he makes no confidence, I prom ise you. Not ten words will meusei- gneur say if he can help it about any thing. He is as silent as a lama. But we learn things without being told iu camp, and I know well enough he is here to save some one else, in some one else’s place. It is a sacrifice, look you. that nails him down to this martyrdom. Look you, miladi,” said Cigarette half sullenly, half passionately, for the words were wrenched out of her gen erosity and choked her in their utter ance, “that man suffers. His life here is a hell upon earth. 1 don't mean for the danger, but for the indignity, the subordination, the license, the brutal ity, the tyranny. lie is as if he were chained to the galleys. He never says anything, oh, no! He is of your kind, you know! But he suffers. Now, if you be his friend, can you do nothing for him? Can you ransom him in no way? Can you go away out of Africa and leave him in this living death to get killed and thrust into the sand, like his comrade the other day?” “I could not abandon one who was once the friend of my family to such a fate as you picture without very great pain. But 1 do not see how to alter this fate, as you think I could do with so much ease. I am not iu its secret. I do uot know the reason of its seem ing suicide. This gentleman has chosen his own path. It is not for me to change his choice or spy into his mo tives. Meantime there is one pressing danger of which you must be my me dium to warn him. He and my bioth er must uot meet. Tell him that the latter, knowing him only as Louis Vic- toflind interested in the incidents of his military career, will seek him out early tomorrow morning before we quit the camp. 1 must leave it to him to avoid the meeting as best he may ne able.” Cigarette smilc-d grimly. “You do not know much of the camp. Victor is only a bas-officier. If his of ficers call him up. he must come or be thrashed like a slave for contumacy. He lias no will of his own.” Venetia gave an irrepressible gesture of pain. “True; 1 forgot. Well, go and send him to me. My brother must be taken into his confidence whatever that con fidence reveals. I will tell him so. Go and send him to me. It is the last chance. Go and say this to him. You are his loyal little friend and com rade.” “If I be, I do not see why I am to turn your lackey, madame!” said Ciga rette bitterly. “If you want him, you can send for him by other messengers!” Venetia Corona looked at her stead fastly, with a certain contempt in the look. “Then your pleading for him was all insincere? Let the matter drop, and he good enough to leave my presence, which, you will remember, you entered unsummoned and undesired.” The undeviating gentleness of the tone made the rebuke cut deeper, as her first rebuke had cut, than any sterner censure or more peremptory dismissal could have done. Cigarette stood irresolute, ashamed, filled with rage, torn by contrition, impatient, wounded, swayed by jealous rage and by the purer impulses she strove to stifle. The cross she had tossed down caught her sight as it glittered on the carpet strewn over the hard earth. She stooped and raised it. The action luic , one would not disgrace that. “I Nvili go.” she muttered iu life? throat. “And you—you— O God. no wonder men love you when even I can not hate you!” Venetia Corona gazed after the swift ly flying figure as it passed over the starlit ground lost in amazement, in “pity and in regret. “A little tigress.” she thought, “and yet with infinite nobility, with wonder ful germs of good in her. IIow she loves him! And she is so brave she will not shew it.” With the recollection came the re membrance of Cigarette’s words as to his own passion for herself, and she grew paler as it did so. “God forbid he should have that pain, too!” she murmured. "What could it be save misery for us both?” Yet she did not thrust the fancy from her with contemptuous noncha lance as she had done every other of the many passions she had excited and disdained. It lrad a great sadness and a great terror for her. She dreaded it unspeakably for him; aiso, perhaps unconsciously, she dreaded it slightly for herself. She wished now that she had not sent for him. CHAPTER XXL jMiD the mirth, the noise, the festivity, which reigned throughout the camp as the men surrendered themselves to the enjoyment of the largesses of food and of wine allotted to them by their marshal’s, command iu commemo ration of Zaraila one alone remained apart, silent and powerless to rouse himself even to the forced semblance, the forced endurance, of their mischief and their pleasure. He sat motionless, sunk in thought, with his head drooped upon liis breast. The voice of Ciga rette broke on liis musing: “Good sir, you are wauted yonder.” He rose on the old instinct of obedi ence. “For what?” “By your silver pheasant yonder. Go!” “Who? I do not”— “Can you not understand? Miladi wants to see you. I told her I would send you to her. You know the great lent where she is throned in honor. Morblcu, as if the oldest and ugliest hag that, washes out my soldiers’ linen were uot of more use and more de served such lodgmeu; than Mme. la Princesse, who has never done aught in her life, not even brushed out her own hair of gold! She waits for you. Where are your palace manners? Go to her, I tell you. She Is of your own people. We are not!" The vehement, imperious phrases coursed in disorder one. after another, rapid and harsh and vibrating with a hundred repressed emotions. He paus ed one moment, doubting whether she did uot play some trick upon him; then, without a word, left her and went rapidly through the evening shadows. “And 1 have sent him to her when I should have fired my pistol into her breast!” she thought as she sat by the dying embers. "And she remembered once more the story of the Marseilles fisher woman. She understood that terrible vengeance under the hot south ern sun beside the ruthless southern seas. Meanwhile he, who so little knew or heeded how he occupied her heart, passed unnoticed through the move ments of the military crowds, crossed the breadth that parted the encamp ment from the marquees of the gener als and their guests, gave the counter sign and approached, nnarrested and so far unseen save by the sentinels, the tents of the Corona suit. He boweu low before the princess, preserving that distant ceremonial dur from the rank ha ostensibly held t< hers. “Madame, this is very merciful. I know not how to thank you.” She motioned to him to take a seat near to her, while the Levantine, who knew nothing of the English tongue, retired to the farther end of the tent. “I only kept my word.” she answer ed, “for we leave the camp tomorrow: Africa next week.” “So soon?” She saw the blood forsake the bronz ed fairness of liis face and leave a dusky pallor there. It wounded her as if she suffered herself. For the first time she believed what the little one had said—that this man loved her. “I sent for you.” she continued liur riedly. “There are many things 1 dc sire to say to you. I must entreat you to allow me to tell Philip what I know You cannot conceive how intensely op pressive it becomes to me to have auj secret from him. I never concealed sc much as a thought from my brother in all my life, and to evade even a mute question from liis brave, frank eyes makes me feel a traitress to him.” “Anything else,” he muttered. “Ask me anything else. For God's sake, do not let him dream that I live!” “But why? Y'ou still speak to me in enigmas. Tomorrow, moreover, before we leave, he intends to seek you out as what he thinks you—a soldier of France. He is interested by all be hears of your career, lie was first in terested by what I told him of you when he saw the ivory carvings at my villa, I asked the little vivandiere to tell you this, but, on second thoughts, it seemed best to see you myself once more, as I had promised. That French child forced her entrance here in a strange fashion. She wished to see me, I suppose, and to try my courage too. She is a little brigand, but has a true and generous nature, and she loves you very loyally.” “Cigarette?” he asked wearily. “Oh. no! I trust not! I have done nothing to win her love, and she is a fierce lit tle creature who disdains all such weakness. She forced her way in here? That was unpardonable, but she seems to bear a singular dislike to you.” “Singular, indeed! I never saw her until today.” He answered nothing. The convic tion stole on him that Cigarette hated her because he loved her. “And yet she brought you iny mes sage?” pursued liis companion. “That seems her nature—violent passions, yet thorough loyalty. But time is pre cious. I must urge on you what I bade you come to hear. It is to im plore you to put your trust, your cou- Oazed after the swiftly flying figure. sufficed to turn the tide with her im pressionable, ardent, capricious na- itch on unman cared In 30 minutes by Woolford’s Sanitary Lotton. This never fails Sold by H. B.McMaster, Druggist. Advertising rates on application. I rump. Let hiriTlearfl that 1 you live: lot him decide whether or not this sacrifice of yourself be needed. His honor is as punctilious as that of 1 any man on earth. His friendship i you can never doubt. Why conceal : anything from him?” His eyes turned on licr with that dumb agony which once before bad chilled her to the soul. “Do you think, if I could speak in honor, I should not tell you all?” ! A flush passed over her face, the first | that the gaze of any man had ever brought there. She understood him. “But,” she said gently and hurried ly. -“may it uot bo that you overrate the obligations of honor? I. know that many a noble hearted man lias inex orably condemned himself to a severi- j ty of rule that a dispassionate judge of liis life might deem very exaggerat- | ed, very unnecessary.” Her voice failed slightly over the | last words. She could not think uith I calmness of the destiny that he ae- | cepted. Involuntarily some prescience ! of pain that would forever pursue licr own life unless his were rescued lent an intense earnestness, almost en treaty, to her argument. He started from her side as lie heard and paced to and fro the narrow limits of the tent like a caged animal. For the first time it grew a belief to him in liis thoughts that were he free, were he owner of his heritage, he could rouse her heart from its long repose and make her love him. “Hear me,” she said softly. “I do not bid you decide. I only bid you con fide in Philip. You are guiltless of this charge under which 5-011 left England. You endure i Wat her than do what you deem dislionvWble to clear yourself. That is noble;^nat is great. But it is possible, as I sr^that 5-011 may exag gerate the abnegation required of you. Whoever was the criminal should suf fer. Yours is magnificent magnanimi ty, but it ma5 r surely be also false justice alike to yourself and the world.” He turned on her almost fiercely in the suffering she dealt him. “It is! It was a madness, a quixot ism, the wild, unconsidered act of a Tool! What you will! But it is done. It was done forever—so long ago— when 5-our young e5 T es looked on me in the pity of your innocent childhood. 1 cannot redeem its folly now by adding to its baseness; I cannot change the choice of a madman by repenting of it with a coward's caprice. Ah. God! Yoq do not know what you do—how you tempt! Answer me! Choose for rue!” lie said vehemently. “Be my law and be my God!” She gave a gesture almost of fear. “Hush, hush! The woman does not live who should be that to any. man.” “You shall be it to me. Choose for me!” “I cannot! 1’ou leave so much in darkness and untold”— “Nothing that 5*ou need know to de cide your choice for me save one thing only—that I love 5-ou.” She shuddered. “This is madness! What have you seen of me?” “Enough to love you while my life shall last and love no other woman. Ah, I was but an African trooper in your sight, but in my own I was your equal. No famine, no humiliation, no obloquy, no loss I have known, ever drove me so cruelly to buy back my happiness with the price of dishonor as this one desire to stand iu my right ful place before men and be free to strive with you for what they have not won!” “You give hie great pain, great sur prise,” she murmured. “All I can trust Is that your love is of such sudden birth that it will die as rapidly”— He interrupted her. “You mean that under no circum stances—uot even were I to-possess my inheritance—could you give me any hope that I might wake your tender ness?” She looked at him full in the eyes with the old, fearless, haughty instinct of refusal to all such entreaty which had made her so indifferent—and many said so pitiless—to all. At his gaze, however, her own changed and soften ed, grew shadowed and, then wandered from him. “I do not say that. I cannot tell”— The words were very low. She was too truthful to eoneeal from him what half dawned on herself, the possibility that, more in liis presence and under different circumstances, she might feel her heart to go to him with a warmer and a softer impulse than that of friendship. The heroism of his life had moved her greath\ His head dropped upon his arms. “O God! It is possible at least! I am blind—mad. Make my choice for me! I know not wliat I do.” The tears that had gathered iu her eyes fell slowly down over her color less cheeks. She looked at him with a pity that made her heart ache with a sorrow only less than his own. The grief was for him chiefly, yet sonie-3 tiling of it for herself. “Choose for me, Venetia!” he mut tered at last ouce more. She rose with' what was almost a gesture of despair and thrust the gold hair off her temples. “Heaven help r.ic. I cannot, I dare not! And—I am no longer capable of being just!” There was an accent almost of pas sion in her voice. She felt that so greatly did she desire his deliverance, his justification, his return to all which was his own. desired even his presence among them in her own world, that she could no longer give him calm and un biased judgment. He heard, and tin- burning tide of a new joy rushed on him. “Follow the counsels of your own conscience,” she continued. “You have been true to them hitherto. It is not for me or through me that you shall ever be turned aside from them.” A hitter sigh broke from him as he heard. “They are noble words, and 5-et it is so easy to utter, so hard to follow, them. If you had one thought of tenderness for me, yon ccukl not speak them.” A flush passed over her face. ‘‘Do uot think me without 'Tooling Distillers of PURE CORN Pale Face Is a prominent symptom of vitiated blood. If covered with pimples, the evidence is.complete. It's nature's way of warning you of yourcoiidition. Johnston’s Sarsaparilla never falls to rectify all' disorders pt ttie blood, slight or severe, of long standing or recent origin. Its thirty vears record guarantees Us efficacy, feold everywhere. Price 81.00 per full quart bottle. Prepared only by UICBIGAN BKUG COMPAST, Detroit, Mich. K,ir Sub- I,J II. B. McHiSIKH, W aynmhimi, tia m m m m 1 Whiskies. Ourirai.teeA qua’.itv aru! proof. per.Jnl $1 50. Wines 1 nd Beer, j6=af” JUG TRADE OF BURKE Solicited. KEARSEY & PLUMB, ’ <0 1'2C9 Broad street, AUGUSTA, Ga. $ M M sympathy, pity”— “If you loved me,” lie pursued pas sionately— “Ah. God! The very word from me to 5*011 sounds insult! And 5*et there is not one thought in me that sounds insult—if you loved me, could you stand there and bid me drag on AUGUS V Dental Parlors, T WM.K'i'i nEXnsrKV. Lowest Prices All Work Guaran'eed Grown and Bridge Worka Specially. PiiORE k WOODBURY, 821 Broad St., Augusta, Georgia. Be l Phone. 520. * WOODWARD LUMBER CO., Manufacturers of Lumber, Sash, Doors, Blinds, Etc., Etc. Roberts treet, AUGUSTA. GA, RPIr' Your orders solicited. Saw JYIill Machinery we manufacture the best SAW P. T. Thomas, Surnterviile. Ala.,“l was suffering from d .’«pppsia when I commenced taking Kodol Dyspep sia Cure. I took several botties and can digest anything ” Kodo! Dys pepsia Cure is the only preparation containing all the natural digestive fluids. It gives .weak “fomachs en tire rest, restoring their natural condition, h. b McMister. “Choose for me, Venetia!” ■ this life forever, nameless, friendless, hopeless, having all the bitterness but uone of the torpor of death, wearing out the doom of a galley slave, though guiltless of all crime?” “Why* speak so? You are unreason ing. A moment ago you implored me not to tempt you to the violation of what you hold your honor. Because I bid you be faithful to it you deem me cruel.” “Heaven help me! I scarce know what I say. I ask you if you were a woman who loved me could you decide thus?” “These are wild questions,” she mur mured. “What can they serve? I be lieve that I should—I am sure that I should. As it is—as your friend”— Ah, hush! Friendship is erueler than hate.” “Gruel?” “Y'es, the worst cruelty when we seek love—a stone proffered, us when we ask for bread in famine!” “Lord Royaliieu.” she said slowly, as if t!ie familiar name were some tie be tween tliem. some cause of excuse for these the ciily love words she had ever heard without disdain and rejection— “Lord Royaliieu, it is unworthy of you to take this advantage of an inter view which 1 sought and sought for your own sake. Y’ou pain me; you wound me. I cannot tell how to an swer you. Y'ou speak strangely and without warrant.” lie stood mute and motionless before her. his head sunk on his chest. He knew that she rebuked him justly. “Forgive me, for pity's sake! After tonight ! shall neve* look upon your face again.” “I do forgive,” she said gently*, while her voice grew very sweet. “Y’ou en dure too much already for one needless pang to be added by me. All 1 wish is that you .had never met me, so that this last, worst thing had not come unto you! Y'ou wrong me if you think that I could be so callous, so indifferent, as to leave you here without heed as to your fate. Believe in your innocence!' Y'ou know that I do as firmly as though you substantiated it with $ thousand proofs. Reverence your devotion to your honor! Y’ou are certain that I must or all better things were dead in me. Y’ou reject my friendship. You term it cruel, but at least it will be faithful to you—too faithful for me to pass out of Africa and never give you one thought again. 1 believe in you. Do you not know that that is the high est trust, lo my thinking, that one hu man life can show in another’s? Y’ou decide that it is your duty'not to free yourself from this bondage, not to ex pose the actual criminal, not to take up your rights of birth. I dare not seek to alter that decision, but I cannot leave you to such a future without infinite pain, and there must—there shall be moans through which you will let me hear cf you through which, at least, I can know that *5*011 are living.” She stretched her hands toward him with that same gesture with which she had first declared her faith in liis guiltlessness. The tears trembled in her voice and swam in her eyes. He seized her hands in liis and held them close against his breast one instant, against the loud, hard panting of his aching heart. “God reward 5*011! God keep you! If I stay, I shall tell you alL Let me go and forget that we ever met! I am.dead. Let me be dead to 5*011!” With another instant he had left tire tent and passed out into the red glow of the torchlit evening. And Y’enetia Corona dropped her proud head down upon the silken cushions where his own had rested and wept as women weep over their dead, in such a pas sion as had never come to her in all the course of her radiant, victorious and imperious life. [TO BE CONTINUED,J KILLS ZS92Z2132S OX THE MARKET. GINNING HINERY. P-isffltP MAC! COMPLETE : SAW = MILL = OUTFITS = A : SPECIALTY. Let us have vour orders ior Mill Supplies or Sbop Work. MALLARY BROS. MACHINERY CO., MA.COTS", GEORGIA. j unel.’901 — m BE Ou improved Farms in Burke, Jefferson, "Washington, Jef- feson, Bulloch, Johnson and Rich mond Counties. No Commissions. Lowest Rates. Long time or install ments. ALEXANDER & JOHNSON, 705 Broad St, Augusta, Ga m I 3 m m •;c-; §3f §j§ FURNITURE !! We have the largest and best sfi ko Furniture ever brought to Augusta, and our prices are as low as the lowest. Elegant PAItLOE CHAHBEE SETS, SECRETARIES, BOOKCASES, mm Couches, Sideboards, Bedsteads BUREAUS, WASHSTANDS, Rocking Chairs. c traight, Chairs, IRON BEDS $3.75 Ul\ Mattings. Rugs, Etc. Each department in our business is full and complete, and every article is the very be- that can be iiad for the money. We do not hesitate to assert that no oilier Furniture house is quite so full of beauty, elc-guuce and style as ours. When in Augusta be sure to fail and S6C US FLEMING Ac BOWLES, 904 Rrr.ad Stropt. AUGUSTA. GA ^GQeTQeTHEeGiRiiRDePHARMflCYB For your Gar den Seed, On ion Sets, Early Rose and Bliss Irish Potatoes. We hai’e just received a fresh supply of D. M. Ferrv & Co’s Seeds. They are noted for putting up the most reli able Seed sold. Their seed are always fresh aud gives the best results. Orr pi ices are as low as the lowest. olso.remember we carrv a complete line t DRUGS and everything generally feept in a first-class Drug Store. We have a competent Druggist who has had 15 years experience. BUXTON &HAESELER, GIRARD. GEORGIA. ■ • S'? M M m Sf g e’V* if it if 8 if a % % % it 'VP M a i g a a m HELLO! Jpnoes White. Br5’autsvlllp. Ind. says DeWitt’s Witch Hazel Salve healed running sores on bot/i leg?. He had suffered 6 years. Doctors failed to help him. Get DeWiti’s. Accept 00 imitations h.b, tfeMaster, Who is That ? “No. 73, The Waynes- boro Pressing Club !” M. BUX'iOW Proprietor. Clothes cleaned, Pressed and Repaired for $L^ per month. Gent’s Suits and Pants made to measure from to $10. Suits from $10 to §35. Ladies’cleaning and dyeifip® specialty. Work called for and delivered. All work guarantee to fit.