FROM A DEAD SELF

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2278, 15 September 1899, Page 5

FROM A DEAD SELF

TO HI&H&B THINGS. The room was silent with the intensity of the game. For boars the play had been fast and furious. Though Gerald Wade was consumed with an inward fever of recklessness, he played his game with an outward calm. The day before he had discussed the evils of gambling with the woman he loved. She supposed he played " in a general sort of way," bub she had no notion of the time he had given over to it. Many a night he had left her, exalted for the moment by her love, vowing he would be worthy of her ideal of him ; bub the uplifting was only transitory. In the early jpring they were engaged, but, though Gerald urged all his eloquence, Lily wo-'ld not hear of their marriage She wanted to live in the present, she said. Ceremonies and trousseau could wait. So they idled now and then through the lovely spring. It had taken her some time to convince him that he could not escort her about the slums ; that his appearance there would hinder, nob help, her work. He was eventually pacified. The many-sidedness of Lily's life was a revelation to him. The past week he had found an unlucky one, financially. All that time he had avoided the club, but this evening with Lily far away, he hart wandered aimlessly towards it, and up to the card-room. He was greeted with acclamation. The old instinct gradually asserted itself. He left the club beaten and practically Yuined. He jumped into a hansom and bade the driver go round the park. He wanted | time to think. He was hopelessly in debt, fend in one night he had drifted so far from Ajily that she seemei a beautiful spirit beyond his reach. A hundred impulses urged through his brain as the hansom bore him away along the smooth road. The thought tof Lily in the end gave him strength. He Vould find some way of retrieving himself tionourably, and not disgrace that better part of him which she knew and loved. He drove back to his rooms and found a wire awaiting him. "My aunt has rallied and wants to see you Come immediately —L."

Gerald scrutinised the paper and found it had been delivered eaily in the evening. Lily must have been expecting him for hours. He pulled out his watch and found it waa five o'clock. Two hours later he found himself being driven along the country road that led to the house where Lily was staying. In tspite of his perturbed spirits, he was impressed by the beauty of the morning. He seldom saw nature at that early hour, and the sweetness of the earth appealed to him. It was like Lily, he thought—fresh and fair, and giving of her wealth and treasure abundantly. Could he go on and bring an ugly blot into her life, he who loved her so dearly ? For a moment he wavered, then net his teeth and drove on. A few moment later he found himself {trembling as he waited for Lily in the drawing-room. In the solemn hush he knew that the shadow of death hung over the house. She came in presently through a door behind him, and he felt her arms about his neck before he realised she was there. " Gerald ! Gerald ! How good it is to see you !' He drew her into iiis arms. "Aml in time, dear ?" " 1 do not know ; she has sunk again, but the nurse will call me the moment she js conscious. She tcjok a sadden notion that she wanted to see the man I am going to marry. You know she is queer, dear, and she has not been out of the house or eeen anyone for many month?." She drew Jierself out of his arms and put her hands on his face to look at him. " Gerald !" she exclaimed, noting for the iirst time the drawn haggard expression, *' you are ill! What is it, dear? You should not have come !" He told her the whole story.

*' Lily, darling, I have been trying to think. This morning early I was filled with the blackness of despair. Then I came to vou because what remnant of decency was left in me prevented my running away like a coward, though it did not seem as if 1 could ever look in your dear face again. " I am going away to begin all over again," Gerald continued, " and take courage from the strength you have given me this past hour. Perhaps I may never conquer myself, but I shall never cease to try. The thought that I have brought sorrow into your life drives me mad !" He paced the room restlessly. " I would not have my life all sunshine," i the girl said vehemently ; " and you have made me so very happy all these weeks, and now—now that you are going away, I shall be happy still, knowing that you are going to reach up out of the darkness and be worthy of yourself." " It is you who are pulling me up, dear." " No, no. I will not have it so ! It is your own better nature asserting itself, and jt will conquer in the end. And then—" " And then V' the man began eagerly, but would not let her answer. " Forgive me, dear. 1 will not let you be so generous.' '• One can never be to generous to those we love, Gerald." " Ah, my dear, there was never any one like you. and the leaving you is like death." He hid his face in his hands. The girl took some pansies and put them into the lapel of his coaf. Her finsertrembled so that she could scarcely faster the flowers, but she spoke to him bravely. " There is heart's ease for you, dear —;> little sweetness and colour to take away You will write me your plans I think I would like to have you go now." The man held her hands and kissed them reverently.

"I may come back in a year, dear-it may be two or three. I want to leave you free to make your own life. Ido not mean to make any fight with the hope of the reward that might come to me, but for the sake of mv honour and manhood —the things that you have raustd in me."' " Gerald, dear, I—l cannot think beyond to-day. You seem to have come and to be going so suddenly. But 1 want you to go and—oh, my dear," she cried, flinging her arms about his neck. " I have ,?uch

faith in you." The girl raised her head and looked steadily at him for a moment, her eyes glowing with the light of her high belief in hiir ; then she slipped from his arms and turned away that she might not see him go from her. A moment later she heard the door close, and knew that he wat gone. A great sob

burst from her, bub as if she felt that even yet she had no right to think of herself, she went rapidly into the sick room and knelt by the bed. Her aunt opened her eyes and spoke feebly, " Has Gerald come ?" "He has been called away unexpectedly," the girl replied with an effort, " but the man I love will come back again." And he came, indeed, a reformed manto her funeral six months later.