THE BOND OF SENTIMENT.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 7639, 3 February 1903, Page 4

THE BOND OF SENTIMENT.

After be had gone away*—after she l had heard the gate click " No more!" and the metallic hoof died down the asphalted avenue, —after that and the blank moment following, she sat a long timo in dispassionate thought. The storm had gone, leaving the dreadful calm in which every heartimpulse struggling for life v. as met by a logicaj counterpoint in her clear mind ; even as while she sat thus, finger tip met finger tip and palm met palm. She was alone—that was the paramount, the possessing truth. Henceforth she would be alone ; and she must adjust her mental outlook to the new condition. In the place of sen--1 timent, the altar of her married life as it had been of her girlhood, she must set up self. She would break or burn as a first sacrifice everything — ©very material thing—she had treasured for the reason that they had been given by him. Had he not at the snap of a finger, in the twinkling of jan eye, broken more sacred things, ; trodden under the rough heel of anil ger, right or wrong, every flower that had blossomed along the lane of love ? " I wonder," she meditated, aloud and bitterly, " if he ever really loved me." There were his letters, but at the thought of them the blood flamed in her face. Her look with the thought had travelled swiftly across the room and was as swiftly averted. She had always kept his letters— to the littlest one telling her that he was detained here or must go there, or that be had forgotten this or that, and would she send it down by the " This," she said with biting emphasis, and clinching het- hands fiercely, " was sentiment! I wonder how long he ever kept one of mine ?" They were all there—his letters in packages, tied with dark blue ribbon, his color. Yes they were all there—that was the irony of it— now. " What nonsense, what folly !" she said. "Is this sentiment for ever to spoil my life ?" | She selected the key and walked t quickly, with frowning brows, and I soft mouth compressed in one stern | line, to the old chest. As she I raised its heavy lid the scent of j heliotrope arose—the incense of her clearest memory—and swiftly and subtly stole into her brain. For a while she stood looking down, a mist gathering, her lips slowly parting; and then, with a cry, she was on her knees beside her treasure box, her arms flung outward ■across the billow of snowy baby vestments, her flushed face buried among them. The little garments beribboned and sweet, lay in the prim box in which her hands had folded and placed them last; upon the top of the last little shoes he had worn ; and beneath—memories and memories— were the letters. When she had grown calm again she stood up and closed the box. The dead child's clothes, lying like j down upon the letters, seemed, in their mingled perfume of flower ancl memory, to breathe protection and reproach. Destruction passed from her mind. She had another thought, aud flushed by it, eager, trembling, she put oiva hat and a pair of gloves and, with a backward glance at the old box by the wall, went swiftly on her pilgrimage. This wras another sentiment she told herself. It had nothing to do with him. He had never felt as she had felt since the baby died. If he had things would have been different. They would be different now. He had never understood her. Did a man ever understand a woman—the heart of a woman ? Well, if her tempestuous heart must have a shrine whereat to worship and find peace, here it should be—under the tall trees green or bare ;at this one little grave, snow-covered or flower hid. As she neared the grave she hastened her walk. At last she ran. It was just on the other side of the big tree. The sunshine, sifting through the softly stirring leaves, flecked the graves and the walks with patches of moving lights. As she came up, breathless, she saw that a man, his back to her, stood by the tree. He was in deep thought by the droop of his shoulders, looking clown at the grave, not hearing the soft fall of her swift feet upon the turf. As her* shadow fell across the grave, and he felt her presence, the man, turning,. looked up. He held out his arms--— she saw the love in his eyes—the bent bar-, riers of her pride were swept away, and with a cry of wife love she leaped to his breast.