Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1912 — I Love You [ARTICLE]

I Love You

By Luella Maybelle Sidney

{Copyright, IJI2, by Associated Literary Fr*Cft) ' Ellerton Fuller lay stretched out In bis easy chair. The cigar between his lips had gone out Across his knees the evening paper lay unready while he stared gloomily into the fire. That morning he had received from the firm that he was to take charge of the braneh house tn San Francisco for a year, and that he would have to start west the next week. He had been dismayed, for It meant separation from the girl to whom he had been devoted for a long time. In the evening, as soon as possible after a hurried dinner, he had called upon her, and, finding her alone, had told her of his love, and had asked her to marry him. She had refused him. When pressed for her reason she had said that although she liked him, she did not care for him enough to marry him, must like me a little, or you would never have let me see so much of you in the past year.” The anxious question in his voice hurt her. , “It is just because I like you so much, and respect you so highly, that J don't want to do you the injustice of marrying you -without loving you. Every man "las the right to be loved with the mind, body and spirit of the woman who marries him. You would be defrauded of that right.” “1 pm willing to run the risk." "You-may be now, but later on we would both feel the lack of the complete love, and you would be restless and unhappy.” ——~—. : - “If 1 were here and could have this time with you I might make you love me.” ' "That Is something beyond our knowledge.” “Will you let me write to you while I am away? That will help you to. to member me. All of your other friends will be here with you, and one of them might win you.” . _ ,- 4 • She hesitated, then said. “No. I don’t care to correspond with any man.” “Then 1 am to go away and leave you for a whole year without hearing from you?” “It would be. far better to do that than to raise false hopes.” n "Make me just one promise before I go. If you are free when I get back, may I have another chance to try and win you?” ■ • “Why—yes, you may if you still feel the same then." All the way home he was haunted by the question, “How can I teach her to love me when there, .pre to..be so many thonsasd mites between us? A year is.an eternity, and some other fellowwill win her.” “There is nothing to do," he thought hopelessly. “A man cannot force him-, self on a woman not want him, and even letters are denied to me.” The whole world was wrong; the woman be loved refused him; he must leave his friends and go among strangers for a year. Even his cigar failed to bring comfort to him. With a sigh he picked up the paper. “Well, I will keep busy, that will help a little,” he thought. He glanced listlessly oyer the pages. A short paragraph at the end of a column caught his eyes. The words "I Love You” were the title. The article said that a writer bad compiled a book telling how to say “I love you,” in every language known to man. He read it a second time. An Inspiration came to him, and he cried, '•the very thing.” The next morning when Dorothy Roberts-came down to breakfast she found a letter beside her plate. There was just one sheet of paper, and in the middle was written, “I love you.” “Faithfully yours, , ; : J “ELLERTON FULLER.” She studied it with a puzzled frown. -’What an odd thing for him to do,” ahe thought. 1 She put the letter into her desk, and tn the hurry of the day forgot it. A box of violets came late that afternoon. The card on the top read: “Mr. Ellerton Fuller.” BAtg a true woman, she was when TheVounTbislde heVplSeTte t- ■*» was: -- “tot’akne. . "Faithfully yours, "ELLERTON FULLER." "Well of all the silly creatures," she "fathe afternoon the Tlfltito cartel hl* card.. f the flowers came. • ;

you if? earn have jy and T will stop the other letters" She made no reply, and as the letters continued to come she put them away unopened. ? k-i ■ One ygjpy day cleafriha out her desk she took up the fast accumulating pile of them. Curiosity to see in what jangnage it was written made her open the .top one. She concluded it ■ A--- ' Wr-—O- A ' must oe cninese from tne characters, ity of it all. Amusement at a thing is only another form of interest for it; so she began each day to open the letters as they came. It was fun to try to trace Out what language they were in. She began haunting libraries and hunting obscure tongues, many of which baffled her completely. t - But she always knew what the words meant, even if she did not know the language, and the letters began to interest her. v ' .. - She knew that Ellerton Fuller was across the continent, and yet twice each day came a message of his love and loyalty to her. A man who could be so faithful deserved to be loved, and she began to worry because she could not Ibve him. This-led to her thinking of him more and more.. At last not an hour of the day passed something suggesting him to her thoughts, and her life seemed full of him, of his letters, and of his flowers. One morning there was no letter. She looked again and again through her mail with the same result. Thlpktog that perhaps the mald had been mistaken, she searched through all the other letters on the tabla Nothing! Perhaps it had been delayed and would come by the next post; but she was restless and broke an engagement to stay at home all the morning and listen for the postman’s whistle. When the afternoon brought neither : letter nor violets, she was filled with anxiety. She forced herself . togothrough dinner, but told her mother ..that she would not go to the opera, as she had a severe headache. “Your cheeks are unusually red, my dear,” said her mother. “You must have taken ccfld, for you are feverish. You had better take a hot lemonade and go to sleep early.”-., "I could not sleep. I will lie down and read In the library." About half past nine, the bell rang, and the-mald brought up a card. "I told him you were 111, ma’am, and might not be able to see him,” she said. , *■“’ Dorethy glanced at the card. It was familiar enough. “Mr. Ellerton Fuller.” The blood rushed over her face. “Say that I will be down at once.” She held on to the banister for support, and slowly stepped from stair to stair, for she trembled* so that she feared she would fall. "Good evening," she said, putting out a hand which'shook In spite of her efforts for self control. Ellerton Fuller took her hand in both of his and looked her oyer eager? ly, studying each feature again and again. “I have been counting the very minutes until this hour for the last s|x months. Have I won or lost In my struggle to make you love me? My love for you has grown from day" to day, until it did not as it J could wait to get across the continent. - Dorothy, tell me, do you, can you love me as I do you?" The girl did not answer nor look up, but something in her downcast face and trembling figure told him jthe truth, and as with reverent hands he lifted her face for his kiss, he said, “Thank God for the many ways of saying 'I love you.’ *