Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1914 — WIKI AWAKENED EYES [ARTICLE]

WIKI AWAKENED EYES

By SYLVIA ST. JOHN.

There was once a boy who took a dreamy-eyed, pure-souled girl tor his wife. The vision of death, cold and naked, eternal, terrible and never-to-be-ended, had east a sudden pall over his world, and his sonl, smitten with the emptiness of its delights, fetched Out for something real —something that would endure. He found the girl. She had waited for her lover —the strong man of her dreams _ —aJl her life. True, it was but a little tale of childish years at best,..and when the boy—the boy with the soiled soul and the sin-smeared life -—told her of his love (and, indeed, he thought that he loved her), she questioned not, but gave herself to him, gladly and freely. For a little while all was well. The boy kept the memory of the shroud, the marble brow, the pulseless breast, the nameless terror of the hereafter; and the girl wife, so calmly unafraid, was love and life to him. But slowly the vision faded. The din of the world broke in upon him — the noise of the tumult that he loved. Clamorous voices called to him, and would not be denied. The girl wife, with her artless love, her transparent sincerity, her dreams and her absurd ideals, became hateful to him. He called her a hypocrite, but he knew in bis soul that he lied. Of all thiß, he told her nothing, and she, sweet soul, being a dreamer, dreamed on. She dreamed that his love for her, like her love for him, er beginning nor end. However, changed he was, and oh, he was changed! However her heart might grieve over him—and oh, the grief was bitter! —one thing she never questioned—his unchanging love. It was hard for the boy, these years, harder than for her. He had to endure her love, when every fiber of his being loathed her. The chain that bound him to her dragged heavily. He wondered sometimes that he did not break It, once' for all. But he could not; there was human goodness in him still; something of the primal man —man before the fall. Children were in the home, and each one was a mighty link, forged by nature, to hold him in the toils —he loved and hated them. The wife, too —the girl of dreams —he loathed her, yes—yet, there was the jealousy of possession —she was his—his to protect and care for, though despised. Still the girl dreamed on, and sickened him with her kisses. But the day of awakening was at hand —awakening for both. He, too, was a dreamer, though his dreams were evil dreams. She was brushing his coat one day, caressing it as if it were a living thing, and singing softly to herself, when a paper dropped from one of the pockets. She took it up—it was an v envelope, addressed in his handwriting to one whom she knew well. A sudden pang smote her through the heart. She opened the letter — there were fresh violets in it—and read —only a word or two, but enough! Ah, God! The girl who had kept her girl heart and her dreams through the long years, would never dream again! She was a woman, now, with a woman’s knowledge, and her infinite capacity for suffering. How long she sat there, conscious only of a mortal wound, a dull throbbing in her ears, a blindness in her eyes—she knew not. A careless whistle aroused her. The boy had come back for the forgotten letter. There sat his wife, and the letter had fallen at her feet. She stooped and handed it to him; and as she lifted her eyes to his, he saw that there were no dreams in them, but only memories. “You have read it,” he said mechanically, not as a question. “Yes.”

“It is all over then,” he said. There ■was an accent of despair in the word. He had lost her, and with instant realization he knew that in earth and heaven there was nothing so dear to him Her simplicity, her sincerity, her sweet unworldliness were jewels worth the ransom of a soul, now, to the fool who had despised them. But It was too late. There was a Are smoldering on the hearth. He raked the coalß together and threw the letter in the midst, violets and all, watching with a fierce delight as it shriveled into ashes. At last he turned and fixed his gaze from the /hearth. He moved toward her and took up his hat, holding it in his hand as a chance caller might, before he went away. Yet he delayed, as seconds ran into minutes. He could not go until she knew, though it was, too late now. But his tongue failed him —the ready tongue, so glib at lies, halted at the truth. “I cannot ask you to believe me,” he said—the words were heavy, indistinct, but truth spoke in them—"l have lost all claim upon your confidence; but I love you — you only. I have been mad—besotted—but I love you, now. I ought to be sorry for you, but I apt thinking of myself. I shall .narur look upon your face again. Oh! thy God!” He had awakened from his dream ,of sinful pleasure. The boy hiqj grown to be a man In that hour, and knew that in all the world there was no one so good, so beautiful, so altogether to be desired as the wife he bad de-

“Good-by," he said, with despair In his voice, and would have passed out, but she stayed him with a gesture. "Wait!" she breathed with difficulty. “God give me light!" And crossing to her room she shut the door. Like a criminal who knows the verdict, and the judge, the man sank into a chair. The little children cried in vain for mother that night v The eldest, a girt with her mother's dreamy eyes, gave them bread and milk, and hushed them to sleep. Down on her knees, the stricken woman crouched, not praying, but waiting for light—longing, hoping, but resigned to God’s will, whatever it might be. Must she condemn him — now, when he loved her? The broken marriage law witnessed against him. He had despised and rejected her —a wife of youth—but oh, she loved him! Must she send him away, homeless, without a wife or children —where there would be none to watch for his comfort —none to be glad of it just for love’s sake? Could the good God require of her that merciless justice? When she sent him away she took from him his last hope of a renewed life, and doomed him to sink lower. Oh, if she might but keep him, guard him, love him, forget the broken law! Women never forgave this sin—women who loved righteousness and hated sin. She would obey God, though she perished—though he perished, which was infinitely more terrible to contemplate. But, oh, if she might forgive him! There was the written word—with sudden, trembling hope she rose from her knees and got her Bible from the table. She opened it and laid her finger at random on a passage. At first she dared not look. When she did, her face, red with weeping, bleached white. God had indeed spoken—her imger pointea u 5 & action oi tne oia law, Lev. 20:10. There was no appeal from that —the words seemed spoken in her ear—he must die. It was the law. The struggle was ended —she would not fight against God. Once again she read the dread sentence, fingering each word as a child might, and this time a reference, in finer type, caught her eye. It was John 8:3. With trembling, uncertain fingers, she found the reference, and, awed and humbled, read again that wonderful story of divine forgiveness. She read it through, to the great absolution, “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.” He, the. pure God, the anointed Christ, could forgive, for his great love. Surely, then, she might, nay, must. Sobbing with awed joy, she fell upon her knees and broke into thanksgiving. Day was breaking when she stepped into the outer room. Her husband sat huddled up in a great arm-chair, before the flreless grate. He had fallen into an uneasy doze. Love, love unutterable was in her eyes as they rested on him and noted the marks of suffering on his face. Noiselessly she kindled the fire, and when the light and the returning warmth awoke him to a sense of renewed comfort she was standing before him, her loving arms outstretched. ' “‘Neither do I condemn thee,’ my darling, my darling!” she cried, and falling on her knees, she hid her face upon his breast.

What of the years before them? Will he, as the memory of that bloody agony grows dim, take that divine forgiveness as a light thing, or will he, indeed, “sin no more?” Will the world seem void —unanswering—now that she faces it with awakened eyes? Will-she look backward, longingly, to the Land of Dreams, and forget to “march breast forward” with those who “fall to rise?” Who dare say? Yet, marvelous as life or death, is the mystery of forgiveness—limitless as eternity—fathomless as the heart, is the miracle of love. (Copyright, by Dally Story Pub. Co.)