Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1915 — HISLOVE STORY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HISLOVE STORY

by MARIE VAN VORST

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SYNOPSIS. - "g Ij« Comte de Sabron, captain of French cavalry, takes to his quarters to raise by hand a motharleaa Irish terrier pup. and names It Pltchoune. He dines with the Marquise d’Escllamae and meets Miss Julia Redmond. American heiress, who sings for him an English ballad that Ungers In his memory. CHAPTER lll—Continued. That evening the Marquise d’Escllgnac read aloud to her niece the news that the Count de Sabron was not coming to dinner. He was “absolutely desolated” and had no words to express his regTet and disappointment. The pleasure of dining with them both, a pleasure to which he had looked forward for a fortnight, must be renounced because he was obliged to 6lt up with a very sick friend, as there was no one else to take his place. In expressing his undying devotion and his renewed excuses he put bis homage at their feet and kissed their hands. The Marquise d'Escllgnac, wearing another very beautiful dress, looked up at taar niece, who was playing at the piano. "A very poor excuse, my dear Julia, and a very late one." "It sounds true, however. I believe him. don’t you, ma tante?” "I do not,” said the marquise emphatically. “A Frenchman of good education Is not supposed to refuse a dinner Invitation an hour before he is expected. Nothing but a case of life and death would excuse It” “He says a 'very sick friend.’ ” "Nonsense,” exclaimed the marquise. Miss Redmond played a few bars of the tune Sabron had hummed and which more than once had soothed Pltchoune, and which, did she know, Sabron was actually humming at that moment ■ Tam rather disappointed.” said the young girl, "but If we find it is a matter of life and death, ma taifte, we will forgive him?” The Marquise d’Escllgnac had invited the Count de Sabron because she had been asked to do so by his colonel, who was an old and valued friend. She had other plans for her niece. "I feel, my dear,*’ she answered her now, “quite 6afe in promising that if it la a question of life and death we shall forgive him. I shall see his colonel tomorrow and aßk him pointblank.” Miss Redmond rose from the piano and came over to her aunt, for dinner had been announced. “Well, what do you think,” she slipped her hand in her aunt’s arm, “really, what do you think could be the reason?’ "Please don’t ask me,” exclaimed the Marquise d'Escllgnac impatiently. “The reasons for young men's caprices are sometimes Just as well not inquired into." If Sabron, smoking in his bachelor quarters, lonely and disappointed, watching with an extraordinary fidelity by his “sick friend," could have oeen the two ladies at their grand solitary dinner, his unfilled place between them, he might have felt the picture charming enough to have added to his collection.

It would have been simple to have explained to the colonel, but Sabron, reticent and reserved, did not choose to do so. He made a very insufficient excuse, and the colonel, as well as the marquise, thought ill of him. He learned later, with chagrin, that his friends were gone from the Midi. Rooted to the spot himself by his duties, he could not follow them. Meanwhile Pltchoune thrived, grew, cheered his loneliness, jumped over a stick, learned a trick or two from Brunet and a great many fascinating wiles and ways, no doubt inherited from his mother. He had a sense of humor truly Irish, a power of devotion that we designate as "canine,’ no doubt because no member of the human race has ever deserved It. CHAPTER V. The Golden Autumn. Sabron longed for a change with autumn, when the falling leaves made the roads golden roundabout the Chateau d'Escllgnac. He thought he would like to go away. He rode his horse one day up to the property of the hard-hearted unforgiving lady and, finding the gate open, rode through the grounds up to the terrace. Seeing no one, he sat in his saddle looking over the golden country to the Rhone and the castle of the good King Rene, where the autumn mists were like banners floating from towers. There was a solitary beauty around the lovely place that spoke to the young officer with a sweet melancholy. He fancied that Miss Redmond must often have looked out from one of the windows, ahd he wondered which one. The terrace was deserted and leaves from the vines strewed it with red and golden specters. Pitchoune raced after them, for the wind started them flying, and he rolled his tawny little body over and over in the rustling leaves. Then a rabbit, which before the arrival of Sabron had been sitting comfortably on the terrace stones, scuttled away like mad, and Pitchoune, somewhat hindered by his limp, tore after it. The deserted chateau, the fact that there was nothing in his military life beyond the routine to interest him now in Tarascon, made Sabron eagerly look forward to a change, and he waited for letters from the minister of war which would send him to a new post. The following day after his visit to the chateau he took a walk, Pitchoune at his heels, and stood aside in the highroad to let a yellow motor pass him, but the yellow motor at that mo-

CHAPTER IV. The Dog Pays. Pitchoune repaid what was given him. He did not think that by getting •well, reserving the right for the rest of his life to a distinguished limp In his right leg, that he had done all that was expected of him. He developed an ecstatic devotion to the captain, impossible for any human heart adequately to return. He followed Sabron like a shadow and when he could not follow him, took his place on a chair In the window, there to sit, his sharp profile against the light, his pointed ears forward, watching for the uniform he knew and admired extravagantly. Pitchoune was a thoroughbred, and •very muscle and fiber showed it, every hair and point asserted It. and he loved as only thoroughbreds can. Ton may say what you like about mongrel attachments, the thoroughbred in all cases reserves his brilliancy for crises. Sabron, who had only seen Miss Redmond twice and thought about her countless times, never quite forgave his friend for the illness that kept him from the chateau. There was in Sabron’s mind, much as he loved Pitchoune, the feeling that if he had gone that night . . ■ There was never another invitation! “Voyons, mon cher,” his colonel said to him kindly the next time !be met him, “what stupidity have you ‘been guilty of at the Chateau d’Escli**Poor Salmon blushed and shrugged “I assure you," said the colonel, “that I did you harm there without iknowlng it. Madame d’Esclignac, who ijg a Te ry clever woman, asked me with lliilnrwft aw* sympathy, who your ‘very glck friend' could be. As no one was very sick according to my knowledge if fold her so. She seemed triumphant — ■« « saw at once that I had put you the wrong."

ment drew up to the side of the road while the chauffeur got out to adjusf some portion of the mechanism. Someone leaned from the yellow motor window and Sabron came forward to speak to the Marquise d’Esclignac and another lady by h,er side. "How do you do. Monsieur? Do you remember us?” (Had he ever forgotten them?) He regretted so very much not having been able to dine with them in the spring. “And your sick friend?” asked Madame d’Esclignac keenly, “did he recover?" “Yes,” said Sabron, and Miss Redmond, who leaned forward, smiled at him and extended her pretty hand. Sabron opened the motor door, “What a darling dog!” Miss Redmond cried. “What a ’bewitching face he has! He’s an Irish terrier, isn’t he?” Sabron called Pitchoune. who diverted his attention from the chauffeur to come and be hauled up by the collar and presented. Sabron shook off his reticence. "Let me make a confession,” he said with a courteous bow. “This 1» jny ‘very sick friend.’ Pitchoune was at the point of death the night of your dinner and I was just leaving the house when I realized that the helpless little chap could not weather tbs

breeze without me. Be had been m over by a bicycle and be needed *ow ▼erv special care.” Miss Redmond’s hand was on Pltchoune’s head between his pointed earß. She looked sympathetic. She looked amused. She smiled. “It was a question of ‘life and death,’ wasn’t it?" she said eagerly to Sabron. "Really, It was Just that," answered the young officer, not knowing how significant the words were to the two ladies. Then Madame d’Escllgnac knew that she was beaten and that she owed something and was ready to pay. The chauffeur got upon his seat and she asked suavely: "Won’t you let us take you home, Monsieur Sabron?” He thanked them. He was walking and had not finished his exercise. "At all events,” she pursued, "now that your excuse is no longer a good one, you will come this week to dinner, will you not?” He wouid, of courne, and watched the yellow “motor drive away in the autumn sunlight, wishing rather less for the order from the minister of war to change his quarters than he had before. CHAPTER VI. Ordered Away. He had received his letter from the minister of war. Like many things w-e wish for, set our hopes upon, when they come w r e find that we do not want them at any price. The order was unwelcome. Sabron was to go to Algiers. Winter is never very ugly around Tarascon. Like a lovely bunch of fruit In the brightest corner of a happy vineyard, the Midi is sheltered from the rude experiences that the seasons know farther north. Nevertheless, rains and winds, sea-born and vigorous, had swept in and upon the little town. The mistral came whistling and Sabron, from his window, looked down on his little garden from which summer had entirely flown. Pitchoune, by his side, looked down as well, but his expression, different from his master's, was ecstatic, for he saw sliding along the brick wall, a cat with which he was on the most excited terms. His body tense, his ears for. ward, he gave a sharp series of barks and little soft growls, while his master tapped the window-pane to the tune of Miss Redmond’s song. Although Sabron had heard it several times, he did not know the words or that they were of a semi-religious, extremely sentimental character which would have been difficult to translate into French. He did not know that they ran something like this: God keej) you safe, my love. All through the night; Rest close In Ills encircling arms Until the light. And there w r as more of it. He only knew that there was. a pathos in the tune which spoke to his warm heart: which caressed and captivated him and which made him long deeply for a happiness he thought it most unlikely he would ever know. There had been many pictures added to his collection: Miss Redmond at dinner. Miss Julia Redmond —he» knew her first name now—before the piano; Miss Redmond in a smart coat, walking with him down the alley, while Pitchoune chased flying leaves and apparitions of rabbits hither and thither The Count de Sabron had always dreaded just what happened to him. He had fallen in love with a woman beyond his reach, for he had no fortune whatsoever, nothing but his captain's pay and his hard soldier’s life, a wanderer’s life and one which he hesitated to ask a woman to share. In spite of the fact that Madame d'Esclignac was agreeable to him, she was not cordial, and he understood that she did not consider him a parti for her niece. Other guests, as well as he, had shared her hospitality. He had been jealous of them, though he could not help seeing Miss Redmond’s preference for himself. Not that he wanted to help it. He recalled that she had really sung to him, decidedly walked by his side when there had been more than the quartette, and he felt, in short, her sympathy. "Pltchoune,” he said to his companion, “we are better off in Algiers, mon vleux. The desert Is the place for us. We shall get rid of fancies there and do some hard fighting one way or another.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

Stood Aside to Let a Motor Pass Him.