Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1907 — The Child of the Cave [ARTICLE]

The Child of the Cave

By FRANK BARRETT

CHAPTER XXII.-(Continued.) Whtn we left the house the stars were out. “Look! look !" cried Psyche,’ lifting Ethel's hand in delight; "see, she wears dew-drops on her fingers!” At a word from her father Ethel took the diamond ring -off and slipped it on Psyche's finger. * "It’s a dew-drop that doesn't fade, and that you can keep forever,” said she, “and you shall wear it always, dear, for my sake.” As Psyche sat hy my side in the night she held up the ring and looked at the glancing rays wistfully. "Brother,” she said, “it does not look »o lovely on my hand as it did on hers. My fingers are not sc smooth and white as hers.” “Working in the sand has spoiled them. That’s all over now.” "Yes. we shall work side by side no more.” Presently she looked at the ring again. "Oh. it was kind of her to give it to me,” she said, pressing the ring to her cheek. “She-is all kind and good and sweet and beautiful. You don’t know any one in all the world more beautiful and good, do yon?” “No. Psyche.” “I don't think that there ever will be one like her,” she said in a quiet tone of conviction, .

"Why. 1 thought you were going to be like her.” I said lightly, hoping -to change the vein of sadness in which her thoughts seemed to he running. But the pleasantry was unperceived. "No,” said she, shaking her head gravely, "I can nev'T l>e like her. I was silly and vain to think that. I know better now. 1 could never learn all those words, never sing as she does, for she has been learning since she was a little child—all the time I have been living in the dark. I shall never be anything but a silent little creature of the garden,” her voice trembled. “Talk to me. dear—just a little more, nnd let me listen ns I did in the cave when you first came to me and I knew nothing. Oh. i» was good to know nothing then : it is dreadful to know so little now. AJy heart is very full, I cannot speak.” My heart w.as full also, but 1 managed to speak cheerfully, aa 1 reasoned with her, showing that our happiness did not depend upon our excelling nil others, or there could be but one happy person in the whole world; that no two persons are alike, but each has some excellence which the other may lack without being less lovable: nnd other reasons of a like kind.

Whether she followed my argument or understood it I cannot tell. Perhaps it was only the :x>und of my voice she heard while her thoughts were occupied with pleasant memories. But she seemed com fcrted. now and again smoothing my shoulder gently with her cheek as she did when she was happy * I thought I might take advantage of this mood to prepare her for the coming change, so I spoke of our visit to the Chase, and the things we had seen. It pleased her to talk about the greenhouses and the gorgeous flowers in them. “But it was so strange I” she said, in a tone of awe. “It will seem less strange and more beautiful when you know them better.” "Are you going there again?" she asked shyly. "We are going to dine there to-morrow evening. You will like to go?" "Wherever you go I must like to go.” “You don't dislike Sir Henry?" “Oh. no. I like Lima groat deal?* “I'm glad of that.. Do you know he wants you to l.ve with him always?” “Why. I couldn't do that!” she exclaimed, laughing. Then, seeing me grave, her smile went suddenly, and she said, with an accent of consternation. "You don't want me to go away from you—you will not make me go to him.” “I'll not make you do anything. Psyche, that hurts you. You shall live with me as long as you will.” “Oh. my brother!” she exclaimed, clasping my arm to her breast. Presently I said: “Would you like to have Ethel always for a companion and friend?” “I do not understand that. I cannot live always with her and with you. too.” "Not while wo live asunder as we do. Bat if I ask Ethel to live with-us and ahe says yes?" “She will never say yes." Psyche said, confidently. “Never, never, never!” I laughed, and asked how she could tell that. “1 can tel) it by what I feel," she an- . awered. "When: she looks nt you and you look at her—when you speak low together. as you did to-night, I could cry with the pain in my heart. Then how could she bear to see us sitting as we sit now, whispering to each other through the night with no thought for any other? No. do —she could not do that. It would be too much pain. .More than she could bear. She would rather live alone than •ee that you are my brother and not hers.” How could I tell her that I loved Ethel more than 1 loved her? I rose, putting off a little longer the evil hour, Psyche rarely came down from her room .before sunset: we were to dine at 8 o’clock ; but Sir Henry bad asked me to come in the afternoon as I was bidding Ethel good-night, and the mutual pressure of our handt conveyed the feeling with w hich we looked forward to that meeting better than my faltering tongue expressed. I went up to the bouse at four, and after some general conversation. Sir Henry excused himself and went into the library, leaving Ethel and me to ourselves. Wo strolled in the shade of the pine wood. and there I asked Ethel to be my jrife, and she came into my arms and I

held her there, oblivious' of everything but the crowning happiness of my life. “Why are you prying, love?” I asked. She raised her head from my breast end showed me a face radiant with happiness. "Why should I cry?” she asked. I was perplexed. I.could have sworn that as I murmured my love over her bent head, kissing the waving hair, I heard a smothered sob. It was getting dark when we saw Sir 'Henry in the drive. - my other child,” he said. 1 gave him the key to the door, content to stay with my love. Ten minutes, perhaps, had gone by when bir Henry appeared again in the drive. He was alone and walking hastily. “Where is Psyche?” he asked, when he was within speaking distance. “I left her in -the house when I came away A I heard her singing In her room." “She is not there now,” he answered, “She is gone I” CHAPTER XXIII. “She is gone!” The words struck me with ■ dfsmffy?““L concluded at = once"TfiaF old Peter had succeeded in capturing poor Psycho. He was not a man who threatened idly, as the murderous attempt upon the girl's life had already proved. I •Spoke my four to the cottage. “You have nothing to fear from him,” he replied, with confidence. “It is more, probable that she has left the house as she did the other day when she found you gone.” This view was partly confirmed in my mind when I found the back door unbolted. After taking a hasty glance in her room and round the garden we returned to the Chase lt was there she sought me before; she knew we were to dine at the house; it was natural to suppose that she had taken the same path, and had wandered from the open drive into the deeper shade of the park. Yet my heart sang with a fearful misgiving that the hope was delusive. We w’ent up to the house; then separating we searched the alleys of the park, calling “Psyche” as we. went.. But’ho answer came. I found myself on the spot where I had asked Ethel td’bo my wife and taken her into my arms. Then, noticing a closethatched ■ hedge, and remembering the sound of a stifled sob that had reached nix ears, I felt convinced that it had come from poor Psyche's wrung heart, and that she, iu seeing me embrace Ethel as I had never embraced her, had learned for herself what I had not.found courage to tell her—that I loved Ethel more than I loved her. “My poor little sister !” I cried, and waited with the last hope of hearing her sweet voice echo “poor little sister!” Not a breath broke the awful siience. Alone I went back to the cottage. I called her again and again in the garden, and went into the house to search in every room with blank hopelessness. Opening the door of my own room, I found a trace of her that crisped the hair on my head. The room was strewn with fresh-cut flowers. There were flowers on my pillow, and beside them the ring that Ethel bad put on her finget. I sat down, unable to go farther, for this touching souvenir was too significant to be mis understood. Our conversation of the night before came back to me. What she had said in speaking of the impossibility of Ethel living with us applied unto herself—“ She could not do that—it would be too much pain, more than she could boar. She would rather live alone than see that you are mine, and riot Tiers?' And she had found that it was for her to go away and live alone. "But where had she wandered?” I asked myself, starting up as I realized the necessity of finding the jioor girl and soothing her agitation at once, I did not fear suicide. Psyche scarcely knew what death was; the possibility of self-destruction was beyond her imagination. Had she simply gone along the road, on and on, with no other object in view but to get away from the place where it was too much pain to live? No. In her room I found a clew to her destination. There was a cupboard in which she kept with a strange love the relics she had brought away with her from the cave. The rough serge sack in which she worked by my side in the burrow, the shoes she wore when the day’s work was done, the necklace of shells that I had ground on a flint and threaded' together—-they were gone, and beside her bed lay all the clothes I had given her in her new life. I felt sure she had gone back to the cave to live alone there with the memory of ttros? happy day; when her Tieart never ached. It struck me that among those things which she could not find words to tell me about was some sort of a premonition of this return. The old life was often in her thoughts; but she had dwelt more than ,usual upon the cave this last night. Long after our conversation about Ethel she said: “Brother, do you remember the pretty things we carved in the wall of the cave? There was a piece you marked ilLblack that I never had time fb finish. Only a little more and Ttwoutd be all finished.” And inter on she said : "We have forgotten all about poor Caw; I wonder if he would know me again, and come on my shoulder if I called.” With these lecollections coming to my mind I ran across the downs. There was only one, way to the cave that she knew, the way by which we had left it together, and that way I knew she would try to return hy. I went down the gap; to my consternation the water was up, and after following the shore some distance I was prevented by the sea from going farther. I ran Iwe k, up the gap and along the cliff in frenzied haste. Beyond Headman’s Point T looked down. The light had so faded that I could bare-

' •"] t-., - " ■ ly distinguish the fragments of cliff strewed on the shore worn the foam of the watef breaking-against them. Presently I stood on the cliff just over the ’ covern and strained my eyes in the dark ’-hgos..of rocks and water below. A few jackdaws were wheeling rounds halt way down; their cry was to me a terrible omen. Then gujping down my choking emotion. I called Tor the Itjst time : • “Psyche ! sister! Dear Psyche !” It may have-been no more than imagination, and yet a cold awe chilled me to the heart as there seemed to fpll upon, my ears that and plaintive fall, of the aeolian song of my sweet littk helpmate. As I rushed back along the cliff I met Sir Henry. . . ' • « "What'is' the matter?” he cried. “You look like the ghost of yourself,” “Poor isyehe is down there," I ansnered through my sobs, still running on. “\Vhat-doyoa—meanrTl»omeY”4ie-said;— his voice almost as -broken as mine. “She hgs tried to go back to'the cave — I know it. I know it! —and the water has come up!” “Oh, heaven, have I this to answer for, too I” he cried. We dashed into the water like madmen, and waded and swam till the point was rounded, mil then we got upon the send and-ran again till we came among the great boulders and - ragged fragments of the fallen cliff. ■>—-e — —— And there we found her just a little beyond the receding waters in her drabbled dress. Iler hands were clasped tightly upon the string of shells I had put . about her neck in days when she knew pain; and now in her sweet child's face there was the same expression of innocent joy it had worn then. I trust in God’s mercy that at last she forrot that there is suffering in this world, and died With the happiest memories she knew. (To be continued.)