Page:The Black Cat v01no03 (1895-12).pdf/47

Rh pression would never fade. He had sat at the oilclothed table, in the little cabin, and tried to sufficiently detach himself from the children and himself to get an unbiased view-point. He could see only the light of her love in her eyes, the child-love in theirs, and, through their gentle subjection, their genuine faith in and dependence on him. The shabbiness of his environment she did not permit to become slovenly; but the common vulgarity of it all surged through his eyes like light. He had sent the children from him and gone out into the pines, until the vast, sweet silence of their majesty laid more on him than he could bear.

As he came in the door she had handed him a letter left by a miner on his way from camp. She had lighted two candles, and pulled up his chair, and hushed the talking of the children in their bed. She had sat near and searched his face for what the actual possession of the letter could not have given her, and felt only misunderstanding because she had never seen a struggle between the spirit's life and death.

Frazer had read, "Whatever the mistake, we can yet outlive the pain of it. I am waiting for you." She had signed the name he had made for her, and he could not look at it twice for the blinding tears under his lids.

Geraldine was waiting for him!

Geraldine's mouth, which drooped at the corners and created the dimples she hated, when it fell a-smiling, was ready to yield to him!

Geraldine's face, and beauty, and spirit were true to him!

He could not tell how long it was before he got possession of himself. The candles were dripping low in their tin sockets, and one of the women who loved him was still in her chair near his elbow, frightened, and quiet, and intense.

He had held out a hand to her and she had come over and knelt at his side.

"Little one," he had said, "this life is not right for our children. To-morrow we must get the priest and be married. There is money now, and they must be taught to live more cleverly than their father and their mother."

He had left her perplexed in her relief, while he threw himself on the bed for the sleep of utter exhaustion.