Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/266

 "What was it he said about angels?" she mused with a smile. "Yes, I remember. Somehow I seem to remember them all!—'When I stand by your side, in every silent space I hear the beating of the wings of angels'—and I liked it! what a fool a woman is! and tried to convince myself that I didn't like it by adding, 'the wings of the angel of death,' only because I felt my hate grow weak under a silly compliment—well, I'm done with his maudlin love-making. It's judgment day."

She dismounted, tied her horse, and wandered down the little crooked pathway to the famous spring at the foot of the hill where many a lover had lingered in days long past and poured out the old story that remains eternal in its youth. She wondered at the mad resolution of her mother, taken perhaps on this very spot twenty-five years ago, that had led her to break the bonds of blood, throw to the winds every tie of tenderness that bound her to the earth, and brave the scorn of her own proud world, all for the sake of the son of a poor white man—because she loved him!

Why did people do such idiotic things? Why should a woman thus sink her soul and body in the fortunes of a man? She couldn't understand it.

"Surely this is the miracle of miracles of human life!" she murmured. "I wonder if John Graham