1868.]
DALLAS GALBRAITH.
men came across the stubble-field.
She
27
one storm-cloud after another was slowly
noticed that they walked close to the fence, looking furtively at the house,
sweeping across the sea-horizon.
talking eagerly to each other.
time when the village was ordinarily asleep, she heard a step close at hand, and Jim Van Zeldt came up and stood
After a
while, Nixon and his son came up from the beach, directly toward her gate, stopped there, and debated for a moment, and then turned suddenly, and went off together. Lizzy stood at the door, watching the two dark figures disappear in the mist over the marsh: the wind was rising, and came with shrill, fore
boding cries through the pines: the sea began to mutter and moan with dreary and uncertain meaning. Lizzy tried to laugh again at her vague dread of coming evil, but told Dallas of it, frankly. “ it is as if some one told me George Laddoun never would come to me again,” she said. “ Go and look for him, Dallas. lcannot help being foolish and weak to-night.” Galbraith put on his cap with a cheery laugh. She thought she never had seen a stronger, lighter-hearted look than that in the boy's eyes. “ I’ll send him to to you in five minutes,” he said. “ Come back again, Dallas,” detaining him. “ This is your home now, remem
Presently, at an hour long after the
beside her.
She tried to smile careless
ly. She would not ask her old lover for news of George Laddoun. But he did not give her time. He was looking past her unto the cozy little house where the light was still burning. “ So that is your home ?” he said. Jim had quiet, womanish ways, always. When they were children and “ promised” to
each other. he would have suffered her to put her foot on his neck any day. So, finding Laddoun more manly, she thought, she had flung Jim and his love off as she would a worn-out shoe. “ Yes, that is to be my home,” in a
controlled voice. “ Will you come into it, Jim ?” He did not seem to hear her. In a minute he put his hand on hers where it
lay on the gate.
It was the first time
for many years, and she noticed that his
fingers were cold and clammy.
“ I came
to bring you some bad news, Lizzy. But
ber.”
I never hurt you in my life, and, please
“ Yes, I know. Home l” turning to look back from the edge of the woods at the open door and his room beyond, which his friends had made ready for him.
God, I never will.
An hour passed, and another: the supper was cold, and Lizzy had let the fire die out on the hearth. She had gone out, and stood leaning over the gate. It was some joke they meant to play her, she thought. It was impossible that misfortune could come to her on her wedding eve! But she scarcely knew that the night had fallen_a wide, starless, melancholy night--and that the chilly salt
gusts of wind from the marshes had wet her face and clothes. The tide was coming up with a subdued roar now, and
I can’t tell her, Mr.
Kimball.” “ What is it ?” she said, with a hot mouth, to the old preacher, who had come up on the other side. He went straight to the point, having no faith in the sham of breaking bad news: “ There was a great crime com
mitted years ago in New York, my child: some say forgery, and others murder; and they have traced the men who did it to this beach. The pretended Quaker, Ledwith, was a detective.
His warrant
to arrest them came in Van Ze1dt’s schooner to-night.” “ Who are the men ?” “ George Laddoun, Lizzy, and Dallas
Galbraith.”
