A SILHOUETTE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1732, 24 April 1913, Page 9

A SILHOUETTE.

[From "Everyman."]

She was a pretty woman and a .charming one, and possessed sufficient of this world s wealth to enjoy many excellent good things. Life, however, that 1 had endowed her so lavishly withheld tho one experience she craved. Suitors she .had m plenty. Young po'jts praised her oyes, and asked nothing belter than to kneel at her small ieet. But the woman was not satisfied,.for she desired to fall m love. It chanced on a blue unclouded morning, insistent with the promise of spring, that she met a man unlike the poets of her acquaintance. Tall stroug, tanned with the sun, 1 fresh as the wind that blows over the sea she straightway -lost her heart to him ' He yras a new experience, and she felt that at last she had found the one thin" worth.knowing. The man, having work to do, was sent to the other side of the world, aud in his absence she forgot her visiM of happiness. She,forgot his simplicity of strength, that had seemed to her so splendid, and remembered ho was not skilled in tho turning of a phrase, and occasionally forgot that she was utterly adorable.

Love seemed to the woman more unattainable than before, and she returned to 1 the society of minor poets. Meanwhile tile man worked early and late, unmindful of weariness, careful only to save that he might be able to givo tho sunshine of his heart all she could desire when she was his. For that she would be his wife was to him a sure and certain hope. His enterprises prospered, and at last sho learnt the day of his' return. The news found her dispirited, nnd left her dull. His prosperity affronted her; his success seemed a reproach. He no lougor played a dominant part in her life, avid of happiness, and she went to meet him as to a painful ordeal. The train was signalled, and the great .platform was crowded; friends and relations waiting to greet those dear to them jostled against hurrying porters eager for baggage and tips. Everyone was on the tiptoe of expectation, and the woman wished she could catch tho contagion. A girl, flushed and tremulous, ran to the end of the platform; a young man paced nervously to ajul fro. If only she could feel with them that joy or sorrow would come to her in the onrushing train! . . .

She did not see him at first. Sho looked unconsciously for n tall, prosperous figure, with head held high, and a look of victory on his face—victory, of which she was the spoil.

He saw her first and touched her gently on tho arm. He was older, had gone grey, and in some strange fashion seemed to have lost his size. His face, 110 longer tanned, was worn and wistful; his eyes filled with a hunger and a longing such she had never known. And us slip nifl his gaze she knew' the things thai he had sufi'erod, and that'the work and the endurance-were for her. And a great sob ro-e in her throat. She forgot she dc-iml to love, and rouieinboml only tlial she longed to comfort. 1 And she put her arms about his neck and kis'ed him. "Am I so changed?" he asked, reading her face. "Don't you care any more? . . . T—l have lived only to meet you. Sunshine —my Sunshine!" "Changed?" she asked, between her tears. "You've grown dearer, that's all. . . . Oh, Dick, Dick! I don't think anything matters now I've gol you." ;