Rae Arbuthnot [pp. 444-448]

~446 ~ THE LADIES REPOSITORY.
suddenly, turning and leaning her face on my
bosom, and shivering as if with cold.
"Yes, Rae, will you come down?"
She sat perfectly motionless for many min utes, and lwhat she suffered and in what she
conquered in that time I suppose that God
only knows or can know. At last she sat up.
"I knew that Clyde had come, Ruthlie, before
ouL came up; I felt it in all my being. It is
\w-rong in him to come here now, but I will meet
him. Leave me now, dclear, I will come down
soon;" and so I left her and went down to the
parlor.
Fifteen minutes later she came sweeping in,
calm, and stately, and grand, and I caught my
breath as my husband said, "Here is an old
friend of yours, Rae," and Cyde came forward.
She gave him her hand-" I am glad to meet
you again!" "It is pleasant to find you here,
Rae!"
That was all, and then we breathed freely
again, and the talk wandered off on various
subjects. Yet I could not help watching these
two with an uneasy fear that some word dropped
thloulghtlessly would break the calm which they
forced themselves to maintain.
For many days after that night I lived in a
fever of anxiety. I could see that Rae shunned
him, and that he sought her, and they both
looked so pale and sad that it made my heart
ache for them.
At last he found her one day sleeping among
the cushions in Dora's window, and, with a
murmured prayer of thankfulness, he kneeled
clown by her and watched her, waiting till she
should wake. The strong magnetism of his
gaze drove the spell of slumber from her eyes,
and she opened them to see him beside her.
"Rae, 0 Rae, do not send me from you! do
not turn from me!"
But she did turn her white face from him,
putting away with her small hands the arms
that sought to clasp her.
"You had no right to come here after what I
said to you three years ago at parting. It was
cruel in you to come, Cyde!"'
"0, Rae, you makle me suffer!" he cried
hoarsely. "Have you no love left for me, Rae?
Have you forgotten that you said once,' I glory
in loving you?' Let me hear you say only once
more that you love me! only once, Rae!"
Then she turned suddenly and drew his head
to her bosom, holding it there tightly, while her
face bent luminous and white above him.
"O, Cyde! did you think that I could forget?
did you think that I could love you less? You
can never know how I have suffered in all
these years for y.our sake!"
"Rae," he pleaded, "tell me what it is that
keeps us apart! tell me what can hinder you
from giviing yourself to me, and let us overcome
it together."
"I can not, I can not! 0, Cycle, you must
go away firom me now! I ought not to have
forgotten, but it was so sweet to be with you,
and my heart was so hungry."
"I will not leave you, Rae, until you tell me
what separates us. I have a right to know
what it is that wrecks my life. You must tell
me, Rae."
"Never, never! I can not! leave me, Cydcle,
and try not to hlate me for making you suffer so,
for I suffer too."
She turned her face away again and looked
out across the yard, and, as she did so, her
tearful gaze fell upon a woman, who, apparently
recognizing hler, came toward the window.
"Merciful heaven!" moaned Rae helplessly.
"What is it, Rae?" askled Cycle, and then
scanning the face of the woman who approached,
lie was startled by a strange resemblance be tween her and the girl beside him. She was
older, and her face was haggard and wan, but
in her younger days she must have been the
very counterpart of Rae Arbuthnot.
She came and leaned in at the window, and
instinctively Rae held out her hand, while her
face grew tremulous and full of pity.
"No, no, Rae, little Rae, my pretty, you are
good, and lcincl, and forgiving, but I dare not
touch you, my lily, though my heart is famishled
to kiss you! I did not come to trouble you,
sweet, 0, no! I only wanted to tell you that I
can't live many days, and to ask you that when
I am dead, when I am surely deadcl, dear, and in
my coffin, you will kiss me once for the sakle of
the clays when we were little girls together, before I sinned for your sake, Rae. Will you
promise me, childie?"
"0, O Margie, willingly, willingly! I'11 kiss
you now if you'11 let me, Marg-ie!" wept Rae,
hollding out her hands to the woman, whose
dry, brighlt eyes, burning with fever-fires, devoured her pure face with a famished gaze.
Cyde had risen once to go away, but she
detained him. "Wait," she said, and he
obeyed.
"Cyde Lennox," she said at last when she
could speak calmly, "this woman is my sister.
You know me as I am, and I want to tell you
that I owe to her all that I am. We were left
orphans Alhen I was a little girl, and we lived
through the old story of poverty in a great city.
I remember its bitterness, and how Margie
toiled clay and night to provide for our wants
with her needle. But at last hunger and ex