OCR Text |
Show I zA Vision in I the Forest U CARL CARTER (Copyright, 1S15, by W. G. Chapman. "I must confess this is a ghost story," said Jamieson at the club "However, you cau put it down to three nights and days spent wander ing in the Adirondacks, if you prefer to. It doesn't matter to me. I've half a mind not to tell it anyway, only I remember the expression on Tarrant's face when he told it to me. "Tarrant and his wife had been married six years, and that is just about the time when trouble develops if it is going to develop at all, especial ly when a couple are childless. They just began to disagree. The truth was, they were living an artificial city life, and both were getting bored. "Tarrant and Molly had been deeply in love with each other when they married. Molly couldn't understand why Jack seemed not to care for her any more, and Jack Tarrant won-, won-, dered why the sweet girl he had married mar-ried was always nagging and finding fault with him. They talked of a separation. "The matter was still up in the air when they decided on spending their usual summer holiday separately. Molly went home to her mother and a lot of crank female friends the unmarried un-married kind who try to separate bappy couples. Tarrant went up to ihe Adirondacks to fish. "The first day or two he mooned about, very miserable, and yet relieved at the sense of freedom. He had expected ex-pected to long for Molly; on the contrary con-trary he began to think of all the un-happiness un-happiness that had been in their lives . The thought of the tie between them maddened him, and that was how he lost his way in the woods at sundown. "Tarrant had no woodcraft at all. He Wandered On and On. He wandered on and on. and by the time he decided to shout for aid he was at least ten miles from anywhere right m the heart of the most desolate tract in all that wilderness. He slept somehow that night, and the next day-was day-was the most terrible of all The sec ond night he became delirious-but MoTly " a" be kD6W that he hated "He had no more knowledge of the Passage of time, but toward evening he came suddenly upon a little desert ed place in the heart of the fores There had been a clearing there once, and there was still a tumble-down log cabin. Tarraht approached, trying to Pull himself together sufficien 1 to a Pear intelligent, when suddenly there emerged from the cabin the most beau t.ful girl that he had ever seen 'Tarrant was not in a condition , butTher! wminine b6aUty u" fen" cut there was some quality in the girls face that seemed to slun n" facult.es, so that he could only sta ' and stare at her. It was nnt the physical beauty of soul, the wistfulness and 07h iVhi7ahitshheart had seen the girl before H ' h" -man dressd Ins ran h lmi,0S3i.b,e' of course. Tar- carL t0 Wnder wheth" rein-carnation rein-carnation was true nri ., .u ence that had slipped f om his 1 I rpy,T th,hiS birth- Suddenly he r aT zed that he was behaving rudely rt r. had turned away and? gons "Tarrant Kent In. but, when he en tered at last, after knocking " edly, he found the hut empty. He le-cided le-cided that the girl, alarmed at his behavior, be-havior, had gone out of the back. "Being a gentleman, of course he could not stay, but he could not resist taking some bread, rather stale and dry, and some cold bacon that he found on a table. He withdrew with these into the forest and made a ravenous rav-enous meal. Then, tired out, and inured in-ured to mosquitoes, he fell asleep. "It was earliest dawn when he awoke. He opened his eyes in astonishment, aston-ishment, and at first he could not re member where he was Then, all ai once, he saw the girl again, standing where he had seen her before, at the. door of the cabin. "He approached her very courteously, courteous-ly, raising his hat. This time she did not run from him, but stood still and smiled. He apologized for having frightened her the night before, and asked her if she could direct him to I his hotel. "He must have presented a terrific spectacle, all scratched, dirty and bruised from his long tramp, and with the wildness of delirium still in his eyes. But the girl only smiled again and stretched out her hand, indicating a trail. Tarrant thanked her. but she went back into the hut without a word. Afterward he remembered that she had not spoken to him at all. "Plunging heavily along the trail, Tarrant walked till the sun came up. Then. lifting up his eyes in amazement, amaze-ment, he saw, not half a mile away, his own hotel. "Fifteen minutes later he was back, and ten minutes after that he was en joying chicken broth in bed. After that he slept the clock around. "When he awakened he told his adventures ad-ventures to the hotelkeeper, who had formerly been one of the local guides. But when he mentioned the girl in the cabin the man was silent. Tarrant pressed him hard. '"Who is she?' he insisted. "At last the man raised his eyes sullenly to his. 'She died a score of years ago,-' he answered. 'She was the wife of the old squire, before the land was bought by the state. She died when her baby was born. She was always al-ways kind to folks, and she loved children.- "That was all Tarrant could get out of him. He tried to find thP trail through the woods many times, but none of the guides admitted knowledge of it, and the landlord flatly refused to show him. And Tarrant, thinking over the matter, all at once understood why he thought he had seen the woman before. "The look in her eyes was the look that he used to see in Molly's eves-long eves-long ago, when he courted her, before the rubs and jars of married life had worn away the sweetness of their love. "Tarrant was no fool, and after a while he began to piece the warning together. That look which had so allured al-lured him, that look which he had seen m the dead woman's eyes and in Molly's what was it but the universal, univer-sal, loving soul of woman, embodied now here, now there, but always noble and always sweet? "And Tarrant knew that In loving Molly he was loving the spiritual quality qual-ity which is given to all men in some form, in life, but is so often thrown away and lost through misunderstanding. misunderstand-ing. "That night he hurried home, and a" the way in the train the wheels beat 'Molly.' He arrived, fearful that ne nad already taken some irrevocable irrevoc-able step. He wanted a chance to tell her, to explain ... but when he reached the house it was alight, and it as Molly who met him within the darkened hall. "He flung his arms about her and stammered out acknowledgment of his hideous mistake. "He felt her tears upon his face. Dearest she whispered, 'I came home. couldn t stay away from you longer I was writing to you. What a mistake e have made dear. And there is something . . . listPn,. 13 'Incredulously Tarrant heard th whispered story, while his heart beat madlv when c v,j . . . dc - . ,lt..u uone ne f0 fj p. her h,s arms. 'We shall never part again, through all our lives,' he said And it was only afterward that he remembered how the woman of the lonely cabin had died, and understood why she had come to him." |