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Show A CHANGE OF HEART. The Story of a Heroic Rescue. The girl sat with her knees up and her hands clasped around them looking hard out to sea. The small waves danced in the stiff little wind that was blowing to seaward, each crested with a tiara of falling diamonds that sparkled and flashed with unceasing, wonderful brilliancy. The rocky shoreline stretched to right and left of her, naked, brown, lonely, swept by the dipping, drifting sea gulls, and there was none to behold the austere beauty of it all but the girl, and she was unaware of it. Her blue eyes were round and fixed in tho unwinking stare of one who looks on other things. The wind blew her hair, unheded, in little tendrils around her face and her lips were drooped wearily at tho corners. She had come away, here to the sea and the rocks and the sunlight to bo away from it all, where she might not see the thing which, was fretting her heart out namely, the tall, stately figure of the other woman with its wonderful charm of sweeping dignity, and the face of the man. She could not quite understand it, yet when she met her and had to bear the quiet friendliness friend-liness of her heavy-lidded, slow smile, she got a faint glimmering of her power. She had tried hard was trying hourly in the face of the quizzical hundreds of the frivolous beach resort to bear herself as an older woman might. She smiled and danced and drove with everyone except her rightful escort, and tried desperately des-perately not to blush with aching consciousness when a glance fell questioningly upon the ring on her hand her engagement ring. But it was hard, so hard that at times she had to get away by herself to gain new strength for her barrier of indifference. And she did love him so, the man loved him so that each moment he spent with the other woman wo-man was an agony of unbearable torment. And he spent many moments with her nearly all of them. At first It had been scarcely perceptible just a smiling excuse and a drifting away to her portion of the veranda when the other woman came down then the drifting with the excuse iorgotten, and at last It had come that he always was to be found in the other portion. At first she had not noticed, so confident in her happiness and her faith in her ideal of him was she, and then she had begun to wonder, and at last, her heart woke up and began to break Itself. She had tried desperately to right herself with little tenderness, for it seemed that she must in some way be to blame perhaps she had hurt him some way, had roused a bit of jealousy but it had fallen pitifully fiat, and then she had seen. And she had read the face of tho man with eyes suddenly clear with wisdom. From the discovery she had walked daily with tragedy, for there was depth to the girl. She had had dreams of a home and little home duties, the sweet, old-fashioned things that makes home a paradise to the weary man of the world tho evening firelight, the dropping out of society, which she liked with the joy of unsatiated girlhood, girl-hood, for the dearer treasure of the deeper life. And now tho dream was shattered for the sake of the other woman. She hated the other woman with a righteous hatred, and then with a hatred that was not righteous, but all human. And the hatred grew from day to day. Sometimes she felt that she could strike her full in the face. The man had a slight troubled line between his eyes, and she laid the sad balm to her heart that he was Worrying. But it was not sufficient to bring him back to her, whatever his conscience said. His ring still glittered glit-tered on her hand, whore he had placed it, and she could not bring herself to take it off, though she knew it would be better if she did would lend her tho semblance of spirit, anyway. She HH.' mf looked down at it, spreading her hand In the P?'(j, ,; light, and the slow tears welled in her eyes. Her ffi'i ilk', ( Hps quivered and the girl was crying. The ring Hf i u ' and the rocks and sea faded in a gray mist, pierced by one ray of light which the stone caught and Hr'V valiantly sent into the dimness of despair to Bv"- viM comfort her. Her eyes slowly traveled out to B'i' m. sea 11811111 and tno tears ran down her cheeks. It Hi1'; if was a great relief to cry just to lot herself go, Rl drop the mask and let heart sob out its bitterness ' L t'ty and its longing for the man! It was almost un- ;!; I :k' bearable, the smiling pretense before the people, is !i if; the light jest and laugh when her ears were " r h straining for the voice of the woman, the step of '. I ;j the man, which was sure to follow. 1 " -1 f1' Suddenly something crept across her blurrjd , ' $ I vision and she swept her hands across her eyes. It K ,. I I1 was a boat, a little boat, rocking and tilting with . I' j j the waves, for the girl noticed in the moment K-I t; i, that ho straightened up that the wind had risen a Hn j, - bit and the sea was a trifle rough. There were f two people in it, a man and a woman. The girl Hk ls llh went crimson beneath her blowing hair. Oould 1' ' i'fl li tlloy not let ll0r al0IW ovon uoro? A vast furv Kf j' I swelled up within' her at them both. HffV'l'''!1 '1 The other woman sat in the stern under a HI'.:., y broad, white hat and the man was rowing with a HR good bit of effort. How magnificently his supple H' ' , :. form bent to the oars! But the boast seemed H: . vjfe unwieldy. It was the Mermaid she knew by the H) I " i$ color a tippy, treacherous shell. She had used H I ' ' HI! ifc norsolt'' for tno gir wns a cuI1(l tn sea H 'I ." iltji and hours-long battles with it had seemed to help H if ; lir when she could bear the conventions no longer. i ' HI slie 8nt sti11 wltu ner nancls round her knees, and Hj J ", xM. watohod. They were boating in against the wind, B if '!'' ww and sno cnew now nard to handle was that short, Hk'l W irai choppy motion. ;i ijf 1 I In a moment it had happened, so quickly that i r sno acarc0 was Buro 10 saw lt;- Uttle rougher .? K ii plunge and the unsteady Mermaid had turned tur- .:' tie as completely as if a hand had reached under l and rolled her over. For a moment the girl did ' ; j, not move, so hold by the amazement of the mom- l t j ent which an accident throws over the beholder , ti was she. Then as the man came up with the ; ; f Sf s, struggling woman on his shoulder and caught des- 1 , f, 'f- perately at the slippery boat, she sprang to her j feet with a cry that rang out across the water. i:.'.;:' I M 11 llad suddenly come to her, a fact she had always ' I ' .fy 1 1 !, known that the man could not swim "a stroke. For v ; '.'j I.Jjj one breathless moment she stood in horror, then 1 '.''; ! h leaped down the rocks, unfastening her short skirt , 'jj j . as she ran. As her foot touched the water she i, ' Jjr. j j i remembered her slippers and kicked them off. ' t $ M Then she plunged out with her best stroke, for the " I '1 - !' tl(1 was beating up the rocks. A surge of joy f( j I rose in her. This thing was the best that over : . 1 came Into her life. ' ! .( i Out there was the man, holding up the other I w' woman, and she was coming to them across the s fllf dashing waves. They beat against her face and 'Bp she laughed, above them. A gull flew low over tt " her shoulder and the man had turned his face H Bjl toward her. There was a groat wonder in his eyes H Wk and his face was drawn with anguish. That B r -H'fm was lest the other woman wore drowned, but she R flfit swam a bit faster. Pier heart was beating hard, B "''TIB but 10r arms were never so sti'ong in all her life. Wtr', .; jBi She felt as if she might bear them both to shore. Br ' 'm B I With a wonderful ease the girl rearhed them in B' IB tl)e nol,ow of a wave. B1 mm you wI1' 1u' your nan(1 on my shoulder," B' MB sIle salcl to tIle woma:n' "I n take you to shore." Hhi jEH But the woman only gasped with terror and clung H' t Bfi closer to the man. The girl floated and smiled in B flit tlle 8Un'wasn vlllle be directed, and presently B HIB trembling arm of the woman was transferred B Bnl to liei and she struck out slowly and carefully at B BH first' talkln Quietly to reassure her burden. A B B4A thousand thoughts ran through her mind as she B Y tolled, swimming low for the terrible weight. B-' h rim An(1 tl10 man clung to tllG Mermaid and watch- H; 1 Mfm His eyes were changing with every foot thp girl fought back. Her strength never wavered, her courage never faltered, though the short distance grew long with tho drag of the woman in the pulling pul-ling waves, and when tho friendly rocks reached out for them and she half drew the frightened woman upon them, she was radiant and tho bluo of the sea was in her eyes. She was filled with an oxhillration she could not explain, a feeling of strength, of self-poise she had never known before. be-fore. And all tho way out to tho Mermaid again she wondered, for her bitter hatred of tho other was gone washed away in the slapping waves. That wag nothing to fear that limp, white-faced heap whimpering on tho rocks. As she rounded to in reach of tho man's hand she looked frankly into his eyes. And the man laid his fingers lightly on her shoulder and said softly, "Dear girl!" The diamond on her hand flashed through the water as she reached, and tho man was talking, lowly, brokenly, between tho lifting waves. She glanced across the water ahead and that queer, lifty feeling was growing stronger In her heart. She wandered again, for those words from the man, rushing out in a torrent of self-condemnation, and broken pleas for pardon, which an hour ago would have been all tho world to her, seemed a bit flat as if it were something that had come belated. As they reached the shore she looked at him. It seemed that ho was someone else other than the man. Ho held out his hand with eloquent eyes. The girl shock back her wet hair, and as she gavo him hers, frankly, with a hearty grasp, she laughed. "You two are sights!" she said lightly, and picked up her skirt, slipping it on over her dripping drip-ping petticoats. She put on her slippers as if it was tho most commonplace situation in the world. i "" . "You had best go back by the Hidden Way and avoid the cameras," she said, and to the woman, easily, as an older woman might have done: "I hope you will be all right after your adventure. I don't believe it will hurt you; tho water is warm." . - And then the girl walked away down tho beach beyond the rocks, and . her head was held high and her heart was strangely happy and at ease. Tho world looked now and very attractive, and she felt as ono who has passed through some great sorrow which has worn itself out who has put it behind him and looks out ahead for tho good which life still holds. Fallis Guthrie, in Town Topics. |