All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOVE GOES BLINDLY. “Cheer up, doleful one!” ex- claimed she. ‘“‘ After to-morrow you will have her always with you.” But Tomasz remained gloomy and silent. Almost it seemed as if he were in the grip of a premonition. He tried to console himself with his already oft-emptied tankard. Meanwhile Vera was alone at last in her room. She leaned, breathing hard, against the rough pine wall, try- ing to compose her mind. The strain of that long day’s pretense had un- nerved her. Her faculties were benumbed. Her head was heavy—her eyes seemed leaden. Without undressing she threw herself upon the bed and, with a sigh, closed her eyes. She would rest thus—just for a little while. It yet lacked three hours of cock- crow—the time she had set for her flight. Nikolai laroslaf was to tap thrice, very softly, at her window. His droshky, with two of the fleetest horses on the steppes, were to be awaiting them, hidden in the hollow where he had met her the night before. All the wedding guests would be sunk deep in slumber in the outhouses -—some maybe lying out on the grass. But they would not hear the clatter of hoofs as the bride fled away. They would be too beer-fuddled for that. Nikolai Iaroslaf would drive fast, with his one skilled hand on the reins and his other clasped round the waist of her whom he was bearing away to better things. He would show her the wonders ‘of Moscow, of St. Peters- burg, of foreign lands, perhaps. He would give her shoes and stock- ings to wear—hang a rope of pearls around her neck: How nice it would seem to fee] soft, warm furs nesthng close round one’s throat—to do noth- ing but lie soft in the arms of a great nobleman and hear him say: “Your little hands were made for kisses, not milking, dear heart!” ' To rise late in the morning and— and—and— 837 The girl’s breathing was soft and regular. She lay there with her red lips parted in a vague smile, with the flush of dreams on her cheeks. She slept and time slipped away. III. VerA did not hear the cocks crow —did not anticipate the first pallid streaks of dawn along the horizon line. It was rather a subtle prescience that the trysting hour was come that startled her suddenly from the depths of troubled slumber. A nameless dread—a formless’ pre- monition weighted her sensibilities. The house was wrapped in an audi- ble silence. It seemed to the girl as if she were left all alone on earth. She was conscious that she had overslept the hour. She knew there was need for hurry, yet she could not shake off the inexplicable torpor. The sky glowed pink through a rent in the old skirt she had hung before her window. It warned her to make speed. ‘The chill of early morning bit. through her dress and raised goose- flesh on her bare arms. She experienced a sinking sensation at the pit of her stomach and shivered, closing her eyes tight and biting her lips until the blood left them, and they remained white as chalk. Was it the frost in the air that made her feel so, “or was it the thought of all that then hung in the balance? Vera could not tell. Rat, tat, tat!—a sudden guarded tattoo upon her window. The girl stifled the hysterical scream that rose to her lips and caught her breath—waiting. Rat, tat, tat! Rat, tat, tat! There it was again, more insistent, less guarded, imperious this time. It was he — Nikolai lIaroslaf. Vera caught a dark shawl from a peg on the wall, cast it round her shoulders, and slipped to her door with a flutter- ing heart. comilicloooks.com