Part 28 (1/2)
Tears are in et that promise?
Do you wish to make yet happier the woman whom you have so many times made happy--who has cherished so much ambition for you?
Meriwether Lewis, my friend--you ould have been my lover--for whom there is no hope, since fate has been so unkind--coenerosity! Come back to me, even in your hopelessness! Will you always see me with tears in my eyes? Do you see me now? I swear tears fall even as I write And you promised always to kiss ood fortune attend you always, wherever you go--in whatever direction you may travel--from us or toward us--from me or with me!
Meriwether Lewis sat, his face between his hands, staring down at what he saw Should he go on, or should he hand over all to William Clark and return--return to keep his proift of all his life, that face which indeed he had left in tears by an unpardonable act of his own?
He owed her everything she could ask of him What must she think of him now--that he was not only a dishonorableaway from the responsibility of what he had done? No blow froony than this
For a long ti, but at length with sudden energy he rose and flung open the door of the dancing-room
”Will!” he called to his companion
When William Clark joined his friend in the outer air, he saw the open letter in Lewis's hand--saw also the distress upon his countenance
”Merne, it's another letter fro her neck!” said Williaht it?”
”I don't know”
Meriwether Leas folding up the letter He placed it in the pocket of his coat with its fellow, received th, ”don't you recall what I was telling you this very --I felt that fate had so more for me You know I spoke in doubt”
”Listen, Merne!” replied William Clark ”There is no woman in the world worth theexecrable, unspeakable!”
His friend looked him steadily in the eyes
”Rebuke not her, but me!” he said ”This letter asks me to come back to kiss away a woman's tears Will, I was the cause of those tears I can tell you noexecrable, unspeakable--I, your friend, did that!”
Williaenuinely troubled than ever in his life before, was dumb
”My future is forfeited, Will,” went on the sanize; ”but I have decided to go on through with you”
CHAPTER VI
WHICH WAY?
”Which way, Will?” asked Meriwether Lewis ”Which is the river? If we h Which is our river here?”