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46 A: DREADFUL TEMPTATION.
[ She kissed her mother’s face as she spoke, then hurried -
It out, shawlless and bare-headed, into the chill morning air.
pl It was a dark and gloomy dawn, with a drizzle of rain. >
| falling steadily through the murky atmosphere., Fe
kt A fine, white mist was drawn over the sea like a wind- |
Ba ing sheet. . The sun had not tried to rise over tho dismal.
prospect. “
Xenie ran heedlessly down the veranda steps, and’ bent |
I: her steps to the seashore, looking about hercarefully.as she’.
fa went, and calling frantically all the time: ee,
>, ‘Tora, Lora, Lora! Where are you, my darling? Where | -
ful are you?”
fe But no answer came to her wild appeal.
ti The soft, low patter of the steady rain, and the solemn
th sound of the waves as they madly surged upon the shore, ~
seemed like a funeral requiem in her ears, a
She could not bear the awful voice of the sea, for she re-
membered that Lora had hated it because her husband was
buried inits illimitable waves.
But suddenly a faint and startling sound came to her
ears. a
She thought it was the moan of the wind rising at first, a
F then it sounded again almost at her feet—the shrill, sharp.
fo wail of an infant. : ok
Xenie turned around and saw, not twenty paces from ~*~ . >
her, a little bundle of soft, white flannel lying upon the wet.
sand.
She ran forward with ascream of joy, and pickedit up. —
in her arms, and drew aside one corner of the little em- 9 =~
broidered blanket. ee
1, Joy, joy! it was Lora’s baby—Lora‘s baby, lying forlorn: — .
Hu and deserted on the wet sand with the hungry waves roll-. |...
Het ing ever nearer and nearer toward it, as though eager to”
draw it down in their cold and fatal embrace. . fe
With alow murmur of joy, Xenie kissed the cold little ~
face and folded it closely in her arms. Pe
‘Lora cannot be very far now,” she thought, her heart. ‘
beating wildly with joy. ‘*She was so weak the babe has
slipped from her arms, and she did not know it. She will.
come back directly to find it.” es
_She ran along the shore, looking through the gray dawn ~ -
light everywhere for her sister, and calling aloud in tender
accents: He
‘Lora, Lora, my darling!” Bo a
But suddenly, as she looked, she sawastrangely-familiar. -
ll form coming ae her along the sand. . Cute To vd
i was a man clothed in a gray tweed traveling-suit; sur rr
as tourists wear abroad. cand wa ling put, such tes
He stopped with a cry of surprise.as they met,.and there -