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58° A DREADFUL TEMPTATION.
‘© Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining!
- Days of sunshine are given to all,
Though into each life some rain must fall.”
Tle paused and Jooked around him. He found that he. .
had come into the outskirts of another rude, little fishing.
village
A ‘Tittle ahead of him he could see the fishers bustling
about on the shore. . os
“T have come four miles, atleast,” he said to himself.
‘What a great, hulking, cowardly fellow I am to run that
far froma woman’s tears. Far better have stayed and
tried to dry them. Um! She wouldn’t have let me,” he
added, with a rueful second thought.
’ os *
Then, after a moment’s idle gazing out at sea, aimlessly .
noting the flash of a sea-gull’s wing as it wheeled in the blue. -
air above him, he said, resolutely :
“Tl go back. anyhow. Perhaps Ican do something to — -
-help them. They are but women—my countrywomen, oo
too, and I'll not desert them in their trouble, even though
she does hate me.”
He turned around suddenly to return, and the fate that |
was watching him to prevent such athing, placed a simple. .
stone in the way. He stepped upon it heedlessly, his ankle
turned, and; with asharp cry of pain, Howard fell to the ©
ground.
He made an effort to rise, but the acute pains that sud- - Ls
denly darted through his ankle caused him to fallback upon.
the wet sandin a-hurry.
‘‘Umph! my ankle is evidently master of the situation,” uA ‘,
he thought, with an expression of comical distress.. we
Raising himself on his elbow, he shouted aloud to the men
in the distance, and presently two of them came running ©
to his assistance. oes
-°«T have sprained my ankle,” heexplained tothemin their.
~ native tongue. ‘‘ Please assist me to rise, andI willtry to —
walk.”
But when they took him by the arms and raised him up, -
they found that it was impossible for him to walk. =~
“This is a deuced bore at the present time, certainly,”,
complained the sufferer. ‘Can you get me any kind ofa
trap to drive me back to the village yonder?” -
The peasants looked at him stupidly, and informed -him ._
carelessly that there. was nothing of the kind available. .
Only one man*in the vicinity owned a horse, and it had
sickened and ‘died a week before. et eh
Howard felt a great and exceeding temptation to sweara _
very small oath at this crisis, but being too much of a_
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