Her hand dropped from his arm, her whole being grew cold till the icy chill penetrated to her heart. She watched him, as he glided down the stairs, with a strained and wild look. Then she turned and went into the chamber where her husband lay dying.
When Myra came forth again she was a widow. In one of those cemeteries hemmed in by moss-grown walls and filled with gloomy verdure, they laid the young husband down to his long rest. A pale little woman with two fair children wondering at their black crape dresses, stood by silent and filled with a dreary wonder that it took so little time to render a human life desolate. There was no noisy grief in that solemn inclosure; the little children held their breath in vague awe. The mother looked on as if those strange men were burying her heart which she could never rescue back from the grave.
Years went by—life made its inevitable claims, and the great battle of the law went on, which Myra fought out in behalf of the parents who were dead and the children of her husband. In the course of this struggle, a brave old man, one who had served his country well and stood at the head of its armies, laid his heart and his well-earned fame at Myra’s feet, and she became his wife. A few years and he, in the very city which had proved so fatal to her first love, lay down amid his ripe honors, and died, blessing her with his last word on earth. And now she still—indomitable still—untiring fights the great battle alone, and another year will prove that the life-struggle of Myra Clark Gaines has not been without its victory, and that energy, even in a delicate woman, can at last overtake justice.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.