Wild Youth, Complete

mers remained incongruous, alien and alone. The handsome, inanimate girl-wife never appeared by herself in the streets of Askatoon, but always

in almost solitary control, because other members of the congregation, feeling his repugnance to companionship, gave him the isolation he wished. As a rule he and his wife left the building before the last hymn was sung, so avoiding conversation. Now and again he stayed to a prayer-meeting

here was something startling to her undeveloped nature in the thunderous apostrophes, in terms of

esitated before every cave of mystery which her daily life with him opened darkly to her abashed eyes. She felt herself going round and round and round in a circle, not forlorn enough to rebel or break away, but dazed and wondering and shrinking. She was like one robbed of will, made mechanical by

or when she saw them and others at the Meeting House. It was, however, not a smile for an individual, whoever that individual might chance to be. It was only the kindness of he

she sat in a buggy while her monster-man was

But suppose she wakes up suddenly out of that

animal on the verge of extinction! He had not mistaken that fluttering appeal of her fingers. He was young enough to translate it into flattering terms of emotion, but he did not do so. He was fancy-free himself, and the time would come w

help, as so many had done in that prairie country, and not necessarily for relief of physical pain or the curing of disease. He had helped as many men and women mentally and morally as physically

e cat and the canary did not seem incongruous where she was concerned; it was as though something in her passionless self neutralized even the antagonisms of natural history. She had made the gloomy black ca

ch marriage brings. He had taken off his hat to her in the distance, but she had never waved a hand in reply. She only stood and gazed at him, and her look followed him long after he pa

o talk with her gloating husband which was not monosyllabic. Her canary sang, but no music ever broke from her own lips. She murmured over her lovely yellow companion; she kissed it, pleaded wit

her nothing in return-neither companionship nor sympathy nor understanding; only the hunger of a coarse manhood. Her obedience to the supreme will of her jealous jailer gave no ground for scolding or reproach, and t

s final and as fateful as birth or death. That day she was taken suddenly and acutely ill. It was only a temporary malady, an agonizing pain which had its origin in a sudden chill. This chill was due, as the Young Doctor knew

tell what view the master of Tralee would take of her action, ill though she was. She was not supposed to exercise her will. If Joel Mazarine had bee

iendly fingers over innumerable years. When he came and stood beside her bed, she put out her hand slowly towards him. As he took it in his firm, reassuring grasp, he felt the same fluttering appeal which had marked their handclasp on the day of their first meeting at the railway-sta

n; it had driven her back into an arrested youth. It was as though she ought to have worn short skirts and her hair in a long braid down her back. Hers was the body of a young boy. When she was free from pain, and the colour had come back to her cheeks a

nal, though friend

y sick!"

miled. "You'll be all r

't think of anything else. My father used to say that the

kind smile, his arm resting on the side of the bed, his chair drawn along

used to think it was a beautiful world, and the

o make you

igger the black cat, and Ju

d strangely wide upon him i

d. "I want to tell you-I want to tell you.

want to know. As a doctor

firmly. "Tell me

ace. "But who can tell when yo

e answered in a commonplace tone. "You are my patien

spasmodical movement

's Louise. It was my mother made me do it. There was a mortgage-I was only sixteen. It's three years ago. He said to m

hingly. "But you must not talk of it now. I unders

nk I should ha

w you must be quiet. Drink this." He go

all. "That's my husband," the girl-wife said, a

lied the Young Doctor.

n entered the room. "He's here," s

the Young Doctor murmured to

he saw the half-breed woman lift his wife's head

ghly. "What?" He stopped suddenly, f

ing the old man's eyes; and there was that in them which would not be

" He motioned towards the do

presently, after a scrutinizing look at the still, shrinking figure in the bed, h