The Thorn

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Title:     The Thorn
Author: Laura E. Richards [More Titles by Richards]

When the youth started, he passed through the Forbidden Wood, and wandered there, plucking and tasting the fruit, smelling the flowers, evil and sweet; and as he plucked and smelled, it chanced that a thorn entered his breast, for it lay open. He took little heed, for he was young, and the life strong in him; so the thorn made its way in, and presently was buried in the flesh; and he forgot it, for it gave him no hurt.

By and by he came out of that wood, and shook the dust of it from his feet, and set his face toward the mountains, for a voice told him that there he should find his life and his Love. And so it fell, for as he fared on, his Love came to meet him, and he knew her, and she him. Then each held out arms of longing, and embraced the other tenderly, speaking fond words; but when the maiden pressed her arms about the man, a pang shot through his breast, bitter as death; and he trembled, for he knew it for the piercing of the thorn.

The man set his teeth, that he might make no outcry, and then he looked at his Love: and see! she was snow-pale, and held her heart with both hands, as if in pain.

"What is it?" cried the man. "What hurts my Love?" and she answered, "I know not; a pang shot through my heart, bitter as death."

"Oh, Love, what like was the pang?" cried the man; and heard her words before she spoke; for she said, "Like the piercing of a thorn!"

[The end]
Laura E. Richards's short story: Thorn

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