The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1875-04-22

During the trial, woman, plainly at
tired and closely yelled, was observed to
be unremitting in her attendance upon
the proceedings; and the prisoner, it
was noticed, seemed to watch for the
entrance of this person, and to be uneasy
till she came, when his handsome face
would flush slightly, his dark eyes
brighten with pleasure, and he would
resume his usual air of mingled pride
and determination.
When Frank Reeves bright young
head vanished behind the ignominious
prison walls, he carried next his heart a
little scented note without address or
signature, but written in an exceedingly
delicate female hand, and having in one
corner most dainty silver and blue
monogram, &C. D." 1t said: "You
are hero. 1 am cowaraly creature,
unworthy of you. But the day you are
free man, if you do not despise me
too utterly by that time, L will be your
wife. Every hour of your heroic i'm
prisonment L shall think of you. L love
you already, and shall love you more and
moro till we meet"
Three years from that time, Mr.. Du-
hamel died suddenly; and his daughter,
still single and still beautiful, came into
thu possession of a large fortune. In
the course of the fourth year she OBJ
tanned, by private and personal appeal to
the Home Secretary, Frank Reeves
pardon.
The two met at last in Miss Duhamel's
own magnificent drawing room. The
beauty and heiress had attired herself
with an artistic elaborateness she had
never bestowed on any party or recep-
tion toilet. Her loveliness was beyond
description; her eyes were flashing with
tears.
Frank Reeves came calmly into the
room, and stopped few PAGES off,
without offering to approach nearer.
He w.s very pale, and his closely-cut
hair altered him very much. The years,
tho confinement, and the companionship
of brooding thoughts, had craven upon
his face stcrner lines than had marked
that handsome countenance in the flush
of eager, romantic youth.
Some unexpected expression in that
face seemed to strike Cleora.
Frank" she exclaimed, and in her
naughty voice was new and piteous
accent, "yOu have never forgiven me,
Frank 1 have suffered too"
He did not say more, but his eye
flashed, and he uttered the word "suf
fered" after her contemptuously.
" am pardoned convict" he said,
proudly. "In the terrible prison to
which your cowardice condemned me,
my young and eager manhood, all those
generous and self-sacriticing impulses
which made me your tool, even the heart
which loved you, have been one by one
crushed out of me. 1 forgave you at
first. Afterwards / grew bitter month
by month, day by day. 1t was so little
you needed to do, to have saved me all
that long horror. Your father would
have forgiven you. 1 might have been
spared my honor, my good name, if
you had stood by your own wrong
doing"
"Oh, Frank, will atone am rich.
We can goanywhere you are not known"
Cleora exclaimed, sweeping towards
him, and extending her white hands en-
treatingly.
He lifted his somber eyes once to her
peerless face.
"Miss Duhamel," he said, "there
are soma things that even money can
not buy-that even the love of beauti-
full woman cannot atone for. That is
what I came to tell you, and Good
bye"
Without SO much as touching her
hand, he was gone.
In another country, Frank Reeves re-
deemed himself from the stain of that
injustice once done him, and became an
honored member of society through his
own patient endeavor.
Miss Duhamel never married.