Litchfield enquirer., 1876-04-13
WHOLE NO. 26O2.

Stra iss's. The bliss was at last his own of actual companionship with this woman whom Howard had brought to his side this woman of the whole wide, world whose soul had been one with his for brief eternity of happiness. They had met without constraint. It seemed to him and to her they had known each each other for thousand years. And unconsciously blending dreams and fancies that sprung .intuitively to meet each other, they drift ed fatally on. At last Jack paused, im- pelled by a vagne fear, and the one, two, th.ee-four, five, six-pulse of the waltz fell temptingly upon his ear. It throbbed and throbbed upon his aching heart. The little satin slipper near him tapped dream fly to the coaxing measure.
 :. ''Do you-do you waltz P And for the first time in his life he stammered.
 ''No-yes-sometimes," :" she faltered. 'I will with you"
 And so culminated tue joy and misery of the poor entry clerk. For even With thls one woman of the world to him rest ing upon his heart, her breath exhaling and mingling with his own, amidst the voluptuous swell of the strlnged instru- ments, the glare flight and dazzle of dress, he felt more than ever like a phan- tom-a mocking Mephistophelean phan- tom, with which grace and youth and in- nocence and beauty could never have aught to do.
 For the next three days Howard was so busy in dancing attendance upon his be- trothed and her rather fussy and exacting father that he lost sight of Jack complete ly. On the fourth he watched the tips of Mss Armstrong's feathers and a handker- chief waving from the top of her fathers cane disappear finally down the bay on their way to Southern port.
 r. Write to me to-day" Miss Armstrong had said at parting, with slight warmth of manner, for which Howard was duly grateful, and off he sped in search of Jack.
 After purgatory comes paradise" said Howard to himself. Having acquired little ease with practice, he had followed Jacks whims and vagaries upon quires of delicately devised note-plper with pa tience and forbearance, looking beyond to that happy future smoothly running Tn n half .milllen-dollar groove, and to the easy, nOnchaLGnt marital relation. comfortably bereft of the boredom of love-letters. Howard went whistling down the metal clad stairs of Grimshaw, Grind, and O., invading the dlngy and driving subterra- mean department with the air of one upon whom Fortune smiled. His eyes sought out the high stool and prominent desk of the champion accountant, but, To ! it was vacant.
 "Hallo where's Jack ?" he said to tho head of the department.
 "Why, didn't you know ?" said that functionary, with the. melancholy eager. ness that pOrtends bad news. ''The other morning, after the blowout at Grim shaw's, he came down little late, and I noticed he looked shaky-thought per haps substituting champagne for whiskey hadn't agreed with him, but didn't say anything: you know how testy he IS. And he's my right bower: can't get along with out him. Don't know VI hat I'll do down here. Every things at sixes and sevens-"
 "Go on, will you?" said Howard, fercely.
 "Why, all at once, right in the middle of a bill, he coughed a little, as you or I or any other man would cough, took out hls handkerchief. wiped his mouth, and then got off his stool and said he thought he'd go home. began to beg of him to stay through the forenoon. He showed me his handkerchief. Don't you think I'd better go 2 he said, with that bitter grin of his; and I said Yes, for it was filled with blood. Then he coughed again, and he did stay the forenoon, after all. He had like to have died here that morning with hemorrhage of the lungs" '"
 Howard turned on his heel and walked straight out into the street. To do him justice, he never once thought of his own Inconvenience, but was absorbed in anxie- ty for Jack, his comrade, his life long friend. He stumbled up the stairs of Jacks lodging house. and found him help less upon the cot in the corner; but the smile with which he welcomed Howard was bright with tho brightness dying suns diffuse." One of the boys from the store watched there, ,sand the poor shufiing landlady wiped her eyes with her grimy apron. as she went out the door On the pine table were white grapes, jeilies, nuts, flowers, candies-all the abortive efforts of Jacks co.laborers in the old working room at Grimshaw, Grind, and Go 's to appease gnawing anxiety in behalf of their champion.
 We must get him out of this beastly hole, said Howard to the doctor, when he came. II want him up at my rooms. He can have everything there that can be got for love or money"
 But the doctor shook his head gravely. "Not just at present." he said, "we'll see later on.'
 And later on he still shook his head. So good half of the fine salesman's life was spent in that "beastly hole, with no present hope for better cheer or luxury than could be procured with the few con veniences there. Howard never gave up hope for moment; but day after day as he mounted the dilapidated stairs that led to Jack, he was conscious of a vital tug- ging at his heart-strings.
 And somehow, as the. days went by, both these men of Gzimshaw, Grind, and Co. began to talk and wonder and speculate upon strange things-things with which that commercial establishment and the big world it catered for and toadied to had nothing whatever to do.
 There was a good deal of groping in the dark and stretching out of fainting hands to the big mystery that was fit to baffle stronger hearts than those of these two boys of nearly thirty, who had never look ed upward except to prognOsticate about the weather. .....
 ''Itll all come right, Jack, old boy," Howard would generally say, in conclu- sion. "There's no especial hurry. When you get we'll we'll look into this matter. Upon my oath and soul believe there 8 something in it..
 In the mean while it will be supposed that Miss Armstrong was not forgotten. All through their doubts and dreams she was the significant thread in the wretched tangle. Distracted by her accommodating and unanswered letters. Howard had ses- saved to answer them simply, briefly and blunderingly no doubt. The correspond ence on her part became colder and short CT in every letter that she wrote. At last itceased altogether, with the annoupce- ment that she would shortly be in New York, where she would confer with him npon matters of importance to them both.
 There's only one way out of it" said Jack, when Howa: had told him of her coming. ',Re honest at last. Howard; confess in full the great tand.unpardonable sin done to this purest and best of Gods creatures I wish all the agony and II . j -