The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-05-25

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for learning was grand ole. But he was
foreigner and full of preiudices against the
habits and people to which and whom Kate
had been accustomed all her life. He fell in
love with her in fact, for her vivacity, and
then he tried to knock it all out of her, be.
cause it fought with his Iecollections of the
demeanor of the daughters of his own land.
Blu. Kate bore a good deal from him, in
friendship, at first on account of that love
she always had for talent and her womanly
weakness for success. So somehow it came
about that their names were coupled together,
not maliciously at all, but as a matter of
course; and as they were all in the same set,
and his devotion to her was palpable thing.
it got taken for granted that they were en-
gagged, and some people pitied the grave man
of learning good deal for having suffered
his choice to fall on so notorious a firt as
Kate COningsby.
That she was flattered by her conquest over
a mind that was infinitely more powerful
than her own is a pitiable truth, and she
made what even must anmit to be culpa-
BILE pretence of rejoicing in the fact of having
him in her thrall. She told him about Len
nox, and goried openly enough in her love
tor him, and his love for her; so that the
open, even those who blame her must con-
fess.
The awful crash came soon. As I've said,
she had never heard anything about Lennox
all this while. One day she went to see the
young lady who had been the mediu of
bringing about the latest folly with the fol-
eigner, and after few remarks on Indifferent
subjects this girl said to Kate:
Have you heard-but of course you have
that Captain Lennox has destroyed himselfp'
1t is useless trying to describe what Kate
did thnuUht fp1t U1tap
dealt at her. Though the announcement
was made to her in such an apparently heart
less and horribly commonplace way, she
knew it was true, and that it was not meant
unkindy. Her friend believed that Kate
would have no special feeling in the matter.
and acted according TO her belief. And no
one ever knew what Kate's feelings were, for
she never spoke of them. A long, agonizing
illness followed, and when she came out of it
her youth, and brightness, and courage were
gone. But she declared that the illness was
fever, and that she had caught it from some
one else and no one could gainsay her.
Her courage was gone, and no she needed
it more than ever, for cruel reports were not
scarce about the affair and people who knew
nothing at all about the matter conjectured
freely about it. 1t got bruited about that
poor Lennox had heard all manner of ru-
mOIs about the girl he meant to have made
than come home to find himself cheated.
Kate went through tortures of humiliation
and grief, but she hadn't the sharpest pang
OF all, 'remorse,' to endure, for she had moth
ing to be remOrSetul about. But the Whis-
perlngs stung her to death nearly, and she
grew nervously sensitive about being treated
as one whose hands there was a stain of
blood.
The truth came out at last and cleared her
but it couldn't do away with the pain and
shame and sorrow which had been her por-
ton. Something had gone wrong in the
regiment about money matters, and Lennox
who was as honorable and proud fellow as
ever breathed, couldn't stand the shadow of
a suspicion that had been cast upon him. 1t
was money, not woman that drove him to
that doom; but if he had known how that
poor girl was made to bite the dust in conse-
quence of his rash act, he would have lived
aud faced everything, believe, rather than
have left her such a CHASTITY legacy.
It's no use pretending that she didn't de-
teriorate from that time-she did sadly
enough. With her heart bleeding still for
the man she had really loved, she pledged
her hand to the brilliant scholar who de-
served something infinitely higher than Kate
had come to be now. But she was so sore
and wounded, so tempest-tossed and shat
tered, that she could not resist the oppor-
tunity of anchorage in any harbor that
offered. But it was a wretched day for her
when GoliDger declared his love for her,
and on my soul believe it was a far more
wretched day for hin.
He was man with chivalrous ideas about
mans honor and woman's purity, and that
very manner of Kate's which had captiyated
him became scourge to his back as soon as
he regarded her as his own property. Ac-
cordlng to his idea the fit and proper wife for
an honest man was the girl who had never
thought OF love, much less learned it's mean
ing, until the honest man babe her belong to
him. 1t was grievous thing in his eyes
that Kate should have loved and been be-
loved before she saw him. 1t was even a
more grievous thing that she would not ig-
more having done so.
He was good man, and he was a great
man; he had made himself familiar with all
languages and studied all creeds-but he
knew nothing of women. Kate could not, or
at least she did not, resist the fascination of
Gollinger's name and fame. For the man
himself she had no love, and the bondage be-
came intolerable to her. Yet she shrank
from the thought OF giving him up, or of his
giving her up, with shrinking that only a
woman whose love ventures had all failed as
hers had, can at all understand. She grew
afraid of him, for under the guise of a suaye
and gentle manner he had an intolerant
spirit and difficult temper. He wanted the
girl he had chosen for her imperfections ap-
parently to cast them like an old skin, and 10
develop new and unnatural PROJECTIONS, that
belong to quite another order of womankind,
under his auspices. She could far better
have stood downright good rowing from a
fellow who would have called spade a spade,
as an Irishman would have done, than she
could stand the transcendental twaddle he
talked to her. He made out to the girl, you
see, that, though he knew better, the rest of
the world would deem her purity sullied if
she so much as got spoken about And it's
always been Kate's fate to be spoken about
She goaded him into jealousy by showing de-
light in other peoples society when she felt
it. And he hadn't the manliness to call it
Jealousy but just worried her by declaring
that it was all for her sake, and without any
consideration for himself that he spoke.
He was not good-lookiug fellow, nor was
he sufficiently plain for his ugliness to be in
teresting. Therefore, when he jeered at the
womanly weakness which made her see more
merits than were in handsome men, and
gbed at every man as being brainiess W no
happened to have personal beauty, when he
did these things in dulcet tones, Kate saw
the littleness of it all, and wasn't the more
closely bound to him for the sight.
The yoke was very heavy to her for several
reasons. 1t she had been Economically in
love with him, as she had been with Lennox,
she could have borne all the uncertainty and
waiting without word or sign of WEAKNESS,
But she got to despising herself for her cow
ardice in holding on to an engagement that
CALLED her merely because she had made it in
a moment of folly. She'd have gone on
working like a niger, and enduring like
woman, if he had clnched the matter and
married her then. But he was a eau
tious customer, and his prudence was so
much stronger than his passion, that be
spoke of his marriage i'm few years.
time as an adventurous undertaking which
love of her would probably tempt him to
embark in. But he he held her in such men
tai and moral grip the while that, though she
painted to fly free from her letters, she was
always held back from doing so by some con-
sderation that might seem impotent to others
but that was as strong as death to her.
Naturally, though there was an idea float
ing about that she was engaged to Gollinger,
other men didn't hold aloof from her,
for her brains gave them sense of COM
radeship with her, and her destinations have
always had the power of turning a real or
fancied lover into fast friend. You see she
had no real anchorage-ground in this bond
age she was in to Golnger, and so she drifted
about, now striking on sunken rocks, and
now rl1pnpp fOul of othor no rlzc povoc bo;nr,