Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-24
foRIe1NAL
THE WAYS0F TIE WORLD.
foRIGINAL sERIAL sToRy.l
BY JUNIUs HENRI BROWNE.
CHAPTER X.

den had last parted from Christina Uhlger.
with promise to return early the day fol.
lowing. She had watched for him hourly !;
she had not stirred out Of her rooms, lest
he might come, and she should miss him.
She could not believe that he had aband-
oned her; she would not believe it; for
she had told him that she would trust him
to the end, and trust him she would against
all other appearances. Something had
happened, she knew; he had been sud.
denly called out of town, and his message,
announcing the fact, had failed to reach
her. He had been taken i'll, too i'll to send
her word. He might be dead. No; she
would not credit that that was a horrible
imagining, born of intense loneliness and a
furnishing heart. If he had died; if any
serious accident had befallen him,
she would surely have learned of
it; for she had scanned the daily
newspapers morning and evening. No
mans life was more important than Philip
Royden's-so it seemed to her, poor girl
and every peril that threatened him would
be felt in the very air she breathed.
She had thought Thousand times that
she would go to his home and inquire.
But that, she was aware, would cause him
pain, and might disclose her secret and his.
It would indicate her want OF confidence,
| L LII hin,
Did she not The very question argued
otherwise, and she forced it out OF her
mind. But it took refuge in her aching
breast, where, without it, there was agony
in excess. She had shed rivers of tears /;
she had eaten very little; she had had ter
rible dreams both waking and sleeping !;
her whole system was disordered her
brain was well-nigh turned /; she could not
reason nor think she could only feel, and
her feeling seemed sufficient to kill her.
| Her nature was worn out she looked
positively insane, when messenger ap-
peared bringing letter addressed to her IN
Philip Royden's well known hand. She
was happy for the moment; he was at
least alive, and presumably we'll. But
why had he staid away? She tore the let
ter open; she devoured it; its contents
seemed to pierce her like knife. Pale as
she had been before, new and startling
pallor. came her head fell back she put
out her hands as if to push away some
horrid vision of her mind she fell for
ward sank upon her knees tried to rise,
and dropped full length npon the floor.
What she had read ran thus:
"THURsD AY AFTERNOON.
"Dear Christina am sorry to tell you
that we must part. have wanted to tell
YOU this some time, but / did not want to
make you feel badly. All your talk the
other evening about our marriage was abb
surd. You never could have thought there
was anything in it. We're very differ
emit, you know, and our relation couldn't
last-such relations never do. The gov
ernor is getting quite well, and is angry at
me for what he calls my profigacy. I'd
gend you some money. if l could; but the
governor keeps me awfully short. owe
lot of bills now that can't pay. He wants
me to go on long journey, and I'll have to
do as he says You know how governors
are. You'll get on, Christina. l have no
fear for you. You're young and you're
devilish pretty, as you know. expect to
start tomorrow. Don't try to look me up,
for you can't find me. Be good girl.
Don't reflect any discredtt on me. The
jig's up. Farewell. Z. H."
When Christina fell upon the floor, she
did not swoon she lay there bewildered,
stupefed, for an honr or more. Then she
recovered herself somewhat but she could
not readily recall the immediate past. She
pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to
revive her memory, when her eyes alighted
Oh the letter lying near her. She snatched
it up, and single glance told her every
thing, and drew from her sigh ending IN
groau. The idol she had worshiped had
tumbled down and exposed, skulking be-
hind it, mean, selfish, INSCRIPTIONS, cow
ardly creature she had mistaken for the
idol itself. Philip Royden, her prince and
hero was a scrub and scoundrel. She had
madly loved man who should only be de-
spised she had lifted vulgar rascal into
her solitary heart, and deifed him with her
imagination and her passion. He had stood
to her for all that was good, coble and
beautiful, and now that he had proved
himself the reverse of this, she could not
think that goodness, nobility and beauty
had any existence. He bad been her life,
her world, and having proved wholly un-
worthy, life seemed unfit to keep, the
world toe base to live in. She thought
that all men must be, in the main, like
him his fall had brought down the race.
Her eighteen years had been an illusion,
and now the Illusion had been coarsely dis
sipased. She was repealed by herself, by
the difference between her own image,
as it had appeared to her, and as 1t ap-
ueared to her in that despairing hour. Her
thoughts were tortures, her feelings were
agonies. Further. endurance was impos-
sible; life had suddenly grown loathsome,
and life she resolved to quit.
| What lay beyond the grave she DID not
pretend TO know indeed, she did not care.
Whatever it might be, it could not be
worse than what was this side Of the grave.
II there was another world, it must be bet
ter or less bad than this, which would ne
cessitate change, and change OF some
sort was indispensable.
| Such fancies and notions as these fitted
through her mind, making no distinct i'm
preston. As with all persons who believe
themselves near death, death had no ter
rors for her the one mastering impress
sion she got from it was that it would
afford rest-rest and relief from consum-
ing pain. The determination to die Gained
her; death shone in the distance like a
waiting rscompense of absolute extinction.
| Christina Uhlger arranged her dress ;
bathed her face smoothed her hair-it was
now dark, or nearly so-and went out to a
drug store at the corner, where she was in
i, the habit of making purchases, and asked
for small vial of laudanum. She said she
wanted it for neuralgia-hers was, in truth,
case of very severe neuralgia, medically