The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1885-05-13

he's the best farmer in all the country
round. Come home along with me. "
"No."
And he strobe away, leaving old Tom
Blackthorn in a stare.
So this is what he had come home to
find. Pitifully weakened as ne was,
forgetful of once familiar voice and
face Tom Blackthorn's wits were clear
enough to know that Patience was to
be the wife of Enoch Marrish in two
days. Falsehood and error about that
there could not be. 1t could not be
true unless Patience were as-no; there
was nothing to liken it to; as false as
hell, they say, but hell itself must
henceforth be called false as Patience
Blackthorn. There could be no mere
misunderstanding here. 1t was fact
that the villain who had betrayed him
had won his sweetheart, too, Ii Pa
tience had been spirited silently away,
would he have looked at another woman
in the worldP No; while life endured
And in, sixteen months she could forget
him and be consoled-by Enoch Mar
rish, the rich man!
And he had come home with hope so
confident and so high. There was
omen of all good-fortune in his having
been left unburied when, after their de-
feat, the French retired; in his having
been damaged enough to be sent home
after six weeks in hospital at Talavera.
He was as certain OF finding Patience
waiting as of his own life, and more.
And-since she was about to be the
wife of another, she could never have
been true.
What mockery it was that he had not
truly died! He thought no longer OF
the career that he had meant to renew
by fighting his way up the lost steps of
the ladder again. 1t was no moment
in which lost and broken love could be
made up for by ambition, If ever it can.
II was all blank and dark-the star that
had lighted him through the valley OF
the shadow of death shone no more.
His heart seemed all at once to debut
it was in wrath and pride.
1t was well that he had not been al
lowed to name his name. 1t was well
that he had been forgotten. Patience
had forgotten hint must be the work
of his life to forget her. She could not
have been deceived. No deceit could
have made her marry another. That,
at least, must have been of her own
free will. He judged her by herself, as
all men must Judge all men, and all
women, too. As for Marrish-but Mar.
rish as well as another, since another ii
was to be. The meaner the man, the
more fit for a false woman. So that
was why he was to be put out Of the
way-and it had been well. Better had
been death than loss Of faith; but better
loss Of faith than marriage with false
hood and Patience Blackthorn. The
very worst had not happened to him,
after all. She had promised him
because he was rich when she was poor.
She had thrown him over for the first
man who was richer still. It was an
old story. And yet-would to Heaven
he had never been made wise, and had
gone blind to the grave
And there on his finger was what was
TO have been her wedding-ring.
The wretched circle Of the metal for
which girls sell themselves sparkled
with mockery in the sun. 1t was from
the moment of this coming on his finger
that the tragedy had begun. Up to
that instant he had been more than all
he had ever hoped to be. From that in
slant it was as If he had been mere
slave TO some demon that dwelt therein.
Fancies run riot at such moments as
these. The ring-it was the symbol of
broken faith and falsehood and all evil,
II it were not the cause. 1t should
curse the finger Of true lover and an
honest man no more. With a bitter
pang he recalled the triumph of first
putting it thereon; then, with a wrench
like the crushing Of heart and brain to-
gether, he tore It from the hand that
had carried it through despair, hope,
death, exile, and threw it from him far
away.