The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-21

in West-end lodging and lived for the rest of
the year ct Torquay, where Mrs. Molyneux,
Clares mother, had n house OF her own. The
| widows means were limited, and just suffced
! for this kind of life, and dare say she looked
forward with dread to the expense of launching
pretty daughter, still more. perhaps, to the
idea of being outshown and aged by the daugh
ters appearance. Anyhow, she kept Clare very
close, and when Stuart Mackenzie proposed for
his cousin, Mrs. Molyneux received him with
| open arms, and forced on the marriage with all
the strength of a mothers influence Clare,
who was at first reluctant was gradually per-
suaded to think herself very fond of her cousin.
He and she had been playfellows in her child
hood, and she had liked him very we'll then. Il
was catering to think that one of the hand
soonest young men in London was over head and
| ears in love her. The idea of immediate escape
| FROM the governess the German poets, and the
dullness of London lodgings was pleasarter still.
| The prospect OF voyage to India was sheer en-
was hurried on, as the Afghanistans were under
sailing orders within six weeks. Clare spent her
honeymoon in Italy, and sailed with her husband
from Trieste in great troopship fortnight
| after her wedding day and six months before
| her eighteenth birthday"
"Poor child
1.-THE life in India was gay and bright enough
| at the first. There had been rumors Of war,
| but nothing came Of those rumors India was
| supremely quiet in that long lull which followed
| the suppression of the mutiny. Gradually, slow
| ly the sckening truth dawned upon my poor
Clare. She had married q profigate; spend
thrift. a gamester She shrinks with horror
from all memories of that hateful life; yet there
have been times when it has seemed relief to
her to talk to me about those days, when the
overburdened mind has thrown off some part OF
its load; and at such times | have encouraged
| her condolences. Her husband was one of
| the most popular men in India from social
standpoint, during those first few years. He
was brilliant, fascinating clever, open
| handed; but he was a thoroughly bad man
| all the same and his wife was the chief sufferer
| by his vices. Then came a change. Incorporate
habits told their usual tale. He grew nervous,
excitable, short tempered most of all when he
had been unlucky at play; and play was his
nightly amusement. He became very unpopular
with his brother officers and the feeling of the
mess at last came to point which rendered an
exchange inevitable. Mackenzie exchanged
| from the famous Afghanistans into line regi-
ment quartered in the south of Ireland"
"A dreary change, / should think" said
| Stukely, whose happiest years had been spent
| under an Indian sun, to whom the ways Of In
dian life were the familiar ways. and those of
| Britain strange
"A change that wrecked him forever. In India
there were some restraining influences, caste,
| society," the knowledge that the eyes of great
men were upon him; but in that shabby little
Irish town there were none. He sank into
dull apathy-abandoned every ambition Of an
honorable man-sulked with his wife-was fool
ishly indulgent one day, brutaly harsh the
next, to their only child q boy of seven, and the
wife's solitary consolation. He had spent nearly
| all his money. He had thrown away all his
| chances Of advancement. He knew this, and
| the very knowledge that he was ruined man
made him reckless He drank to drown care
| drank until delrium tremens became chronic
| malady. Oh, the horror of those days. as
Clare describes them. The ever-recurring evil,
which she dreaded in every hour of her life. She
was his nurse when he was ILL., She screened
him-she apologized for him--she enabled him to
Eollx
| have forfeited it. They went from station to
| station--now at home, now abroad-and it was
| on their return to that dull old town in the
| south of Ireland that the catastrophe occurred
which gave Stuart MackenZie's name a criminal
| notoriety.'
II remember. 1t was at Malow the murder
occurred"
''The crime was hardly to be called murder
| for the wretch was mad when it happened He
had been laid up for week with an attack of
| delirium tremens which was little worse than
| any previous experience in the same line His
! orderly was good fellow, young, stalwart
between them to nurse him and t. sep
| everything. dark, though his paro IS
were at times so violent as to need 10
| orderlys strength and all Clare's cou. .ge
to grapple with him. Things went on like this
for week, by which time both servant and mis-
| tress were fairly worn out, while there were no
| signs of Improvement in the patient The doc
tor knew what the complaint was, but did not
| know half the violence of the attack, careful
| was Clare to conceal the worst symptoms-a
mistake, as she discovered afterward."
II can understand that look in Lady Darners
| face now" said the Colonel. meditatively; 1.-The
| look of a woman who has suffered intensely in
| years gone by, and who can never quite forget
| the old wounds"
Perhaps neither Glare nor the servant knew
how utterly exhausted they both were by what
they had done and gone through in that dread
full week, for when Clare left the man on guard
| one night, and went to. her room for
a few hours rest, she had per-
feet confidence in his watchfuness. The
poor fellow dropped asleep at his post. 1t was
moonlight night in summer, and Mackenzie's
window opened onto balcony. The trooper
had locked the door and put the key in his pock
ct. But to man of MackenZie's athletic train
| ing the descent from the first floor balcony was
| nothing. He saw the keeper asleep, saw himself
unmatched for the first time since his malady
had come upon him, and, delighted at the idea of
freedom, he got up, dressed himself hastily in
trousers and shooting jacket, scaled the balcony
and made for the gates of the barracks. At the
gate he was challenged by asentinel, who did not
| recognize him. Mackenzie did not answer the
challenge, and the soldier tried to stop him. He
wrenched the gun out of the sentinels hands,
and shot him through the head. The sound OF
awakened the men in the quarters near
est the gate There was an alarm, and
the sentry. was found dead in front of
his box Mackenzie was not found till late on
tIc loiioWluS oltoEuoob, WAou ITO was ulSCoVcTcu
hiding in wood five or six miles from the
barracks, with the sentry's gun in his hand
| stark mad. There was trial, which resulted in
Captain Mackenzie's detention during her
| Majesty's pleasure; but he only lived little
more than year after his transference to the
| county asylum, whore Clare visited him every
week. He never recovered from that shock and
the exposure of that night. He sank into state
Of melancholy madness, in which his nights
| were haunted by horrible dreams-always acting
over again that struggle for the gun with the
sentry-always shooting him and seeing him
| fall shot through the brain-not one sentry, but
| hundred sentries-till he woke in an agony,
stepped in cold sweat, which he mistook for
| blood He used to tell Clare these dreams
with an awfully graphic power which tortured
! her He became singularly mild in those days
H., nd ;ynhn Ia in,