The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1886-04-08
TWENTY YEARS after.
BY THOMAS COLQUITT.

Louis Calvert was fifty years old-gray
and aged beyond his years-the night he
sat alone 10y the bedside of his dead wife.
The dark, gray shadow of long repressed
sprrow which rested upon his face was also
set in the face of the dead woman.
For twenty years he had carried dead
heart within his breasts heart dead to
every sentiment of love, hope or aspiration;
dead to all feeling but a terrible sense of
having loved and lost. A deadly, unavail-
ing regret. The wife, upon whose pale
face-still beautiful even in death, though
wearing upon il that ineffaceable impress of
silent woe-he often looks, had, on their
wedding day, unconsciously dealt the blow
which struck all hope and light and joy
from his life forever.
But she never knew it.
She never knew what it had been that so
suddenly changed the eager, hopeful, dem
illustrative lover of the morning into the
Calm, grave husband of the evening. A
cloud had suddenly passed over the sun,
and the eclipse was to darken all their lives.
For long time the young wife hoped he
would, after while, become his old cheer
full, affectionate self again, but it was not
To be so-neyer again. IL was evident that
he often attempted to shake off the heavy
fetters of despair, but always vainly. At
these times the efforts of his beautiful and
affectionate wife made to cheer him and
make him forget his sorrow only seemed III
some vague way, she could not understand
how, TO pain him.
He was good husband always kind,
affectionate, and faithful, but In every
look, or word, or gesture the loving wife
fnstinctively felt n reproach, n repulse. In
his saddened voice, in his saddened eyes,
IN his calm, cold devotion she always de-
faH ha f,1 70 !, iner
lost. "a glory and gladness had passed
from the earth" 1t saddened her early
married life; and as she grew older the
shadow Fate had thrown across his life fell
more darkiy still upon hers, until the
bright, beautiful girl whom he had married
twenty years ago had long been n listless,
silent companion to the silent, hopeless
man whose life she had so innocently and
'unknowingly blighted.
Tonight, while sitting beside the bed on
which she lies with closed eyes and death
cold lips, he has finished reading her letter
which caused all their woes. As he reads
ihe gnsps, grows deadly pale and trsmbles
violently. Then, rising, crosses softly To
her side and kisses her lips, her cheeks, her
eyes; caresses the cold, senseless form far
more tenderly than he had ever done the
living, miserable woman all the many years
of their married life; utters lovingly to the
ears forever deaf words of endearment
they so long hungered to hear, and which
but few short hours ago would have made
the poor, broken hearted woman supiemey
happy, even in death
On their wedding morning, twenty years
ago, he had carelessly read the first lines Of
that letter down 10 where the sheet was fo.d-
ed, as it lay on the table before him, and had
Turned away dizzy and heart-sick, believing
himself an unloved husband. He could
only fear that she had been persuaded by
others to wed him while she loved another,
or that she was a fair, false hearted woman
who married him for his wealth. So indel-
IDLY was this terrible fear stamped upon
his heart and brain at that unhappy mo-
ment that oil these years of love and affec-
ton, of tender. wifely devotion, had been
unable to erase or tighten it. A woman
who could practice such deception could
-dissemble lifet me if necessary to conceal
her duplicity. So he had reasoned.
Many times the letter had fallen beneath
mis- eyes, among other papers, but he had
turned from il with pam aud disgust. IL
was the serpent that had stung him, and he
was too proud and honorable To caress the
witness of his betrayal. Ii was letter
written by his betrothed, only few days
before they were married. to an elder sister.
In her haste she had blotted and spoiled it
and laid 1t aside, never dreaming that the
silly, girlish, blotted letter would blot and
darken their lives forever.
Tonight he has unfolded the faded,
blotted sheet, and read the lines below the
fold.
"Oh, my God! my God" he cries in PIT
eous, heart broken tones, "if 1 had only
rend IL ALL"
IL was too late. Far behind him in the
misty haze of memory lay the years his
hasty, impulsive pride had made miserable.
Before him lay the true, devoted, loving
wife his coldness had slain.
As he holds the old, blotted, time worn
1etter between his trembling hands, the
long. dreary years roll back, and she is
again the perfect bride full of youth and
hope, who gave her fair self TO him. The
time which bas seemed an eternity in pass