Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-25

letters AL over the land. lie died, arthur,
tremb.L ing with age and sorrow, at 50. But
God. be praised you are come back to usP
| ray stunned and mute under this tragic
intelligence God in heaven, | was 80
years of age and yet had lived but y.
That 10 years was one long dreamless night.
When | became stronger / asked the ques-
ton had held in my heart and dared not
ask. l asked of Agnes. My poor boy
sobbed my mother, Agnes married five
years ago. She remained true to you and
waited five long years and you never camel
What became of me after that night, how
/ came home again, and why | had no
memory of all those years, these have
been my stories. / have visited the
kinds. have sent circulars to asylums of
all the neighboring States asking if they
ever had patient answering to my de-
scription. | am completely baiiied in
every direction. Again and again have
gone over the mysterious circumstances
of my return. No scrap of paper was upon
my person and my clothes were neat and
clean. My shoes were new but betrayed
walking. My brain was numb and weak
and refused to control my limbs, and / was
very hungry, but my muscles were firm
and my body IN good health My hands
were slightly bronzed but not calloused
by labor. | had not been earning my
way by manual labor, neither did | look
like one who had lived in confinement
My only tenable theory is that after leav-
ing my bed that night | had wandered
away or been carried to a great distance
and kept in some asylum for insane or
invalids and there remained for ten years
Escaping at last, subtle instinct led me-
| am always haunted by the thought that
with the cunning of mailman / took
upon myself some character different
from the one in which | was advertised
and thus escaped detection. Perhaps |
lived free and unfettered, and perhaps a
mental, working at base duties, and per-
haps-a thief. With all my journeying,
with all | have done, and with all the best
detectives can do, not one ray of light has
ever penetrated the darkness of that
soundless night. You see before you a
man old and white at SO. | am man
without hope and without motive
save these / have named. My Agnes is
lost to me. | saw her once with her hau-
Ply children around her, and kept aloof
that the chill and damp of my life might
not touch her. She does not know of my
return; she never will while | live Ny
return has been kept a secret in my ma
tive place. My love for my books and
study is gone, my motives for my former
reading having died. | am studying, as
you see, but only on cases bearing like
ness to mine. | am possessed of the al
most insane desire of piercing the impen-
etrable gloom. | study the reports of the
insane and invalid asylums in the vain
hope that / may find a clue. Ny mother
and sister plead with me to give up my
search and be resigned, but it cannot be.
Strangers think me still mad. Think
what it is to stand at the very gateway of
life, fair girl ready to walk at your side
ambitious plans opening in your heart,
vistas of delight stretching away to the
future, then to have a sable hand reach
from the unseen shadows and smite you
with a thunderbolt covering your life
with the blackness of an eternal night
to slip into 4 noiseless sea soundless and
pitiless, to be washed up at the end of ten
years, your love lost to you, father
from whom you parted in rage, dead
through grief and remorse, your plans a
wreck, tortured by the past and Knocked
by the future. a writing worm beneath
the remorseless heel of fate, then to say
to me if you can, Forget it all and be re-
signed"
l was dumb in the presence of such a
man and such an august sorrow. The
booming roar of the city's traffic formed a
thrilling undertone to that monotonous,
intense voice in which he finished his
story. With bowed head and fearful eyes
| pressed his hand and stepped out into
the rushing life of the street. | have
framed theory after theory to account for
this mystery. 1t so wrought upon me that
[ called upon the chief of the detective
agency, who verified this story. ave
detectives" said he, "see continually this
shady side of the street, of which you to-
day have had glimpse He had no ten
able theory; he, too, was batied at every
turn. l passed in profound detection
from the presence of Gregory, this gray
haired broken young man, who had thrown
over me- a casual listener, the shadow of
his profound misery. Small wonder if he
be insane-The Nelg Moon.