Omaha daily bee., 1888-05-27
M.ORSE& CO

All at once the wind blew cold and
sharp, but the hand was half shut as if,
even in death, Mara remembered to
guard that heavy band and keep it from
slipping from her slender hold.
Perhaps none of us are quite free
from superstition, and eve our best be-
loved, when dead, are strange to us. |
turned and looked pon her. | had loved
her SO long, and it seemed to me that |
could read in the quiet smile, and the
fair face that 10 suffering could make
unlovely, nothing but the mute elo-
auence of that guarded ring.
l have often wondered how Mara
anne to tell me her story. 1t is such a
common One, so many women's lives are
like hers it, is scarcely worth telling,
and yet in the deep silence of the night,
with that dead hand in mine, the only
thing that seemed a living, breathing,
FACILITATING reality was the quiet trag-
edy on whose end the curtain had just
rung down.
All her life I had known Mara, but in
the wandering newspaper career | had
chosen there were sometimes breaks of
years in our intimacy, when / heard of
her as a school girl or a debutante. or a
society belle, and then | heard of her
marriage, and from time to time rumors
reached me of the magnificence of her
entertainments, and / was vaguely con-
scious that she was pursuing the life OF
a fashionable woman in one of our great
cities.
And then fate threw us together
again at a little seacoast village, and
the old friendship renewed itself. l
think / knew almost from the very first
that all was not well with Mara. She
was greatly changed, and IA ever
800. .a,..f H. I lonl IA,oI
her, but there was that something in
her eyes-you may often see the express
sion in a proud woman's~ eyes-that tells
palmer than any words the story of her
life. 1t is the history of the agony with
which she had seen her idol torn down
and trampled underfoot, defiled forever
in her sight; it is the memory of the
broken hopes and torn illusions in
which she realizes that her youth, with
all its divine hope and faith, is gone
from her never more to be replaced.
Such a woman may love again, but to
her no man can be again a god. She
fancy gilded her idol fall from it, leav-
ing it basest clay. and she believes and
hopes II trusts no more.
/ suppose / read this story little by
little in Mara's eyes in the long summer
days we We're together. | saw her with
her husband, | saw that she ben her
will to his slightest law; that she stayed
her quick brain to keep pace with his
slow thought that she brought her
keen wit to brighten the market report
or the tedious game of cards that
seemed the only thing he cared for, and
it angered meg | told myself that he
was selfish that he understood nothing
of her quick %throbbing life, of her
thought that was like "a lightning flash,
electric, burning, consuming. They
We're made of such different fiber their
lives could never be interviewer. =
Finally the husband was called away,
and for days and days Mara and | sat
silently on the sands together or talked
in such disioiuted sentences as only
friends may, each saying the thought
that rose to the heart with the certainty
the other would answer even he UNI
spoken word. On one such day as this
the sky had been like turquOis above
us and an orange sunset was streaking
all the west with tawny gold, the little
ships were coming in or going out
across the flaming water with all sails
setEMara and l We're sitting on the
white sands together, She had beer
watching. | remember, a little boat that
was going from us, and her face. was
turned from me SO 1 only saw its profile