The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-07-27

unfettered, perhaps a mental, working at
base duties, and perhaps thief. Ihave
read so many cases since Of such incredible
freaks Of mad brain I know not what to
think.
with all my journeying, with all Ihaye
done, and with all the best detectives can
do, not one ray Of light has ever penetrat-
ed the darkness Of that ~soundless night.
MY story is told. You see before you
a man old and white at thirty-six. l am a
man without a hope and without a motive
save these l have named. My Agnes is
lost TO me. / saw her once with her HAPPY
children around her, and kept aloof that
the chill and damp of my life might not
touch hers. She does not know of my re-
turn; she never will while live. Ny re-
turn has been kept a secret in my native
place. know now the force of the name
Enoch Arden.
"MY broken-hearted father sleeps in his
grave. My love for books and study is
gone; my motives for my former reading
have died. | am studying, as you see, but
only on cases bearing likeness to mine.
81 am possessed of the almost insane de-
sire of piercing that impenetrable gloom.
study the reports Of the insane and inva-
lid asyiums in the vain hope that may
find a clew.
sMy mother and sister plead with me to
frfua M ,av 20 a rnIt a ND la racfx-aA hat -
cannot be. Strangers think me still mad.
Do you wonder at me and my quest9
Think what it is TO stand at the very
gateway of life, the dew Of the morning
about You, a 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 unseen shadows and smite you with
thunderbolt covering your life with black
ness Of an eternal night-to slip into a
noiseless sea-soundless and pitiless TO be
washed up at the end of ten years, your
love lost to You, your father from whom
yon parted in rage dead through grief and
remorse, your plans a wreck, tortured by
the past and Knocked by the future, a wrlth-
ing worm beneath the remorseless heel of
fate, then to say to me if you can, forget it
all and be resigned. Upon me in my youth
have come these things and I cannot for
get"
| was dumb in the presence of such q
man and sueh an august sorrow. The
booming roar Of the city's traffic formed a
thrilling undertone TO that monotenous,
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.
Could it be possible that such lines and
stories jog the elbows of business? Do
such spectIes walk their lands of dreams
amid the hurrying throngs rushing totrade,
to hew, 10 eat and drink and dances I
look with different visions now upon the
street with its web Of Arachne threads of
purpose.
have framed theory after theory to ac-
count for the mystery. Why did not the
Keepers respond to the oilers OF rewaru2
What eould they hope for keeping him.
How eonld he escape the search made for
him and how came he 10 reach home SO OPP
portunely. 1t was incredible. II was SO
wrought upon me that l called upon the
chief of the detective agency, who verified
his story.
"We detectives said he, ''see contin-
ually this shady side of the street, of which
to-day you have had a glimpse" He had
no tenable theory; lie too was batied at
every turn.
Ipassed in profound detection from the
presence of Gregory, this g~ray-haired bro
ken yonng man, who had thrown over me,
a casual listener, the shadow OF his pro-
found misery.
Small wonder if he be insane.