Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-02-08


 If she had only waited another day! But no doubt the very weakness in him that cried out for her made him incapable of holding her love. It is hard to confess to oneself, his soul is too poor and small for the woman of his choice to love. But that was the depth of humiliation Philip Breton had reached as he lay back on his carriage cushions At least he was generous to make excuse, even at the moment of his greatest need, for l tho woman who had deserted him. He heard voices from without. He had no interest in what any one in the world might say, he thought, but these words were the first words that fell upon his ear.
 ''Sick is it: Well, cheer up, girl, the young boss will make it all right. Yer all tired out and ye niver was fit for much anyhow"
 twill he give us doctors too!'
 "Why not? he has em when he's sick It's just right we should, as works our best for him when we're well.''
 Philip was fairly startled into momentary forgetfulness of his sorrow. But the carriage moved along fev feet and stopped again. Were the people mad Was it his duty to keep a free hospital and teach the sick to come whining to him for charity, when ill9 Wouldn't it spoil them, to say nothing from the business point of view? He began to sympathize moro than ever with his fathers 'erplexities, and to feel that perhaps, after all, his solution of them was the only prac- ticable one. But he heard the rustic of a woman's dress beside his carriage where it waited
 ''Isn't it splendid to have whole holidays" said fresh, girlish voice.
 ''This isn't the last, Molly" replied a man -l,D ,.c,I ]. ''They say we're not to work but four days week now."
 Philip drowned very unpromisingly, but the girl said:
 And how can we git along on much less wages?'
 "Why, the wages will be moro instead of less. guess you don't understand"
 Nor did Philip, but the carriage rolled along before the young man could explain, and stopped by another group.
 "Only eight hours day and every hand will get just the same No more favoritism Who told me? Why that's been the plan all along, only the old man wouldn't agree Now it's goin' through, though"
 The other man laughed. "Well, I don't see how the young boss is goin' to make the mill pay that fashion, but that's his lookout" ;"
 "Pay!" repeated the sanguine prophet. "Why those looms just turn off sheets of gold"
 The horses started once more and Philip Breton sank back again on his seat. The people had cost him his bride and his father. They had wrecked his life, and cast him on a shore of barren wastes with never one foun- tain of hope for his famished soul. And now, with stupid and yet pathetic trust they looked to him to devote his for tune and himself to them, never questioning I.s1 let perpetual sunlight into their lives.
 That evening he sat alone in the little study in the house that had been his fathers The house was full of solemn faced guests, but he would see none of them. He had bowed his head on his folded arms and tried to con- mune with the dead; his dead. There were two One his kind, tender father, whose broad, forid face always brightened with Q smile at the coming of his son. The other of his dead was a woman. He saw her as if she yet lived. What there was in this woman of all others that should have called forth such tender raptures of love he had never paused to wonder. She was not brilliant as some women. Her lips, that he believed could have spoken so wonderfully if they had cared, were oftenest closed in society. Her eyes expressed to him the rarest of noble thoughts, and it twas as if she deemed the common world unworthy, but that by and by she would speak. He had thought her heart spotless white, and the texture of her nature finer and sweeter than that of all other women. Every eye that saw her must ad- mire the threads of fine spun gold she called her hair, her soft skin delicate to the touch as baby's lips, and the queen like perfection of her form, a system of bold curves and lines of beauty melting into each other at their be- ginning and their end. But could there be any one to whom she was so much beside her beauty, for whom each phase of her thought or tone of her voice was just what seemed most fitting? And she too was gone, dead i; where no prayers or cries of his could reach or t~ugch her; dead, and yet forever alive for him.
 'Will you see lady, sir?' It was Mary, whose manner was subdued suitably to the melancholy occasion. All these trappings and pretenses provoked Philip strangely, as did the low voices of his guests and their drawn down faces He knew we'll enough they didn't care so much as all that. ''She is very particular, MT. Phi; I mean Mir. Breton"
 Then he forgot his impatience in strange, thrilling thought. He rose to his feet and walked to the window without answering the girl. Could it be Bertha had felt his hunger for her such as no other creature could have
 
 such pain as ached in his heart might have l touched her? A throb of electricity goes 1 around the world; might not such longing as ! his have reached her few short miles awayl The maid began again.
 ':Will you see a'-
 "Yes, yes; show her in" Hew wild he was tonight. Why Bertha was married to the man she had chosen, long ago; if she came back, what comfort for him? If she were not happy with this man after all! Oh, God save her from such a fate, since he lad paid such a price that she might be happy. God forbid that all his torment be tor nothing Philip was rapidly walking l he room. But supposing-and his heart ,lnlost stopped beating at the thought-she were not married and had come back to Jim after all-what other woman would 1 all on him now-what then, could he for. l tive hera
 1 The door opened and heavily yelled voman came in. She was too slight of form
 md not tall enough for Bertha. The idea lad been absurd, but human beings cannot 1 ,elieve miracles in their behalf quite i'm.
 possible. So Philip was not required to lecide the terrible question he had asked