Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1888-01-08
CHAPTER ".

There was no answer to his impatient
knock at the attic door, and he repeated
it, wondering if he had arrived before
Madeline.
1t was strange that no one should have
been left in charge of the baby. He
gazed around him vaguely the house
was in fairly respectable neighborhood,
but not one suited to his wife's position,
and the attic to which he had been di-
rected-it was not possible that she lived
there she must have hired the room for
a studio.
1t was curious that she should have
painted the baby in such q poor place
and amid such wretched surroundings
strange, above all, that she should have
chosen him as her model of a child dead
from starvation it was not like Madeline
to take such CHASTITY subjects.
Suddenly he started what il this had
really happened? What if they had been
reduced to such straits that the boy had
really died of want He put the thought
away Immediately. Madeline would not
be reduced to such extremity before re-
turning to him besides, there was al
ways the parish to fall back upon-that
Olympus of man. slater day Surely she
would not let the boy starye when she
had only to apply there to have her need
supplied then she knew that her hus-
bands door would not be closed against
her she certainly would have come back
to him
Hard and cruel as he had been to her
sometimes, he was always fond and ten
der in his sober moments. She would
have remembered that and not have re-
NAMED away had she been destitute.
Then he recollected the threat he had
uttered the night on which she had left
him, his brutal words, and the mislead-
ing
"To.morrow another woman will be
mistress of this house "
Was it possible that she had taken the
words as, in his fiendish mood, he had
meant them to be understood ? He had
intended to explain them to her after
wards, but when he had returned it had
been too late-Madeline had fed and
taken her boy with her.
He groaned and leaned against the
door for support. 1t yielded to his
weight. He would have fallen had he
not caught the post. He stumbled for
ward, as the door flew open, into the
room, where he stood transfxed and
staring.
Before him there were the bare
boards, the mean furniture, the empty
CRATE, cracked plate which had recently
served as a palette, and litter OF tubes
and brushes.
Before him, too, the picture he had
seen in the dealers shop lying on the
floor, and another picture besides-a
a woman lying face downwards, as she
had fallen, at the side Of an old tattered
shawl, and on the shawl p
A little waxen figure, still, with blue
veined lids lying lightly over the sunken
eyes in their last calm slumber; one arm
thrown across the breast, the other stiff
on the floor, the outstretched fore-fnger
pointing-pointing.
Philip Vivien staggered back as
though he had been shot; he could not
meet the terrible condemnation of that
little white finger, and moved away from
it. Then he stopped and called his wife
gently:
Madeline, Madeline, my darlingl"
There was no answer he stopped
closer, but he dared not touch her.
Madeline, l said what was false to
you that day {; il was my sister who was
10 take charge of the bouse-no other
woman has crossed the threshold since
you left it. / was not myself when l
said it, but / will never touch spirits
again. Ipledge you my word, Madeline,
from the day you come back TO me
will taste nothing stronger than water"
Still there was no answer, and he
bent forward beseechingly.
"Oh. my darling, can You not for
give me-"
The silence remained unbroken, and
as he cast down his eyes he saw that the
child's finger on the canvas was pointing
directly at him.
He stepped aside hurriedly, then full
OF a horrible dread he raised his wife's
hand it was cold and growing rigid.
Dropping it suddenly he stood up
with hoarse cry:
"Oh, my God Who has done this ?"
He had changed his position, and as
he looked down aghast at his dead child