New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-07-18


banded from one to ano ther, and all touch
ing upon the topic that absorbed that days
attention in the town.
Therefore when the curtain arose and the
favorite actress came forward, she faced a
good humored audience. Yes, they were
merry and happy even saying farewell to her:
a tragic incident made them cheerful as need
be.
Had they known of the tragedy in her own
breast would they have been as cheerful?
She enacted the role of a merry maiden with
pulling number of lovers from which to Sc
lect a husband, coquetry in her smile and on
her lips; and all the time she was thinking
that she had made herself vile in the eyes Of
the man she loved and whom she had let see
that she loved. And yet his mother had
proved to herthat she was nothing to him, had
begged that she would set him free from her
tolls Her tolls? She had told the
anxious mother that her son was
free, had promised that she would write to
him and tell him of her engagement to the
baron. And she had done SO. and by this
time he must be thinking her the basest
woman in the world And here she was
making people light hearted with her piquant
acting as worldly maiden with more happi-
ness than she knew how to dispose of. She
got through her part and made a tableau of
joy and beauty as the green cloth rolled down
at the end of the performance,
When she was called before the curtain,
over her gorgeous gown she had slipped on a
long black cloak. Forshe had tried to escape
from the theater without responding to the
recall.
Asshe smilingly bowed her acknowledg ment
of the plaudits a boy. referring to her cloak.
sepulchrally murmured, "Bismuthl" and the
people roared. She FASTENED from the stage,
brushed past admirers who waited to give
her a last greeting, and reached her carriage
with Greta in it..
She was silent all the way home. She
sought her room at once, and babe Greta to
leave her alone. She sat before her mirror
and regarded the reflection of herface therein.
1t was a beautiful face, pure woman face,
And that other woman had as much said
she was not fit to be the wife of her sonl
The man she loved did not care for her,
and she had promised another man to be his
wife! She had been used to depict grief and
agony on the stage; now she called the suf-
ferings of art trivial, when she thought of
those of nature. She felt thoroughly alone,
a homeless, friendless creature, whose will
had raised her to where she was, and whose
love told her that she had tolled in vain. She
contemplated her life, it's privations, it's
struggles, until there had come into it, great
light and warmth-her love for the Ameri-
can. And the light and warmth had been as
false to her as any represented on the stage.
And she must be as worthless, as far beyond
the pale of worthy society as that woman
has let her feel that she was when she could
accept the good and true Baron Volrath for
her unloyed husband. Pride, wounded ten
derness, had urged her to make victim of
guiltless man. What had her life done for
her when it had all ended in this dismal
failure? She had befriended many, the poor
blessed her, she was a rising artist, a woman
with ripening intellect; and yet at this hour
she was the meanest, most Inundated crea-
ture she could imagine. Humiliated She
eto 4oI o,bo olo L.
selfish-there was further humiliation for
her-she must set at rest the troubled mind
of the man who loved her not. Yet why
should she?-why should she not let him
have his share of suffering?
30, Godp' she thought, 'fbut I love him.
Dare tell him that hungered for sight of
him? that I passed by his place of business
in last evenings dusk and saw him in there?
that, insane as | am at this moment, en-
tered the shop just for a parting near look
at him? that once inside realized my posi-
ton, and calling my art into requisitionI be-
came an old woman before him and asked for
a drug; that it was to me he gave the poi
son which has caused him 50 much anxiety?
/ might tell him this tonight; I shall be
away before he knows it; the glamour have
thrown over him will have paled, and he will
know that ] am nothing to him. But he
must not say caused possible DEATH
She fercely rang the bell on her dressing
table.
"Greta,' she said, s'the carriage?''
1T is waiting, fraulein, to take us to the
station
'sFirst must write letter. You shall post
it while put on my hat
She sat down and wrote the note to Clark
which should relieve his mind of all anxiety
over his mistake of the evening before But
she did not tell him of the feeling which act,l-
ated her going into his shop, she could not
tell him that she loved the man who was On
ly infatuated with her as an artistic, the man
whom she had iii her tolls
She stamped the letter and gave it to her
maid to post
Hen Fraulein Lilli put on The gown she
had worn last evening when she had gone out
in the dusk. Slipping her hand in the pocket
she came upon the small package Clark had
given her when she asked for the bismuth
She went over to the fireplace, and unfolding
the paper looked down on the little heap of
white dust, preparatory to throwing it into
the flame
All! the tender days when she had thought
that she was loved as she loved!-the days
when she deemed she had found heart that
throbbed responsive to hers, and looked into
mans eyes seeing more there than fattery
and misknowledge of the cravings of her
hungry soul. She was called coquette; the
fattery of the world forced her to assume the
character it assigned to her. But had she
.coquetted with this man? No, no, a thou
sand times no. And yet his mother as much
as told her that he regarded her only as the
rest did. There arose before her possibilities
of a future with him, of future without him,
till she felt that she grew wild.
How long shestood thus shedid not know.
Suddenly she heard a mans voice in the
adjoining drawing room Almost with q
shrek she recognized 1.-THE Baron Volrath's;
he must have started to find her as soon as
he had received her letter. And-what An
other voice in the drawing room-a second
mans voice-the voice of the man she loved!
For Clark had been overwhelmed by her
letter, telling him other acceptance of the
baron; all that his mother had said concern
ing her was proved true And he had seen in
her love for himself if ever a woman let man
see her love for him! 1t had all been simula-
ton, art, then.
+ He took theletter to his mother. Forgive
me-" he said. "You will understand when
yon have read this"
She could say not word; she could only
carry the letter into the privacy of her own
room and have heragony beyond the sight of
humanity.
Clark was well nigh crazed that day, he
was jeered at for the excitement he had
raised in the city, and people we're doubtful
if there had been an elderly woman who