Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-19
MISS BRETHDRTON.
By MRS. HUMPHREY WARD,

By MRS. HUMPHREY WARD, l as if Mare's motherly carefulness over tho bright creature who had charmed her hao passed into Paul. He was saying what Marie would have said, taking thought as she would have taken it for one she loved, and it was settled as he wished.
 When his long pacing ill the Champs Elysees was over Kendall went back to find | Paul busy with his wife's letters and trinkets, | turning them over with look of shivering forlornness, as though the thought of the un- companioned lifetime to come were already | closing upon him like some deadly chill in the air. Beside him lay two miniature cases l open; one of them was the case which Eustace l had received from his sisters hand on the afternoon before her death, and both of them contained identical portraits of Marie in her first brilliant womanhood.
 "Do you remember thema' Paul said in his husky voice, pointing them out to him. l ''They were done when you were at college and she was 23. Your mother had two taken -one for herself and one for your old Aunt | Marion. Your mother left me hers when she died, and your aunt's copy of it came back to us last year. Tell Miss Bretherton its history. She will prize it. It is the best picture still"
 Kendall made sign of assent and took the case Paul rose and stood beside him, me chanicaily spreading out his hands to the fire.
 Tomorrow, as soon as you are gone, shall go off to Italy. There are some little places in the south near Naples that she was very fond of. shall stay about there for while. As soon as feel can, shall come back to the senate and my work. It is the only thing left me-she was so keen about it. His voice sunk into q whisper, and a long llence fell upon them. Women in moments of sorrow have the outlet of tears and ca resses; mems great refuge is silence; but the silence may be charged with sympathy and the comfort of . shared grief. It was so in this case.
 Tho afternoon light was fading, and Ken dal was about to rise and make some neceS- sary preparations for his journey, when Paul detained him, looking up at him with sunken eyes which seemed to carry in them all the history of the two nights just past. twill you ever ask her what Marie wished?' The tone was the even and passionleSs tone of one who for the moment feels none of the ordi- nary embarrassments of intercourse; Kendall met it with the same directness
 "Some day 1 shall ask her, or at least l shall let her know; but it will be no use."
 Paul shook his head, but whether in protest or agreement Kendall could hardly tell Then be went back to his task of sorting the letters, and let the matter drop It seemed as if he were scarcely capable of taking an interest |. in it for its own sake, but simply as wish, a charge of Marie.
 Kendall parted from him in the evening with an aching heart, and was haunted for hours by the memory of the desolate figure returning slowly into the empty house, and by sharp provision of all the lonely nights 1 and the 11Dconforfed nfOrrOwS which law he fore the stricken man.
 But, as Paris receded further and further behind him, and the sea drew nearer, and the shores of the country which held Isabel Bretherton, it was but natural that even the grip upon him of this terrible and startling calamity should relax a little, and that he should realize himself as a man seeking the adored woman, his veins still beating with the currents of youth and the great unguessed future still before him. He had left Marie ir the grave, and his life would bear the scar of that loss forever But Isabel Bretherton was \ still among the living, the warm, the beauti full and every mile brought him nearer tC the electric joy of her presence. He took ( 2 sad strange pleasure in making the contrast between the one picture and the other as vivid as possible. Death and silence on the one side-oh, how true and how irreparable But on the other, he forced on his imagina ton till it drew for him an image of youtl and beauty so glowing that it almost charmed the sting out of his grief. The Englist paper which he succeeded in getting at Calais contained the announcements: Miss Brother ton has, we are glad to say, completely re covered from the effects of the fainting fl which so much alarmed the audience at tn, CalGope last week. She was able to pla, 'Elvira' as usual last night, and was greeted by largo and sympathetic house." He reat it and turned the page hastily, as if what tn paragraph suggested was wholly distastefu to him. He refused altogether to think 0 her as weak or suffering; he shrank from hi own past misgivings, his own prophetic about her. The world would be a mere dsrl prison house if her bright beauty were over clouded! She was not made for death, an, she should stand to him as the image of al that escapes and resists and defies that tyran of our years, and pain, his instrument am herald
 He reached London in the midst of a rain fog. The endless black streets stretched be fore him in the dreary December mornin like so many roads into the neither regions the gas lamps scattered an unreasonable igh through the rain and fog It was the quin1 essence of murky, cheerless winter. :, He reached his own rooms, and found hi }. man up and waiting for him, and a mes ready. It was but three days since he ha been last there; the open telegram was sti lying on the table. One of his first acts we to put it hastily out of sight Over his breal 5. fast he planned his embassy to Miss Brethe
 ton. The best time to find her alone, | imagined, would be about midday, and i the interval he would put his books and p' pers to rights. They lay scattered about Q books, proofs and manuscript As his O D. derly hands went to work upon them, he WI
 conscious that he had never been so remo
 from all that they represented. But his n
 ture was faithful and tenacious, and undo
 the outward sense of detachment there WI v an inward promise of return. II will con
 back to you," seemed to be the cry of b
 thought 'You shall be my only friend
 But first must see her, and all my heart
 hersr
 The morning dragged away, and at ha
 past Il he went out, carrying the little ca
 with him. As he stood outside the Bay = s>h l,oH HrI kI4I G. (