Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1889-03-10

ent century are full. 1t required all the
aid that the fine literary treatment could
give it to raise il above the level of vulgar
melodrama and turn it into tragedy. But
fortune had been kind to it; the subject
had been already handled in the Italian
sketch with deliCaCy and true tragic in
sight, and Edward Wallace had brought
all the resources Of very evenly trained
mind TO bear upon his task. 1t could
hardly have been foreseen that he would
he attracted by the subject, but once at
work upon it be had worked with enthu-
sissm.
The curtain drew up on the great hall of
the Villena palace. Everything that an
tiquaiian knowledge could do had been
bloOgAt to bear upon the surroundings of
the scene; the delicate tile work of the
walls and floor, the leather hangings, the
tapestries the carved wood and brass work
of Spanish palace of the Fifteenth CEN
tury, had beer copied with lavish msgnif-
cence; and the crowded expectant house
divided its attention and applause daring
the first scene between the beauty and
elaboration of its setting and the play of
the two tOlersble actors who represented
Evira's father and the rival of Maciss,
Fernan Perez.
Fernan Perez, haviugs set the intrigue on
foot which is to wreck the love of Mscias
and Elvira, had jus. arisen fiOm his seat,
when Wallace who was watching the stage
in torment OF mingled satisfaction and
despair, touched Nine. de Chateauvieux' g
arm
'Now!' he said. "That door to the
left "
Kendall, catching the signal, rose from
his seat behind Nine de Chateauvieux and
bent forward. The great door at the end
of the palace had slowly opened, and Gid
ing through it with dropping head and
hands clasped before her came Elvira, fol-
lowed by her little maid Beatriz The
storm which crested her appearance YVES
such as thrilled the pulses OF the oldest
} hAbitue of the theatre. Tears came 10
Nine. Chateauvieux' eyes, and she looked
Up at her brother.
"What a scene 1t is overpowering-
is too much for her wish they would
let her 20 on ~
Kendall made her no answer, his soul
was in his eyes; he had no senses for any
but one person. She was there within a
few yards of him, in all the sovereignty OF
= her beauty and her fame, invested with
7 the utmost romance that circumstances
could bestow, and about, if half he heard
we're true, to reap great artistic 10 less
than a great personal triumph. Had he
felt toward her only rs the public felt, il
would have been an experience beyond the
, common run, and IS it wss-oh, this ach-
inp, inloleTable sense of desire, Of separa-
ton, of irremedisble need Was that her
voice? He had heard that tone of despair
in it before under over aching woods,
when the June warmth was in the air
/ That white, outstIe.ched hand had once
lain close clasped in his own; those eyes
had once looked with a passionate trouble
into his. All, it was gone forever, nothing
would ever recall it-that one quick mo-
ment of living contact In a deeper sense
than met the ear, she was on the stage
and he among the audience To the end
his gray life would play the part of spec.
tator to hers, or else she would soon
have pissed beyond his grasp and
touch, lust as E.vira would have van
ished in little while from the sight of the
great ujience which hung upon her every
movement.
Teen from the co 1sciOusness Of his own
private smart be was swept cut, whether
he would or no. into the general currento Of
feeling which was stirring the multitude
OF human beings around him, and he
found himself gradually mastered by con-
siderations of different order altogether.
Was this the actress he had watched with
such incessant critical revolt six months
before? Was this the half educated girl
grasping at results utterly beyond her real
u ,tion, whom lie remem oered?
It seemed to him impossible that this
quick artistic intelligence, this nervous un-
ders anding of the demands made upon
her, this faculty in resting them, could
have blen developed by the same Isabel
Bretherton v hose earlier imfge was 60 dis
tinctly craven on his memory. And yet bis
trained eve learned after a while to de
cipher in g hundred indications the past
history Of the change. He saw how she
had worked and where; the Influences
which had been brought to bear upon her
were all familiar 70 him they had been part
OF his own training, and they belonged, as
be knew, TO the first school of dramatic
art in Europa-to The school which
keeps alive from generation to generation
the excellence ard fame Of the best French
drama. lie came to estim5te by degrees
al that sha mad done; he saw also all she
had still TO dc. ID the tp-iue she had
been an actress without a future, con-
dem 1ei by the iuexorable logic Of things
10 see hsr fame desert her with the first
withering of her beauty. Now she had,
as il were. but started toward her rightiui
GOAL. but her feet were in the great high
: rosd. and Kendall saw before her, if she
hai but strength 10 reach it. the very
+ highest summit OF artistic success.
The end of the first act was r=fch d; Ell
yira. returning from the performance of
tbe marriage ceremony in the chapel of
the polsce. had emerged hand in hand
with her husband, and, followed by her
wedding train, upon the great hall. She
had caught sight of Mscias standing
blarched and tOttering under the W light
of the incredible news which had just
beeu given to him by tee duke. She had
flung away the hateful hand which held
her. and, with q cry instinct with the
sharp and terrible despair of youth, she
mad thrown herself at the feet of her lover.
When the curtain fell Edward Wallace
could have had few doubts-lf he bad ever
cherished any-of the success OF his play.
He himself escaped behind the scenes as
soon az Miss Brether;on's last recall "
over, and the box was filed in his absence
with a stream of friends and a constant
murmur Of generalization which was mu-
sic in the ears of Nine de Clateauvieux,
and, for the moment, silenced in Kendall
his own thrObbing and desolate conscious
ness.
"Tbere never was a holiday turned to
sueh good account before, a gray haired
dramatic critic vas saying to her, man
with whose keen, good natured face Lon
don had been familiar for the last twenty
wears. what magic has touched the
beauty, Nine de Chateauvieux? Last
spring we felt as though one fairy god
t.Lo- ot 1oast had hsen left out at the