Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-05-02

| him, he said; no doubt it was better for
her. Only she would be glad to hear
| that he had died a soldiers death.
The Major tried to speak encouraging
words when he bade the soldier good
night, but even then he feared that they
might never meet ag ain in life. Indeed
when ne went to the hospital the next
morning the dew was on Private Jauvrin's
forehead, and he could only speak in the
faintest Whisper and with catches of the
breath as he asked him to pray for him.
| Major Estes knalt beside the dying man
and in low tones uttered the Lords Pray
er, holding the clammy hands clasped in
| his own.
THANK you am I dying now?" were
his next words. The Major could not
speak. BE only looked sadly into the
| eyes of the private soldier who in brief
minute was to know the secret of the
| eternities.
There must then have been some sweet
| if sad remembrances of home and human
| love to have prompted the last request of
a soldier who was known as the bravest
of the brave.
evil you kiss mef"
| Major Estes kneeled down and pressed
his lips the chill lips that could make no
his tears the man he had kissed was
dead.
They buried Herbert Jauvrin in the
little cemetery of the cavalry corps on
the banks of the Appcmattox. But his
ashes do not repose there. They rest
under costly monument in the parish
| church of his fathers in England, and
under his Game is the legend, "Died on
the Field of Honor"
When Major Estes, after his return to
camp, opened III the secrecy of his tent
the little portfolio which Herbert Jauvrin
had bequeathed to him he had no pre-
monition that literally he held his fate
in his own hands. There was a locket of
Etruscan gold in one of the pockets, and
when he opened it he held it before him
as if he had been truned to marble by
the sight. The face was beautiful be-
yond anything he had ever seen-at least
80 it seemed to him. Coded hair and
blue Goes and the mouth OF the Hebe,
intellect and health ana grave were there,
and with Incompatible beauty firmRess
as gentle as velvet and as hard as iron.
As he gazed he understood the whole
story of the hapless love which had ended
so disastrously and yet not hopelessIy.
The letters of HELEN Conyngham were
| further revelation of sweet woman
illness. They pleaded with pathet
sim plicity for the better life of the man
she loved, but she never for moment
COL cealed from him or herself the fact
that she could never marry a man who
voluntarily debauched himself from the
high standard she had set. Even her
last edict of Punishment was, only p plea
for her lost loves REDEEM ption.
1t was painful task to write to the
relatives of Herbert Jauvrin-most pain
full of all TO break the news of his death
| to the woman he had loved. He inclosed
her own letters to Miss Conyngham-all
except little formal note accepting an
| invitation to drive, through why he had
retained this he could not explain to
himself. The lOcket he promised TO for
ward by friends who were going to Eng
| land.
Somehow the locket did not go, and it
would have puzzled his friends had he
been killed and his unknown fact found
among the papers he always carried with
him. He came to regard it as his tute-
larry divinity, and had a faint supersti-
tion that it rendered him impervious to
bullets. At any rate, he found it easy to
make excuses for its detention in the
correspondence which passed between
the original and himself and which he
found SO pleasant that he continued it
long after the close of the war.
Finally Major Estes wrote that he had
been appointed consul to one of the
cities of England, and he would take an
early opportunity to restore the portrait
in person.
When the portiere that covered the
entrance to one of the handsomest houses
in Cheltenham had been pushed aside
and Helen Conyngham, magnificent in
her beauty, entered, Major Estes heart
beat so hard that he could scarcely speak
and, indeed, he never knew what he did
say. What his heart was saying was,
"My queen" For it fell down and wor
SHIPPED her then there and never swerved
afterward from its allegiance.
They soon were we'll acquainted-6hes
two-and though the major fell in love at
once, or rather recognized at once the
fact that he had been in love ever since
he opened the locket, it was long before
he dared to think that he was specially
favored by her, and longer still before he
dared speak.
1t was the dead soldier who gave the
jor his wife. They often spoke of him.
Il u0 EbSlI5h lONSO W uCdI hInu
tell of his battles and campaigning, and
| fancied that it was not because the mej or
was hero in Der eyes, while he, modest
man never dreamed of exalting his own
deeds. Indeed, with girlish bashfulness,
he never told of the kiss he had given the
dying soldier, it had seemed sacred to
| himself and the dead.
| One evening they wandered in the old
English garden and at the back of the
man sion in Cheltepham, and there, as they
stood for a few moments under the shade
of great oak, Major Estes recounted the
whole scene. When he had finished both
| of her hands were in his and she was
sleeping.
II have never kissed anybody SINCE"
he said. 81 promised myself in my tent
that night that the next kiss : gave
would be to my promised wife, Helen
| --0
Besides himself with love he drew her
toward him, and to his amazement she
made no resistance. The next moment
she was in his arms, and before a word
had been spoken by either he kissed
her as man kisses woman but once in a
| lifetime.
Testified in His Own Behalf.
WASHINGTON, April 23.-Captain Armes