The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1889-03-14

his WanderlngS, ana had tried 70 nelp
him build up his shattered life. At
last she had applied the heroic
and sent him letter to say
that she would not consent to see him
again until. he could come to her
clothed and in his right mind"
'.She was right. Major, and 1 say
now, and will say with my last
breath, God bless her for her sweet /
faithfulness to duty"
In q desperate mood Herbert Jau- |
vrin had sold his commission, taken a |
steamer for America. and for awhile |
had passed life of gay dissipation in
New York and other American cities.
At last the inevitable crisis came. His
money had gone and so were the
friends of his butterfly Summer. When
his last dollar had been spent he en-
listed in a regiment then at the front,
in the hope that friendly bullet would
soon end his trouble. The bullet had
come all too soon, and had found him
realizing in his life as private soldier
what Helen Conyngham had tried to
impress upon him about faithfulness
to duty. It was hard for him, he said,
no doubt it was better for her. Only
she would be glad to hear that he had
died soldiers death
The Major tried to speak encourage
ing words when he babe the soldier
goodnight, but even then he feared
that they might never meet again in
life Indeed when he went to the
hospital the next morning the death
dew was on Private Jauvrin's fore
head, and he could only speak in the
faintest whisper and with catches of
breath as he asked him to pray for
him. Major Estes knelt beside the
/ cd
the Lords prayer, holding the clammy
hands clasped in his own.
THANK you-am l dying now?"
were the next words. The Major could
| not speak He only looked sadly into
| the ewes of the private soldier who IN
| a brief minute was to know the secret
| of the eternities.
| There must then have come sweet If
| sad remembrance of home and human
love to have prompted the last request
| of a soldier who was known as the
bravest of the brave.
'.Will you kiss me?"
Major Estes kneeled down and
pressed his lips to the chill lips that
could make no response, and when he
had wiped away his tears the man he
had kissed was dead.
They buried Herbert Jauvrin in the
little cemetery of the cavalry troops on
the banks of the AppomattoX. But his
ashes do not repoSe there. They rest
under a costly monument in the parish
church of his fathers in England. and
under his name is the legend, "died on
the Field of Honor"
When Major Estes, after his return
to camp, opened in the secretary of his
tent the little portfolio which Herbert
Jauvrin had bequeathed to him he haG
no premonition 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 had opened il
he held it before him as if he had beer
turned to marble by the sight. The
face was beautiful beyond anything h'
had ever seen-at least SO it seemed
to him. Golden hair and blue eye!
and the mouth of the Hebe, intellec
and health and grace were there, anC
with incompatible beauty tirmnes
as gentle as velvet and as hard as iron
As he gazed he understood the whole
story of the hapless love which haC
ended so disastrOusly and yet not hope
lessly.
The letters of Helen Conynghan
were further revelation of the swee
womanliness. They pleaded with
pathetic simplicity for the better life o
the man she loved, but she never for
moment concealed from him or from
herself the fact that she could neve
marry a man who voluntarily de
bauched himself from the high stand
ard she had set. Ever her last edic
of Punishment was only . plea for hel
lost loves redemption.
1t was painful task to write to thu
relatives of Herbert Jauvrin-mos
painful of all to break the news of hi.
death to the woman he had loved. HI
inclosed her own letters to Mis-!
Conyngham-all except little forma
note accepting an invitation to drive
though why he could not explain tC
himself. The lOcket he promised Il
forward by friends who were going tt
England.
Somehow the locket did not go, auC
it would have puzzled his friends hat
he been killed and this unknown face
found among the papers he always
carried with him. He came to regard
it as his tutelary divinity, and had {
!, faint superstition that it rendered
him imperviOus 10 bullets. At any
rate he found it easy tn make excuses
for its detention in the correspondence
which passed between the original anG
himself. aud which he found Sc
| pleasant that he continued it long
after the close of the war.
Finally Major Estes wrote that he
had been appointed consul to one oi
the cities of England, and that he
would take an early opportunity to re-
store the portrait in person.
When the portiere that covered the
entrance to one of the haudsumesl
houses in Chellenham had been pushed
aside and Helen Conyngham. magnifi-
[ in 10
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 il
fell down and worshiped her then and
there and never swerved afterward
from its allegiance.
II They were soon we'll acquainted
these 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 think that
he was specially favored by her and
longer still before he dared speak.
1t was the dead soldier who gave the
Major his wife. They often spoke OF
him. The Englishs maiden loved to
hear him tell of his battles and cam
paigning, and fancied that it was not
because the Majo was hero in hel
eyes, while he, modest man, never
dreamed of exalting his own deeds.
Indeed, with giriish bashfulness, he
had never told EFF 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 at the back of the
mansion in Cheltenham. and there, as
they stood for a few moments under
the shade of great oak, Major Estes
recounted the whole scene. When Inc
had finished both of her hands were in
his and she was weeping.
II have never kissed anybody since, y
he said. II promised myself in my
tent that night that the next kiss