Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-14

The
walked with heavy steps across the room
and again to his place. How can you re-
turn to the home you left? Can the dead
live again? You could not remain un'
known to Agnes. I will have no secrets in
my household. it's not in my power tc spare
| you. The truth would utter itself. 1 am not
the man who can take back to his arms the
woman who has wronged him do not SO un'
HIS voice rang coldly. 81 have tried to see
clear, but no longer believe that it is laid upon
my conscience to wrong my daughter for the
sake s OF ner who was my wife. Must agnes
| is pure and good"
''She is holy as an angelr' The words burst
pasSlonately from the mothers lips
| viii you claim herr" the father anxiously
| appealed. Il ask you in the name Of mother
hood, and as you have mothers heart of love,
VIII you bring shame and suffering upon her?
f her NE mas been peace. have guarded her
from all knowledge of evil. She has never
heard your name, and she believes you dead. II
| she is ever TO learn anything of our lives, she
cannot know less than the truth. Tears and
| coldly warned.
Il am not the man you knewme to be. Suffer
ing mas done its work on me. Without Agnes
to soften my life, should Row be out of touch
Win humanity. have fulfilled my bondage; |
have Kept my integrity; have outlived passion,
put tenderness has gone with it. The time
mas passed for bitterness between us; but as
man ana wife, or as friend with friend, we
meet no more. j forgive you from my soul. but
have no heart of pity. have crushed it, and
1t IS dead. have lived true to my VOWS; 1haye
Kept the purity of my calling; have preserved
my daughters home sacred from the lightest
breath of doubt. By the help of God l have
summed all things that the Great Tempter
might have made a snare to me- When
woman's love went out of my life separated
myself straightly from the world, and no
wonan's friendship or sympathy or cheer has
dared to reach me in the isolation which have
kept"
Through the silence that fell the autumn
wind made faint, gusty puffs and stirs, and sui
lenly agitated the lattice that half screened the
open window.
she answered only by feeble moan. His face
darkened. II have not spoken of myself" he
workT'
His voice fell, and his lips trembled. as he
said quickly, at is the one thing that is left to
me in the world" Silent for an instant he
went on in firmer tones. my duty is to my
people. Separated from them, where should
gof what people would receive us? what other
work could find that would be worthy of the
vocation wherewith am called? You shall be
safely cared for. as suffering and sorrowing
woman. I shall not forsake my duty to the
mother of my children; but what, beside peace
and forgiveness, can there be between us now?'
A keen glitter came and went in her wander
desperately, at each other.
Il am not wise; cannot say what is right"
she said, in strained, high tones. but Helen
Eastman said you would not Judge as the world
judges Often she tried to comfort me with
that. She believed you would not separate
mother and child. Think little of that. Oh,
for her sake, Justini She must have loved you
once, to sorrow over me as she did. But it is
your soldiers training, Justin; and that worldly
idea of honor, a soldier believes in it, is
deeper in you than you know. used to tell
you you had mistaken your calling"
She smiled abjectly, coyertly, searching his
face with the sharpened intuitions of wife's
subtlety. His benumbed senses received no
new shock at the sight of her pitiful smiles;
they only told him that a smile was 3 strange,
sad wonder in q world of shadows.
A sound of tolling from the church bell
smote heavily upon them, and he answered her
bewildered look:
Another stands there in my place to-day"
he said. God knows if shall ever stand
there againp'
The bell shook out its jarring clangor, and
the vibrations filled the air with clamorous
notes. The funeral train approached the
church. and still the harsh reverberations
stung the nerves and dizzied the brain. AS if
wife draw near, strange threatening in her
eyes, while her hands were lift I'd in the voice
less appeal of maternal passion.
''Marionr he adjured, respect the presence
of the deadr'
81 will not!' she cried. "God is not the God
of the dead but of the living He is God of
mercy, and you are his minister. Show mercy
to mel oh, cast not out my soulF' In that
dreadful cry she poured out all her agony, her
repentance and her entreaty, and he turned si-
lently away.
She called his name in tones that brought his
eyes upon her in dim recognition of some
energy not her own.
"You are q holy man." she said in slow
accents, "and am VILE But though I speak
as a lost soul fastening to judgment, call upon
you in the name of Him in whose sight no man
living is justified to remember that you were
not always pure. You repented and atoned;
life; you have kept your VOWS; but, Justin, the
past still lives. and your sins also are written in
Gods judgment book
Her eyes unrelentingly searched his face, SO
those cold drops which the supreme hour of
torture wrings from every pore. In full pos
session of the hard won peace of the soul that
has toiled after righteousness; in the strength
of succession of blameless years; in the Sc
curity of long release from that double con-
sciousness of welded life in which no secrets
veiled before him; the pit of uncleanness
opened her mouth at his feet. This soul so
rich in works and merits heard at last the voice
of the Son of Man saying: thou knowest not
that thou art wretched and miserable, and
poor. and blind, and naked"
"WomanI" be muttered, as though seeing in
her at that moment not his sinful wife, but the
accusing spirit of injured womanhood, II &C
knowledge the sins of my youth, and humble
myself before my God. Enter not into judg-
ment with thy servant o Lordp'
His head dropped lower and lower, until he
hid his face upon the desk. His spirit was |
broken within him.
The sounds of tolling slowly rose and fell and
ceased and at their ceasing he raised his eyes to
meet the gaze of the woman who had watched
him; and as they still regarded each other In a
passionless trance of misery, the silence that
fell upon them like pail was lifted by a voice |
of song. The wretched pair drank in the mel |
ody, and their dry eyes grew dim with healing |
tears as their daughters step drew near and |
nearer through the empty house, while she |
sang the sacred words her father had taught |
her when she was yet a child:
Saviour breathe forgiveness o'er us; |
All our weakness Thou dost know:
Thou didst tread this earth before us,
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
Lone and dreary,
Faint and weary,
Through the desert Thou didst go.
She threw wide open the halt-closed door.
and the last CLEAN of the westering light fol-