Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-08-17
AN INNOCENT MISTAKE.
But Its Results Were Tragic andWrecked
a Happy Family.

From the Louisville Commercial.
"Thats pretty, home-like little place, isn't
it?" asked feliow-passenger of the writer on
an incoming Lexington train few evenings
ago. The little place" referred to was a cot
tage home not many miles this side of Lexing-
ton, half mile back from the railroad and seen
from the train window with all its pretty envi-
ronrnents did look like refuge for happiness
in refined state of purity, where some
loving couple, free from the perplexities and
sins Of the world, might find pure taste of
heaven.
"Well," continued the speaker, as the train
new by other scenes just as pretty, "thers is a
RADICALLY SAD STORY
connected with that place about which but
little has ever been published. aud the true in
wardnuss of which but few know. Five years
ago it was the home of as happy a pair of
moderately wealthy young people as could be
found in the state. They had youth. wealth a
name as well known and untarnished as that of
any OF the old families in this section and
little daughter In whom was centered their COM
bined love. They ought to have been, and
beheve were, as happy as any couple in the
state. One afternoon the wife received a letter
postmarked at a little town in Indiana near
where she had lived when she came to Ken
lucky on visit and met the man she afterward
loved and wed. She laughingly told her hus-
band, but with evident embarrassment, that she
HAD SECRET
and would have to go to Louisville. He at that
time knew but little about his wife's Indiana
kinspeople, whom he had only seen at the time
of their wedding and on two or three visits he
had made at her home during the brief engage
ment which followed their meeting in KEN
lucky. He never wondered at his wifes con-
duct that day at the start, and assisted her of
m hal L., a.
manding the author of the letter which called
her away. She never told him. however and
his parting words were a caution not to miss
the evening train, as he and baby would be
uneasy and lonely.
1.-The woman had made the first mistake of
her life In not telling her husband the truth
She was on her way to meet a scapegrace of a
brother, who had written pleading for an inter-
view and for little money, for which he dared
not go home.
SHE REACHED LOUISVILLE,
went to the Gait house, near the depot, regis
tered, and sent for the brother, who came, and
with whom she talked long enough to miss her
train. The telegram she sent reached the sta
ton we Just passed, for some reason. later than
the train she should have been on and the
minute the latter passed the young husbands
anxiety was converted into something like
Jealous fright He took the next train for
Louisville, reached there after dark. and at the
clerks desk in the Calf found that his wife
was in room -. Have a boy show me nm
said he, registering the same name further
down the page; she is my wife, and then he
looked strangely at the clerk. who. with poem
liar smile, had said: She has a visitor nova
gentleman who called early in the day.
We'll, to make a short story of it, he beat in
the door, and with feelings he himself did not
understand burst into the room
HIS FACE LIvID WITH RAGE.
and cry Of What does this mean?' The youno
wife, who was even then deprecating to
her brother the mistake which was keeping
her away from home, read hcr husbands face
and all that he thought and was Mortified in re-
turn. Too indignant to immediately explain
she stood staring at him with what he Thought
was guilty look, until, crazed by he knew not
what, he struck her down, turned to the
brother, who had escaped to the hall and down
stairs, leaving his outraged sister to explain TO
her misguided husband The latter followed
too late to nnd him, and, telling the clerk in a
strange voice that his wife would remain all
night and that he wouldn't, left the hotel.
He spent the night Walking the streets and
fully intended to murder. How the Young
wife spent that night will never be known.
she must have been already mad when next
morning she returned home and, packing few
OF her belongings, seized her child aud was
leaving her home never to return. It was at
child In her arms that her foot caught in the
carpet and she and the little one were
DASHED TO THE LANDING BELOW.
"Ths baby's head, with the weight of the
mother added, struck on the first post of the
banister and two hours later 1t was dead. The
half-crazed husband reached his home five
minutes after the accident and it was over their
dying child that they came to understand the
terrible mistake that each, and he especially,
had made. She was wholly insane before the
hearse came back from the little grave where
all their happiness past aud to come was laid
She has been ever since an inmate OF the asy-
lum at Lexington. The ruined man lives with
his aged mother in the little home We passed
and 10 little more than hermit. You may CO.
cssionally see him at one Of the race meetings
In Louisville, the only kind OF amusement he
seems to ever seek, but he looks older than
men OF twice his age and shows the burden he
bears 10 terrible one. Not q half dozen mao
pie who knew them know that his mistsks
drove his wife 10 the act which killed her child
and made her maniac. II was presumed by
every one that the little one fell while at play
and that her mothers devotion was too stronx
for her dslicately -strung constitution TO bear
the shock which 0athroped heP mind