Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-16
CHAPTER VIII

A month after the first performance of "Elvira" Kendall returned to town on frosty December afternoon from the Surrey lods- ings. on which he had now established a per manent hold. He mounted to his room, found his letters lying ready for him, and on the top of them a telegram, which, as his man servant informed him, had arrived about an hour before. He took it up carelessly, opened it and bent over it with a start of anxiety. It was from his brother-in law. Marie Is very ill Doctors much alarmed. Can you come to-nightF' He put it down in stupefaction. Marie ill The doctors alarmed! Good heavensl could he catch that evening traini He looked at his watch, decided that there was time, and plunged, with his ser wants help, into all the necessary prepara- tions. An hour and half later he was speed- ing along through the clear, cool moonlight to Dover, realizing for the first time, as he leaned back alone in his compartment, the full meaning of the news which had hurried him of. All bis tender affection for his sister. and all his stiaing sense ot something unlucky and untoward in his own life, which had been so strong in him during the past two months, combined to rouse in him the black est fears, the most hopeless despondency. Marie dead-what would the world hold for himf Books, thought, ideas were they enough! Could man live by them if all else were gone1 For the first time Kendall felt a doubt which seemed to shake his nature to its depths
 During the journey his thoughts dwelt in dull, sore way upon the past. He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth. in her rich maturity. He remembered her in the school room, spending all her spare time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement. He had vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her first ball and pitying him for being left be- hind He saw her tender face bending over the deathbed of their father, and through a hundred incidents and memories-all beauti ful, all intertwined with that lovely self for getfulness which was characteristic of her. his mind travelled down to on evening scarcely @ month before when her affection had once moro stood frail, warm barrier between him and the full bitterness of great renun. citation. Oh, Mariel Mariel
 It was still dark when he reached Paris. and the gray winter light was only just dawn. ing when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysees Nj. de Chateauvieux was standing on the stairs, his smoothly shaven, clear cut face drawn and haggard, and a stoop in his broad shoulders which Kendall had never noticed before. Kendall sprung up the steps and wrung his hands. de Chateauvieux shook his head almost with groan, in answer to the broth er's inquiry of eye and lip, and led the way upstairs into the forsaken salon, which looked as empty and comfortless as though its mis- tress had been gone from it years instead of days. Arrived there, the two men standing opposite to each other in the streak of dull light made by the nasty withdrawal of curtain, Paul said, speaking in Q whisper, with dry lips:
 "There is no hope-tho pain is gone, you would think she was better. but the doctors