Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-05-24

and she died in spite of all the doctor:
could do for her. My wife is quite
broken hearted over it, for she liked
Nellie as well as If she had been her own
daughter. liked her too and would
have given any thing to save her. But il
was God IS will, and she is gone.
[ know what terrible blow this will
! be to you. Mark, and 1 hope God will
| give you courage and strength to bear il
manfully. l send you q copy of last
weeks Warringham Guardian, which
contains notice of Nellie's death, and
also kindly reference to her. Yours
respectfully. DANIEL ASHTON.
"Mark Eliot. -
For the space of half a minute after
reading the letter, Mark stood mute and
| motionless. His face was iivid as dead
man 3, his hands were tightly clencbed,
eyes and nostrils dilsted, and his form
was rigid as an iron bar.
His staring eyes had a strange and
fearful look in them, such as are seen
only in the orbh of those who are insane f,
or have been suddenly overwhelmed by
appalling calamity, and he felt at the
time as they must feel who have crossed
the threshold of hell, and left all hope
and peace behind them.
The hand which held the fatal letter
before HIM relaxed its grip and the sheet
fiuttered to the floor. Then he seized the
newspaper which had come with the mis-
sive, tore away the cover, and there
among the local news he found this par
agraph:
SUDDEN DEATH Just as we were go
ing to press the intelligence reached US
of the death of Miss Nellie Pemberton,
the adopted daughter of Mrs. Ashton, of
the Star, Mitigate. The deceased caught
cold few days ago, and Inflammation
of the lungs was rapidly developed {,
causing death. The dead girl had a
somewhat singular history. Nearly twen-
ty years ago she was found in the arms
of an unknown woman, who lay dead in
the snow, and who was probably her
mother. Miss Pemberton was very we'll
known in the town and highly re-
spected. -
Rigid and mute Mark stood there, gaz-
ing at the newspaper in the same stony
manner he had stared at the letter.
Then the door of the room was suddenly
flung open, and Charlie Hesketh burst
in, crying in his hearty, familiar way:
"Hallo, Mark, what are you doing?
1t is simply glorious outside this morn
ing. Suppose we go skating on the
reservOlr?''
Slowly Eliot turned his white stony
countenance upon his friend, gasped as
If he were choking, and a low horse sob
seemed to burst from his over-wrought
soul, then he swayed suddenly like
wind swept willow, and the next mo-
ment he went crashing to the floor, sense
less at his comrade's feet.
A III
For two or three days Mark lay on the
very edge of that dread, unfathomless
abyss men call death. The fierce excite
ment he had gone through while reading
the letter and the paragraph IN the
Guardian, had fired his brain and filed
it with the seeds of delirium.
And when the transitory stiffness of
the death-like swoon passed away, and
the tortured man opened his eyes again
the light of consciousness had fed from
them and his speech was wild, incoher-
ent and unintelIigible.
The fearful suspense the young follow
had been subjected to for the past few
weeks, eliminating as 1t had in the sp-
palling news he had received, had
thrown him into brain fever of the
most violent and dangerous kind.
All through the short wintry day and
far on in the night, he lay there on his
bed giving vent to the disconnected i'm
aginings of disordered and overweight
brain. Now he would murmur the name
of Nellie Pemberton, talk of his absorb
ing love for her, of their contemplated
marriage; and then he would laugh
jubilantlY as the name of his hated rival
fell from his burning lips; and suddenly
his voice would drop to to dreary hope
less whisper as he again lived through
the strike at WarrIngham and endeav-
ored in vain TO obtain work there.
And at rarer intervals the deep strong
voice of the fever-racked man would
ring through the house as he cried out in
a loud. passionate, despairing way:
"Dead! Dead! Nellie dead! My God!
can it be true?''
Only when the night was spent and the
grey light of dawn was mounting up the
eastern skies did the paroxysms subside.
Then the patient sank into deep coma
tose state, so still and unbrokeu that it
appeared to be prelude to death.
What the issue would be no one could
tell. It was in the hands of the AL
mighty, and the ablest medical men
Johnstown could furnish. Charlie Hes
keith had spared nothing that would in
any way help his sorely afflicted friend.
But Mark Eliot was not destined to die
yet. When evening arrived and Hesketh
came home from the mills he found that
the crisis was passed, and that his friend
was then plunged in quiet and refresh
ing sleep.
For some time longer Mark was con-
fined to his bed, for the virulence of the
phrenitis which had struck him down
had stolen his strength and left him weak
as q child. And during the days which
elapsed between his attack and recovery
he lay or sat in his room mornidly
thoughtful, strangely silent, and seldom
exchanging word with any one.
His first act on recovering his senses
was to ask for the letter which had ap-
prised him of his sweetheart's death and
the newspaper which had chronicled the
sad event. They were given to him, for
Charlie had preserved them, and again
and again Mark had pored over the
dread missive and the pregnant para
graph, staining both with the bitter tears
that he was unable to repress.
Hesketh endeavored to dispel the thick
gloom which overhung his friend and
threatened to cloud the remainder of his
life. But his kindly spoken words had
no force to penetrate the thick armor
of sorrow and despair in which Mark had