The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1890-08-13

1LSNf L4tL4I w IL
ed fefsolitudo. Her appetite failed,
and her beauty failed before my
very eyes. One day came irto
her bpn'Ioir suddenly. She was sit
ting With mahogany brass bound
box open on the table before her.
Whom She saw me she closed the
box and locked it with key which
she wore upon her watch chain
my curiosity was aroused.
What on earth have you got in
tlsai box, Blanche2 ! said. She
laid her hand upon it jealousIy. and
with an angry look in her magniii-
cent which, though we we. e
not d year milrried, had already
grown dull and laclslustre she said,
Il hale impcrtinent curiosity in
a man Bas.gemont, This little box
is whore l keep my seciess-the
seer prizc best in all the world,
.,.z..,.. sess,f, -, .s.ss. i.
80 49, W.
And you won't let me see the
consents2' / said.
Il was angry at her want of con-
fideDee, end I'm ashamed to add,
was jealous, 100.
eI'd rather die first" said my
wife.
81 turned on my heel and left the
room, for | could not trust myself.
"F,om that day we quarreled.
| disdained 10 seek farther explana-
ton from woman who denied me
her confidence.
Several months went by aud
Lady Bargemont's conduct became
more and more eccentric. 1t at
traced The attention of The neigh
tbois and the Sc vans. The neigh
bors s.id that Lord Bagemont's wife
was going melancholy mad.
"one day my wife's maid rushed
inso my room, her eyes nearly s,..tS-
ing from her head with hori or.
"My Loi dl' she cried, Il can,t get
into Lady Bargemont's room; she
doesn't answer me. 1 don't know
what 20 think
81 and the maid buried to my
wife's room. We hammered at the
door for admission.
"There was no answer.
"Then / burst the door open, and
a dreadful sight met our eyes.
"There lay my wife, fully dressed,
upon the bed; her eyes were coscd,
as though ia sleep; but when look
ed into her face aud saw what l saw
there. | knew that she was dead.
Her hand still grasped strange
looking instrument of bamboo,
mounted in. silver. on oae end nfI
which was a curious disk of porous
clay. Upon the liS,le table al the
bedside lay the brass bound box
wide open, portable spirit lpmp
which WAS sill burnipg, and what
appeared to be IL travelling ink-sttati
open. The room was filled with a
heavy, strange and sickly odor,
which almost overpowered me.
"My wife, Hetty, was an opium
smoker; she learned the habit from
friend as a cure for neuralgia, TO
which she was subject. Those little
brass-bound boxes, with the dainty
apparatus for carrying out the hid
eous eastern vice, are still sold and
advertised with impuoity here in
London. Hundreds of men AMI
womca. even now, are deliberately
smoking themselves from this void
into the next Those who know of
the hidcous thing say noshing, and
when the victims die by running
their constitutions, or, as in my
wretched wife's case, by an over
dose of the accursed thing, some
times there is an inquest and YER
diet of death by misadventure, as
in her case.
aMen and women with MOI bid
tastes, sighing for forgetfnluess or
unknown joys, or simulated by the
glowing descriptions of the great
writer who flew to this awful vice
as a refuge from physical pain, try
it-and take to it.
"And now you know all about it,
Hetty, and why it was thai, when
you married me, you found me a
miserable man. There's nothing
morbid about you, little woman,
anyhow And then the door was