Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-07-19

amidst scenes Of riot and death. There were
SOME who declared that she was the petrol.
euse Who had ridden, dressed as a VIVIAN
deere, at the head Of that hideous procession
In the Rue Haxo, when the priests and the
gendarrnes were led to the slaughter, less
happy In their doom than the Archbishop
and his companions, who we're massacred
within the walls of La Roquette. Certain IL
Is that she had been seen more than once In
a WANDERERS costume, and that she was
known to be one of the fercest OF that hell
ish crew.
Some said that Q had been shot down
on the last Of the barbados, yonder at
Belleville; others declared that they had
seen her In a gam Of prisoners bound for
Satory. No one regretted her; but there
was n morbid curiosity in the Rue Git lie
Cgur, and two or three adjoining streets, as
10 her fate. Details Of her last hours, sea-
soned with plenty Of blood, would have been
welcome.
The crcmertc had been closed from the
first day of the barricades, and had never
reopened. A board in front Of the shop an
nouBced that Is was a toUer preseate'neat.
Either la Michel was verify gone to give an
account Of her sins in the land Of shadows,
OF Biz WdS hbtIlub Ouh VI Az way, tob ~
should be called upon 10 answer for her
misdeeds before an earthly tribunal. This
was what was said Of her In the Rue Git ie
Ceur. Kathleen knew the popular mind
upon this subject, and she heard Durand
and Rose discuss the question on one OF
those rare occasions when she consented to
toIn them at the neat little supper table. IL
was almost a festival for Rose when she
could induce her sister to spend the evening
with her.
II always hated that woman" said Rose,
speaking of Suzon Michel; "a bold bad wo-
man, capable Of any crime"
"A creature OF strong passions, no doubt"
answered Durand, terribly capable Of evil.
| But / do not know that she was quite inca
| pable of good. These women who feel so
strongly are as titful as a summer thunder
storm; they will adore a man one day and
murder him the next. But they have the
power TO love rs well as to hate; they have
strength for self-SaeriGee as well as for
crime"
81 do not value their love any higher than
their hate" said Rose, who had never for
gotten her early impressions about Suzon,
never ceased 10 be Jealous and suspicious
of the woman who had dared to love Kath-
teen's lover; their hearts and minds are all
evil, their love Is a snare. If she is dead,
well-God give me cbarity-let her rest in
her grave; II she Is living, God grant that
she and | may never meet"
II was only a few days after the evening
upon which this conversation occurred that
Kathleen had startling evidence Of Suzon
Michel's existence In Paris, at the very time
when people believed her TO be either dead
or in exile.
Those first days Of September in III were
as sultry and %thunderous as the last days of
August. Indeed, 1t seemed as IL the sum
mer grew hotter as 1t waned. The sun shone
| with tropical splendor all day, and at even
tide the atmosphere was thick with heat.
1t was between eight and nine, after her
evening watch In q street the Barrirre d'En-
fer was over, that Kathleen went TO a spot
which she had visited in msny a twilight
hour, since she first gazed upon Ii in the dim
early morning OF the 18th of May.
This was the narrow side street in which
| she had seen the bloody traces Of her hus'
bands death, at the foot Of the lamp-post.
That dreadful spot was to her as his grave,
and her coming hither had all the soiemnity
of a pilgrimage to a grave. The street was
dull and solitary-a street of shabby houses,
shabbily occupied by the working classes.
1t was a new street which had never attain
cd prosperity, and three or four OF the
houses were empty, staring at the sky with
curtainless windows, and boards announcing
that they were 10 let. Here and there APP
peared a shop, but a shop which looked as
II customers were the exception rather than
the rule.
Fns