Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-04-17
sTAUNToN. VIRGINIA, HPRIL II, 1891.
en.and knew it for Satan's self.

Seen,5and knew IL Tor Satan S self.
Demon! you have done this!" he cried,
as llesprung into the water after his wife.
She had risen to the surface, and he
caugAt her and swan with her to land.
He ifAplored her pardon, and she gave it
to him freely; but alas! the deed was done.
In a little while she lay in her coffin with
her baby on her bosom, and he followed
her to the grave, and over her the turf
grew green in time, and stone was placed
on which were these words:
"Mina, the beloved wife of Max Rudolph.
A jewel lost to him forever"
Max returned to his desolate home and
dwelt there alone Shortly he began his
pursuit of rare jewels again with more
energy than ever. No one knew what he
did with them, for no one saw him go at
midnight to his wife's grave, and there
bury them one after another until the sod
above her heart was rich with jewels.
+ He lived on wretched food, with scarcely
fire enough to warm him. He wore the
garb of a beggar. Piece by piece the old
furnituye of his house, its pictures and it's
ornaaaelAts were sold, the money converted
into gems. But it was to Mina's grave
that he bore them, and there he buried
them, with prayers and tears, and the
UldCh uSuu ueu uttuutCu Lib yCuGu
ceased to appear to him, nor was it ever
seen by any one at his shoulder.
At last it was known that he had sold
his home and his land, and retained only
the right to dwell while he lived in the
room from which the balcony-the balcony
on which Nina stood when he laid the
jewel in her palm, and whence she had
fallen to her death beneath his blow upon
her bosom.
There he sat, often the whole night
through. A fatal disease had come upon
him. He knew it's dread symptoms well,
but he sought no physician. Death was
welcome to him. Only he prayed always
for some token that Nina had forgiven
him. His hair was white as bleached
linen; he had the aspect of very aged
man, though he was not really old. Grief
and remorse and terror Of the fiend had
made him what he was, and now he was
poor-so poor that he could not buy the
smallest gem to bury in his murdered
wife's grave.
One night he had in the house only one
little piece of black bread and no more.
He sat upon a wooden bench and in the
corner lay an old straw bed. He sat in the
balcony-the broken rail had not been
w SOOOCu UGlOW. LII Was
mountaineering for her whom he had
killed so long ago, and his remorse and
grief would have touched the hardest heart
who could have read his Alright.
Assuredly it appealed to heavens mercy,
for as the clock in tower hard by struck
midnight strange thing happened. The
waves, never so high before, began to leap
up and wash the floor of the old balcony.
IN,
as woodland they looked to him some
times like the faces and hands and arms of
sea spirits, so that in spite of himself he
stretched out his own hands to touch
them, and, grasping something that melt
ed between his fingers, still held fast a
small hard substance, which, as he opened
his palm, glowed like coal of fire
A candle stood upon the hearth within.
Trembling and overwhelmed with super
stitious terror, he arose and staggered to-
ward it, and saw that what he held was a
great ruby, the very stone that he had laid
in Mina's palm SO long ago-the gem of
priceless value for the possession of which
he had wed with kings.
An hour later the moon at her setting
looked on him as he tottered over the road
to the graveyard and knelt at last beside
Alliia-S grave.
There, with little knife he carried, he
dug a hole and buried the ruby hands
depth deep, close against the white stone
on which her name was written, and with
the effort his strength forsook him. Hs
knew that the supreme moment was at
hand
"Mina, Mina!" he cried. Murdered an
gel! intercede for me with heavenp'
And suddenly al about and above the
grave began to glow with a clear light like
that of jewels, and in the midst he saw the
figure Of an angel who wore his wife's face
holding out her arms toward him.
The next morning some laborers found
Max Rudolph dead beside his wife's tomb,
and for months men searched the house
where he had dwelt for the treasure he was
believed to have hidden. But no one ever
thought Of looking in the right place; no
one dreamed of what VS. knew-that he had
offered all he had to his murdered love and
to the heaven he had so offended, and that
the turf beneath which Nina sleeps is rich
with jewels.-Mary Kyle Dallas in Fireside
Companion.