The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-02-06

leaped TO her feet. Never shall | forget the
| look with which she Intercepted me.
| With gesture held out to her the paper.
| She seized it as If she had been an animal,
as If the instinct of self preservation,
awakened in her for the first time, had
| robbed her OF all her charm of manner
and had brought her back to the state of
nature. She read the paper twice, touched
| 1t, scanned it with burning eyes to assure
! herself that it was the same, and then with
cry OF JOY threw it in the fire. She
watched it burn with inexpressibie hsppi-
ness, and then turning toward me, her
hands outstretched and all her grace re-
| turned, she cried:
"Oh, thank you from the depths of my
soul" Her voice still shook with emo
ton. "And so he gave ii back"
'He sold it," l said
She recoiled. ''Sold it9 How-he dareds"
Yes, and did not hesitate"
What did you give him?"
Fifty thousand francs"
She grew extremely pale. The day was
almost gone, and in the dusk her eyes gilt
tered like stars. Mechanically held out
my hand. She took it. Her own was
burning. She drew profound sign and
fell fainting into my arms.
She went away as she had come, and l
remained, $1,000 francs less at my bankers,
but with the recollection of her gratitude
in my heart l had taken up the ordinary
current of my life again when, ten days
later, on opening my Figaro at breakfast,
my eyes fell upon the following reporto-
rial echo of the affair:
NJ. BONTEMPs' SPLENDID GIFT.
Yesterday II. BontempS, the we'll known d.
rector of the magasins OF the Paradis des Danes,
handed to the Society for the Relief of the De
serving Poor the sum of 5000 francs to be dis
tributed among the poor of the twenty arron-
easements of Paris. This remarkable and sue
cessful man of business, i'll making so generous a
use of his immense fortune, proves that he has
not forgotten his own early years, devoted to the
most laborious toll.
was stupefed Then a sudden flash of
inspiration made daylight within my thick
head But it was with my money that
the rascal was being so generous! But up
to the present moment l was the generous
philanthropist, for / had not been reim-
bursed, and probably never should be! But
what a hideous speculation this cession Of
the paper signed by the lovely Italian for
my $1,000 francs had beeni But it was pure
cheating! Thus exciting myself with one
'but" after another, / finally worked my
self into such state of deadly anger that
| could no longer contain myself, and
jumping to my desk wrote to Bontemps as
follows:
SIR-If you had given the 50, coo francs in chart
ty anonymously should have had nothing but
compliments for you. But in taking credit to
yourself for charity which has cost you nothing
you have done contemplate thing. Unless to-
day you do not send me a receipt for a second
$1,000 francs, given by you this time to the poor
of Paris, you shall find the whole story of our lit
tie transaction in tomorrow paper.
BARON DE TREsoR1ER.
Bontemps replied with these words:
S1R-f you tell the story shall be forced to
name the lady. BoNTEMPs.
To this | responded by a definite dis
patch:
SIR-If you name the lady shall go tomorrow
afternoon to YOUR Office pull you out of it by the
ears and box them for you before all your clerks
BARON DE TREsoRIER.
He believed me, and that evening had
my receipt.
The week after the countess adventure
she left for Italy. At the end of month
received her fathers check for $4,000
francs, accompanied by vague expressions
of thanks, which showed that he was igno-
rant under what circumstances my ser
vices had been rendered to her. | thought
no more of my young Italian friends until
one day received letter bordered with
black, in which the afflicted husband in
formed me that he mad mad the unhappi-
ness to lose his wife under the most tragic
circumstances. After their departure from
no foil inf Db,l Io.
more inexplicable as it had been she who
had desired to return TO Italy. 70 the
most affectionate inquiries she remained
deaf, and though from time to time she
seemed to make an effort to throw off her
somber apathy, and would be for day or
so charming and graceful as before, she
soon fell back into ker former state.
At last, during an excursion to Capri,
after breakfast during which she had
rallied from her torpor, a promenade
brought them to the cliffs. She began to
walk toward the rocks so fast shat they
could scarcely follow her. They called her
back, but in vain. Her silhouette stood
out against the blue sky as if she had been
a spirit, and she seemed ready to fly away.
All at once her light dress disappeared.
They rushed forward, but when they
reached the spot where she had been last
seen the cliffs were deserted and the sea
murmured in silence, beating against the
reefs. That evening the waves brought
her to the beach. She seemed to be asleep
and smiled with a cain face, as in the days
when she had been happy.
The letter fell from my hands. ] saw
again the young woman with her beauti-
ful, supphcating eyes and her trembling
lips; my heart ached for her, and tear of
pity and regret stole down my check
Adapted for Philadelphia Times from the
French of George Ohnet.