Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-23
[CoPYRIGHT, 1892.

4 lief in love and woman altogether, which il
worse"
''Oh. that's what you think!' cried Will
! fred. ''That is interesting"
He continued refectively, chewing stalk
| of grass and letting his thoughts run in the
channel that for the last fortnight they had
worn deep with their perpetual trampling.
At the home of his friend, Tom Whiting
ham, in the neighborhood where he was
now staying, was a fellow guest named
Madame de Verneville, whose strange charm
filled him with doubt, excitement and
trouble. He could not understand her. She
had lost her husband about a year ago in
some outlapdish place in the East, where
they had lived for many years. He was a
Frenchman, whom she had astonished
everybody bv marrying, for no one liked
him, and until she had accepted him Bere-
nice herself-as all her relations said in be-
wilderment-kad spoken of him with but
scant respect She had always been
wayward and unexpected-a problem
to her family. That she, with
her intense love of all that was
brilliant and intoxicating in life, should
Minor, where her prosy old husband had an
appointment, filled everyone who knew her
with dismav Some unhappy love affair
was suspected, but Berenice baf1ed all at
tempts to discover the truth. Her usual
reticence made it the more remarkable that
she should have taken Wilfred, to some
slight extent, into her confidence. She told
him that she had returned to the scenes of
her early life because it was here that she
had enjoyed and thrown away the greatest
happiness that had ever come to her or ever
could come. She warned him never to allow
a moments anger or pique to induce him to
-l,.&
worse to owe great loss to oneself than
to any other person for then one could
not comfortably nurse grievance. Madame
de Verneville had followed the example
of all who came under the influence of
Wilfred Turner, whose obvious nobility of
character and perfect loyalty, had laden
him with towering pile of condolences, q
burden heavy with responsibility and often
traught with danger. For those to whom
he gave sympathy and service had, in many
cases, followed the strange instinct of the
average human being to demand from an
unstinting giver, more and more, as he
gives more, founding upon his gifts a sort
of vested interest, an inalienable claim for
renewed bounties, each claimant acting as
if his was the only case with which the
donor had to deal, and as if he had no ship
of his own to pilot through the straits and
shoals.
Madame de Verneville, to do her Justice,
had not instituted right to Wilfred's serv.
ices on the foundation of his sympathy;
she saw and told him that he had too many
people ON his shoulders-it was weighing
him down, and exhaussing his nervous
grasp of life, he must not submit to the
thoughtlessness of men and
women who were not strong enough to re-
tain the perpendicular without leaning
their whole weight on someone else, minus
even the ceremony of permission. How
Madame de Verneville knew that Wilfred
was so placed, puzzled him not little.
Was she casting over him some spell of the
order, which made it possible for
her to read his thoughts! He had made
light of her power in her presence, and had
okingly challenged her to subIugate his
will, if she could; now he began to wish he
mad not defied her. He felt in his heart
hat at her command, he would be ready to
10 anything.
One of her strangest characteristics was
her passion and genius for dancing. At
Oldham House, where they were staying,
she had inspired the whole party with the
same mania, and every evening, in the gar
len, they used to dance to the sound of
music that came from the open drawing
-oom window-not ordinary movements of |
euate measure, Dut WHO spirited national
lances that she had taught them, full of |
character and abandon.
Wilfred was reused from his reverie by !
he voice of his companion, who had appar-
entity been indulging in the same luxury.
Years ago." he began, con this very
pot"
"Another confidence, by Jovep' Wilfred
nwardly exclaimed.
"a little drama took place, of which |
vas the hero. Why should sentimentalize
'ver it to you, nv dear fellow, 1 don't |
Know, but you seem to secrete condolences
Is the liver secretes bile Listen, then, to
ny tale, ;" said Joseph Parkes melodramati-
ally.
"On stormy night at the end of the
fifteenth century a solitary horseman-but
see you grow restive. Stay, then 1 will
ay my story in your own era Under this
I'D oak tree there were clandestine meet
ngs in times long past She swore and 1
wore-we were prodigal of oaths. But one
inc day she did not keep her appointment,
nd wheE returned home I found a letter
hat broke my heart and the engagement