Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1893-07-22


saying that his wife and baby had per
iShcd in the crowd, suffocated to death.
In two months he was engaged to be
married to Cynthia. He was by her
side on the ice in the north country.
They were happy together now. In
two months more they would be mar
red
But suddenly, as he whirled and
whirlcd about on the glare surface,
looking love into the eyes of his be-
trothed, figure started madly forth
from the woods; wild-looking girl
with child in her arms cried. 1T is
|, Renee, your wife, In the Breton
tongue. Cecil understood, but the
others did not. They only stared at
her. Cecil turned his back. Then he
slowly raised himself, turned about and
looked far past the pitiful little figure
on the shore of the lake. She saw it.
She turned and was gone, the anguish
OF death at her heart. He. her huS-
band, had not recognized her. He
loved the pretty woman by his side.
She had seen the love glances he was
giving her before she, the poor little
wife. had proclaimed herself.
Cecil MarloWe sent his servant after
her, poor creature. and asked to see
her in an hour beyond the cOpse When
he came he found her there He tried
to Soothe her, to reasSure her, to say
he thought her dead. But her pride
was fierce. She had expected that
when he knew that she was alive he
would come to her, and put his arms
about her, and say, Father, mother,
it is my wife! She was dead and is
alive again. My wife; Renee, my
wife, But instead of that he had not
known her.
She had walked miles and miles to
this northern country to find him, sure
in her simple heart of his fidelity. But
she would burden him no further. Let
him go back to his sweetheart! She
would not trouble him; no, not she,
though she We're indeed his wife
Doubtless that would not be long
Afterwards he might marry that
pretty girl by his side on the ice
With that she had dashed away
through the tangled wood, and he had
lost her. The next morning she was
lying dead in the snow before his
fathers house. But even in death she
was a stranger to him. He wondered
with the rest how that strange crca-
1ure had come to their house to die:
ne, with the Others, guessed at what
nationality she was, for they did not
know. He thought she might be
Breton. but he could not tell Yet she
was buried almost with the same cere-
mony as if she had indeed been ac-
knoWledged his wife; her form was
carried from his fathers house and
was laid in his fathers burial lot. And
the child, which she had left at IN inn
seven miles away, was taken in charge
by him and cared for until one day he
went to look for 1t and it was gone,
and no amount of searching could dis
cover it.
Judge Marlowe, as he sat in that
English court trying that case of life
and death, became hourly more certain
that the prisoner in the dock was his
own child, little Cecile, whom he had
lost He asked to see the crucitix and
rosary which We're found broken by
the pond. They We're the crucitiX and
rosary he had given his little peasant
wife in those far-off happy days when
he had taken her in his arms for the
first time and pledged himself to mar
ry her. He knew the old tokens, he
saw in Il moment why the face of the
prisoner had haunted him. On the
back of that little cross he read the
word Pardon" cut in rough letters
with knife. She had cut it to send
to him that winter night when she had
died i'll the snow. She had repented
her hard words in the wood and was
going to beg his pardon and believe
him true to her after ALL
The judge bowed his head, the coun-
sci wondered at his strange paleness
and asked If he We're i'll. The prisoner
at the bar waited to hear the sentence
she knew must be hers.
Have you aught to say why SEN
tence Of death should not be passed
upon you?' asked the judge, steadying
himself and looking directly, though
somewhat vacantlt, at her.
only this" she answered, that I
am innocent"
He looked away and seemed to wipe
tears from his eyes as one hand toyed
with the crucitiX and rosary on the
desk before him and he seemed to NUT
ter, though none We're sure of what
he said, My own child, my own child"
Then, In clear, unwavering, though
most sombre voice, he repeated the
formula for sentence of death in Eng
lish courts:
Il sentence you, Cecile Kenny, to be
hanged by the neck until you are
dead"
He did not look at the prisoner as
he ended, but quickly raised his hand.
kerchief to his mouth to stop a sudden
gush of blood and as he did so he sank
down with his official robes of black
about him stained with red, and they
heard him say distinctly: My own
child. She is my own child and have
condemned her to death"
1t was his last sentence. They car
ried him out and called the doctors,
but it was too late.
What did 1t matter to him when, at
the last moment, reprieve came for
his child. that she was shown to be in
nocent, that she was truly married to
the son of her aristocratic mistress.
that he had taken her child away and
because she had promised silence she
had said nothing that would inculpate
him, even when she must die for 1t?
He, the father, had taken the baby
away with him where he had gone to
Il distant country to win his fortune,
and the body that had been found was
Il strangers.
But Judge Marlowe, the respected,
the wise, the beloved had died with
that sentence of death upon his lips
his own sentence, it proved, and not
the sentence of the innocent child
whose mother he had murdered.
Heavens gift is the Imagination, that
flashes its way where reason often pain
fully gropes.