The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1893-10-26

Dle OF becoming ulOTe uduSeTOuS anu
wicked than man himself But this is
because she knows by the long and bitter
experience of her sex that the world is
thenceforth against her. We call her a
sinner, but how wide is the difference
between her sin and the crimes of men,
Her sin, at the worst, is a sin against
herself, and she is the sufferer. Man sins
his own gain. Yet the thief and the
murderer are not punished more re-
morselessly than is she, for death itself
is a light penalty compared with the
lingering tortures of life of shame. II
she were made the object of compassion
and protection instead of scorn, she would
still remain good and pure-yes, pure,
for impurity begins only after love has
been profaned and obliterated.
Sinfire's fault has surely been gener.
GUS one. but though she may have made
tragical mistake all is not yet lost fol
her. Love has led ler astray. May not
love redeem her also? She stands now
at the point of peril. One step more. and
it is too latel If | can win her now,
should cherish her or reverence heI
less than if she came to me fresh and
unbreathed on from her mothers bosomi
The world may doubt it, Sinfire herself
might hesitate, but in my own mind
there is no doubt at all. If she loves
me, then that love condones all. And
should any one sneer, let him beware!
Who am indeed that l should judge
her? "There is no crilne," said Goethe,
"that might not have committed" ]
go further and say that do not hold
criminal many of the things that men
in the specious interests of society have
arbitrarily adjudged to be such. Actions
should be estimated not in themselves,
but according to their motives and con.
sequences. A lie may be wrong, but
not the lie that saves friend from un.
merited disaster. A theft may be wrong,
but not the theft that deprives the drunk
ard of his fatal draft. A murder may
moves monster from the earth. The
binding together of man and woman
may be wrong, but not if the bond be an
interior, voluntary and loving one.
There is nothing in me that need cause
me to shrink from Sinfire were she as
wicked as she is beautiful. If her eyes
have looked upon hell, yet there can be
no heaven for me where she is not, and
that dark experience of hers would only
unite us more absolutely.
Is it who write in this way! Am
in earnest? Is not this mere intellec-
tual passion-diversion rather-which
cultivate for the sake of variety and oc-
cupation? have never kissed Sinfre
have never told her that loved her
l have no reason to suppose that she
loves me-quite the contrary! And
what, after all, is this mystery of intrigue
that invests her but sheer invention of
my own? have seized upon know not
what hints and innuendoes and appear
ances and have welded them together
with the ardor of an impassioned imag-
ination into an ingenious chain of cir
cumstantial evidence.
A tenth rate lawyer in frontier vii
lage would pull it all to pieces in five
minutes of cross examination. He would
prove to the satisfaction of the dullest
jury that there existed not the slightest
reasonable ground for my suspicious
and inferences; that ! was wantonly
maligning my uncle, my brother and
my innocent cousin, whose supposed
gypsy extraction was due solely to her
happening to be good looking brunette.
The jury would bring me in guilty Of
malicious libel without leaving their
seats, and l should be sentenced without
having word to sayin my own defense.
And this is Frank Mainwaring, ESQ.,,
M. D.!
At all events | ought henceforth to
entertain profound respect for this i'm.
agination of mine, the power of which ]
have never until now appreciated. It is
certainly the most effective feature OF
my character, apart from which possess
no life or activity worth mentioning. I,
is not only my imagination that has
made me fall in love, but were the at
tributes which have imagined to invest
my lady love proved TO be nonexistent
/ should undoubtedly cease to feel tha
slightest interest in her. It is not her
self that love, in other words. It Il
something that I have endowed her will
oOAiOuLAiiS pAopOh w NY OWn ulu0-
in short, myself! And cannot love my
self without going into raptures and he
roles and know not what more ant
worse? Decidedly, Frank Mainwaring
Esq, M. D., you are neither more mol
less than fool!
Sinfire has just left me.
She did not stay long, and do no
know that either of us said much, but i
has made great difference. She enter
ed abruptly and swiftly, with steaithy
! ophidian movement that somehow re
minded me Of Saprani. All the fusl
and the mockery and the brightness wer
gone out of her face. which was ivor,
pale and with sort of rigidity in it
beautiful lines. All her life seemed t,
be in her eyes, but they did not fasl
or sparkle. They absorbed light ant
gave none forth.
was sitting in the big armchair a
my writing table, and before could ris