Alpena argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1893-1909, 1894-09-12

you my new design III lace-work.-
You will be sure to admire it, but
it is so intricate it will tax my pa
tience."
But Ella, promising to come again
very soon, hastily returned to her
own home. Walking about the
rooms with a white face, scarcely
knowing what she did as she dis
placed photograph, IA book or a
bit of china, she repeated over and
over:
"Oh, what will they do with him?
What will they do with him.
Too well she knew who was re-
sponsible for the missing funds OF
the Wyllis estate. Months ago
James had informed her that that
part of the business was considered
by the firm as too weighty to be
longer intrusted to young Dean,
and was to be turned over to him at
once.
If, after this, Ella had noted from
time to time an anxious and troub-
led manner which her husband
attempted in vain to conceal or
throw off, she accredited it to the
worry attending his new duties
Now she understood this and some
other things. She turned away
from regarding his latest gift,
dainty little easy chair cushioned in
pale blue satin, with a strange and
new abhorance.
Less than an hour ago she had
instinctively shrunk from the cheap
effect of the chairs and rugs in her
friends home. Now she looked on
her own beautiful belongings with
utter loathing. How much these
things had pleased her artistic
sense! How happy she had been in
possessing them! How little she
had guessed that she would ever
contemplate them in this heart-sick
mood! Was it not-all this trouble
that had come upon them-in a
great part her fault? Had she not
permitted James to believe that her
happiness depended upon having
all those things which bore upon
them the stamp of expensiveness?
And how little she really did care
for these things! How gladly she
would see them all vanish into thin
air if only James could again stand
before her the honest man he was
before temptation had drawn him
away from the path of peace.
If only these things which had
already cost them all that was best
and dearest in life could but be
turned back into money. IF that
could only be and the money paid
back, surely, then, James would be
a free man again. Perhaps they
would even trust him again, if she
told them how it all had come about,
through his having married a poor,
silly little butterfly, with an insati-
able greed for finery. And she
would tell them that she was going
away, so he would never be tempted
again to extravaganza by her foolish
fancies. Then she stopped to WON
der where she could go-well, that
did not matter-anywhere, so that
she would no longer be clog and
burden to James.
Oh, how little she dreamed when
he had kissed her good-by that
morning that before night this
would have happened! Where was
he now? Somewhere, covered with
shame and humiliation; perhaps
behind the iron bars of prison.
She shuddered. Her eyes were
swollen so that she could see moth
ing plainly, but she lifted her tear
stained face suddenly at a sound.
A quick step came up the walk
that led to the door. There was no
installing it. 1t was too familiar,
that sound. James had been allow
ed to return to tell her after all.
She began brokenly: James, it
was all my fault" and lay in a little
unconscious heap at his feet.
When Ella again opened her
eyes her husbands arms were around
her and his solicitous and affection
ate questionings in her ears.
As so often in life, nothing was
as it had been imagined. James was
still the respected right-hand man
of Barnes & Barnes. No sin of his
SHINING had occurred. An unfort-
innate young man, who on account
of slightly circuitous behavior in
the past had made himself an object
Of the firms stern and suspicious
scrutiny, had drifted further and