The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1894-11-16
MY 10, JOHN.
CHAPTER XIII.
BY HELEN Il. MATTERS.


households they had condescended
to enter
Always careful to keep up appear
ances. Martha ne 'er paid visits with
out Fletcher, and once arrived in
town she was at her wits end how TO
make inquiries without revealing
the fact that she was q forsaken
spouse. engaged in the ignomn
task of trying to catch u runaway
and bring him home
For that he had run away from her
and the dullness at Pigeonwick. and
his own heartache about his master,
at last, Martha had no manner of
doubt, and strange doggedness
that had lately showed in him flashed
upon her now as quiet, steady de-
termination to go to the devil in his
own way, and in his own time, un-
hindered by her influence or any
attempts Of hers TO stop him.
His master mad been his idol, his
one care on earth, and he had missed
him and fretted after him like
mother after her babe, and with his
object in life gone, he had become
first hard, then desperate. and ncw
he did not value his own life and
character at two pins.
Then indeed Martha's heart awol5e
and howled for her fletcher. and
something better still awoke also,
the determination to save him from
himself, whether he would or no.
determination that animating tho
breasts Of all islands and wives
would save three parts of the piteous
tragedies on earth.
So, when ehe had established her.
self in q modest lodging, Martha cast
about in her mind how to begin.
Fletcher was not a man OF low
haunts, and she knew of mono in
which to look for him. and though it
was scarcely likely that, wishing to
clude her, he would look up their
joint friends. it was possible that he
might have been seen about in town
by one of them, so with the utmost
care Martha dressed herself out for
the round of visits she intended to
make.
A good many families were still
out OF town, but November had
also brought a great many home
home to the darkness and the fogs
and the universal baefulness of life
under impossible conditions of health,
all cheerfully endured for the graft
fication of that gregarious instinc:
which crowds mortals together in
breathless masses, and makes us shun
the moor and the country sido they
must tread alone.
But immediate inquiry for "Mr.
Fletcher on Martha's appearance,
Immediately convinced her that he
was not 'in evidence" anywhere.
but that, as she expected, he clay
low" and it would be q clever Br'er
Rabbit indeed who unearthed him
Martha's excuse for his non-appear-
ance was simple enough. He was in
the country, q fact that excited no
comment in the minds of these lords
and ladies OF plush and satin, who
would have liked the Fletchers better
HAD they not been so sparing in their
illusions to sour people,"
So when Martha had quietly ex-
hausted her visiting lists without
results. she had only herself to fall
back upon, and very dull she found
it. with her occupation gone-the
occupation of sharpening her wits
and tongue at Fletcher's expense,
her duties to Mrs Anderson being q
matter Of quite secondary consider
alton. She missed those duties now,
and had that miserable feeling OF
ldleness that in one accustomed ii
&c s,s- I
hopeless OF sensations. and some
thing very like despair began tc
settle on Martha's soul as the days
went by, and stiIl she had not OBJ
tanned the smallest clue to her hus
bands whereabouts.
But one day as she sat in her little
room idle, with her stout heart be
ginning to waver in her breast. the
thought struck her that Fletcher
might not be in London at all, but
in Scotland with his master, or gone
abroad with some new master, in
stead of starting at full gallop fo
perdition
And then she remembered how h,
had looked latterly. and of one o
two things he had let drop, and sh,
knew the heart of the man was to,
heavy and broken within him Il
accept service under new master
and she never forgot that, steady a.
he was, he came from a family o
ne'er-do-weels, who drank hard
lived hard, and usually died in mos
disgraceful fashion.
She had known all this, yet sh
had never spared him the lash of he
tongue all the same; perhaps IL sh
had been better to him he would no
have fretted after his gentle maste
so much, or at any rate would hav
turned TO her for comfort; ant
sorrowfully as her mistress had con
fessed her faults OF temper to he
own heart, this stubborn woma
began to confess hers, and in lonI
hours OF doubt and wretchednes
formed the doughty resolve that