The morning call., 1895-01-20

By the light of it he could see his wife.
Her face was toward him, her pretty
mouth just opened. He could hear her
regular breathing, as she slept peacefully.
He expected to find her dead. He stood
for one moment indecisive, and then picked
up the bottle labeled poison. He took 1t
into the sitting-room, stepping nolselessly
so as not to wake his wife. Under the
lamp he looked at the bottle carefully,
smelt the contents and finally tasted them.
He saw at once what had happened. The
man who made up the prescription mad
labeled them just wrong, putting the
poison label on the harmless medicine and
the medicine label on the poisonous lini-
ment. Had he not intended to kill his
wife that night, Andrew Thirdly would
accidentally have caused her death.
Less than an hour before he had wanted to
kill her. Now he said fervently and sim
cerely, "Thank God, she's safe''
The impulse had passed. filled with
horror though he was at the crime he tried
to commit, his mind was perfectly clear
and his nerves steady again. He deter
mined to float the labels off the bottles and
then label them correctly. Then no one
would know. SIN the eyes of the law" he
said to himself, 81 am a murderer" But
he got no consolation out of that. 1t was
only an accident, for which he was in no
way responsible, that had prevented him;
he had believed that he was giving his wife
cause a chemists assistant had been in a
hurry.
1t occurred to him in his quiet remorse
that he might now, with the poison bottle
in his hand, sentence himself to death.
He might. But he would leave his wife
without provision of any kind made for
her. His suicide would bring her misery.
He had undertaken a responsibility in
marrying her. and had no right to shirk it.
Besides, the punishment of the law for
murder involved infamy as we'll as loss of
life. Suicide would bring him pity rather
than contempt. He thought over the
problem as calmly and impassively as if it
concerned some third person, and came to
no solution of it.
But he came unexpectedly in one mental
movement upon the solution of an entirely
different problem. 1t was a mechanical
difficulty which had so far rendered an in
vention of his almost useless. He had
spent hours in trying to overcome 1t, and
in vain. Now, when he was thinking OF
nothing of the kind, when 1t was late at
night, and his emotions had so far been
disturbed that he would have considered
himself unfit for work, light suddenly
flashed in upon him. Sitting down to the
table, he made few memoranda on a
sheet of paper and the thing was practically
done. few hours ago the perfectlng of
his invention meaning, as he knew 1t did,
wealth and comfort for the future, would
have caused him the greatest pleasure; now
it caused him none He had frequently
heard of the tortured feelings of con-
demned murderers; he now envled them.
| For he was a murderer and uncondemned,
and in consequence the more tortured.
Sir Andrew Thirdly, knighted in ac-
! knowledgment OF his wealth and services
to philanthropy, survived his wife by one
year. Lady Thirdly had been married to
| him for twenty years, and Tor the last nine
| teen their mutual devotion had been re-
markable and touching. He was man
so all agreed who knew him during those
nineteen years-of wonderful unselfish-
ness and humility.
His death, which was universally
regretted in that part of the county
where he had lived, happened from
misadventure. During his last years be
had suffered much from insomnia, and
was in the habit of taking a sleeping
draught. One night his valet, installing
| this sleeping draught for another medi-
| cine, gave him an overdose of it. The
mistake was discovered and medical as
| sistance summoned at once. Before the
doctor arrived, Sir Andrew, apparently
but partly conscious, spoke OF payment,
of his great thankfulness; that payment
had been asked, and would be made.
Those standing round did not understand.
Lady Thirdly, had she been alive, could
have explained the words by the light of
something which her husband had told
her little more than nineteen wears be-
fore.-Barry Pain in New York.