The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1895-12-29

reading anything "heavy and she felt
somewhat like going on a search for a
book herself But IL was very pleasant
in bed, she was certain, and she didn't
think II would be really worth while
to get up then-but there was that hor-
rible gong again, and a shout from the
street She jumped from bed, drawing
the cover around her. and ran through
her dressing room to a front window.
The engine had just passed. and over
the housetops there, evidently only
two or three blocks away. were shoot
Ing red flames. going out and In from
a dense smoke like the lambert
tongues OF snakes.
Its good It's no nearer u.s." she
half whispered to herself. and then
thinking that, as she was UP, she
would slip along to the library and see
what her husband was reading, she
turned-and came face to face with
him In the open front door. clad In his
dressing gown and slippers. but wear
ing his hat, and on his hands a pair
of worsted gloves. Something In his
face under the light of the hall lamp
arrested the speech on her lips and
froze the smile in her eyes. and stand
ing shuddering just within the por-
there's. she watched him hang up the
hat, carefully stow away the worsted
gloves in the pocket of an overcoat
and return to their room, quietly open
ing and closing the door. Then the
sound of the yielding of the bed
springs and all was still.
Then another engine went past the
horses galloping. urged by the shouts
of the men, and she felt as IL she were
like a moonshiner's wife awakened by
the passing of a sheriff's posse from
dream of her husbands safety. The
dress he had worn, the evident sleep
walker, the singed worsted of the nit
tens which she had drawn from the
pocket and was now examining under
the hall lamp. Poor little woman!
All her family had always been so
comfortably ordinary. their lives so
unruffied and unruffiing. their little
joys and sorrows so easy and so bear
able. as they seemed to her then.
And now she saw herself dragged
from her coy humble nest and set
out naked with all her little pet foibles,
her likes and dislikes relentlessly turn
ed over and over and held up at arms
length before cruel. friendless eyes.
All her so-called enemies were magni-
fed and enlarged to demand: all the
friends in whom she had believed were
dwarfed and belttled into pointless
entities. What would they all say,
that silly Mrs. Hardness and the cyni-
cal Mrs. Sweet? And then in the dark
ness of her little fiat some unknown
that trial to her faith in God. to her
belief in herself, came forth a woman
whom she herself in the old simple
days could not have recognized.
She knew her husband was a sleep
walker; he had often talked TO her
ami to others of his experiences IN
that strange conditioner several
times when he had found himself. with
only his patamas on. walking in the
garden of country house, having
been brought to himself by the cold
night dew penetrating through his bare
feet. And she knew with that intuit-
i've knowledge which is native to most
women. and which men never gain
after weary years, she knew that her
,, husband was the author of the con-
hagrations, and oh! she knew, too, that
one woman, on the night before, had
been smothered in the smoke-and
therefore, what was her husband?
Would sleep-wallxing be classed with
drunkenness as no palliative or excuse
for crime? At all hazards she must
prevent his going out again, for should
he be awakened by any cause and
found red-handed who would believe
the truth? And what reason, what
motive? And she could not tell him
the truth.
But the task was beyond her then,
to attempt to trace the cause of the
mental tangle, the horrible crossing of
wires. as IT were. of the mind, which
had transformed a peace-loving, honest
citizen, in the end of the nineteenth
century, into an anarchist of the most
virulent form. At any cost she had to
prevent her husbands midnight egress
from the house. That would be an
easy task! Well, put yourself in her
place, lady, and see. AS Mrs. Water
ston then. doubtless you have never
H.
and would you carelessly and without
need of thought undertake to restrain
a man who in his sleep had had the
cunning ability to steal to the base
ment of apartment houses and upper
ceived to escape after doing. night
after night. what what proved the fiery
grave OF one girl. and might tolerably
safely have been counted on as the
cremation of so?
wife and the sole possessor in all the
city of the secret OF that man who
was innocent as an angel, yet cursed
with the crime of the blacklist Judas
And she must not disclose to a soul,
must not whisper IL to herself. lest the
wind should blare II forth. like the
reeds which told of the deformed Mi
das. She had to work out her hus-
bands safety and the salvation of I'M
thinking and unconscious fellow beings
alone.
At breakfast both said little. A haz-
ard remark by her on the newspaper
account of the confiagration a few
hours before-luckily checked before
any serious damage ensued-elicited
little response from him. save SYM
patty with the tenants losses and a
vague surmise as to the undiscovered
cause.
All day long Mrs. waterston fruit
lessly thought and thought. and thus
she was seated in front of the lit as
bestos in her bedroom CRATE, when
Waterston returned. He was cheerful
and bright and sat with her chatting
until the gong sounded for dinner.
When they arose-what prompted her
she never knew-but bending down.
she extinguished the light. And then
a funny thing happened. Her hus-
bands manner suddenly and COM
| pletely changed. ENORMOUSLY. almost