The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1895-10-04

at Vic sed, uutil Nils. ClllI toit hiid
that cigar smoke would kill the baby.
Then he went down stairs and looked
at the sea from the bow of q beached
dory. His wife began to ask why she
couldn't so about with him ass she used
to do.
1.-Two people can so anywhere, :"
Clint said, ''but two people and baby
can go about nowhere"
And then she told him that she a.
ways knew he was staying away be-
cause the baby bored him. On, it
had all been a midsummer madness,
born OF heat and mosquitoes and the
electricity OF Presidential election
year!
Once she left the baby with
its nurse, and went up to
town to hear a great speaker.
Clint had been obliged to leave
her, and she had waited for him until
four o'clock in the morning; and then
when he came in, his step was not
steady. He had been all night at a
banquet. She had never said a word,
but she had lain with the sheet up to
her eyes and seen him bind an icy
towel about his head and sit down to
write with a strong cigar in his teeth.
After that she was silent, but she
was frightened. The next great
speech he did not send for her. but
she went up in the morning, deter
mined to go with him that night, and
bring him back home with her if she
could. She did not find him at the
Office, and she went into a restaurant
to lunch, feeling warm and out OF
sorts. She WIS trying to be economi-
cal, these days, saving money for lit
tie Wilbur No one knew better than
she how precarious a livelihood is
newspaper work.
And there, sitting opposite her,
farther down the room, was Clint,
cool and Immediately fresh and gay,
lunching with Miss Richardson, who
did the snappy articles upon the NOV
ing world for the Day. Miss Rich
ardsoa was drinking champagne.
Well. Of course it was silly, but
Mrs. Clint walked out without
recognizing them, and went down
to Long Island and dismissed her nurse
and packed her belongings, and came
up to town without leaving an adj
dress behind her. She had gone to
Mr.. Dash, the editor OF Tomorrow,
and he had taken her on, because she
was in trouble, and because he had
prophesied a brilliant future for her
in the old days. But these prophets
generally leave out of consideration
the fact that woman is after all,
woman. The brilliant career had been
turned aside, and there seemed to be
some difficulty about getting it into
the right track again. Instead of
trying to make clever stories. Mrs.
Clint read and smiled over and edited
and returned other peoples stories.
1t was not long before Clint found
her. She refused to see him, and
then he wrote her letter, and said
that he had opened an account in the
Jefferson Square Bank in her name,
and that he should deposit fifty dol
lars week there for her. His income
varied. Sometimes that was about as
much as he made, Mrs. Clint knew.
She never answered the letter, and he
let her alone.
She never touched penny of the
money, but let it accumulate for Will
bur. There was nearly ten thousand
dollars in the bank, and although she
vowed she would never touch it, it was
pleasant to know that it was there in
case of emergency-for Wilbur. And
then, in the awful summer, the bank
failed and the money was gone. She
went down to see about it, and she
found that there had been nothing de-
posted to her credit for several
weeks. An extra tightness came about
her heart. She had been nursing her
obstinacy for almost five years, but
never, never feeling alone. 1t always
seemed to her that Clint was only
waiting for a word. OF course she
would never speak it; it was his place
to come back. No one ever spoke to
her of him. She had avoided all of
her old friends. They had been few,
and she had made no new ones. She
and Ter boy lived alone. When she
could let her nurse 60, she had taken
this little apartment where Margaret
was janitress, and would look after the
boy now and then. Next year he
would go to school.
Think and plan as she might, these
last months had made terrible change
in Mrs. Clint. She pretended to her
self that it was because Wilbur's
money was lost, but deep IN her heart
she knew that it was the realization
that at last her husband had deserted
them. She called it "'deserting'' them
now. She asked somebody casually,
one day, what had become of Maude
Richardson, and was told that she had
gone abroad; and then she saw an al
fusion in the Day which told her that
Clint was again in Paris. 1t was after
this that Mr.. Dash came in and made
his inquiry as to the growing cynicism
of story writer's.
Wilbur was looking longingly out of
the window. Spring was setting in
early this year. and the sound of the
boys playing came clearly through the
air. He felt lonely and restless. He
looked all about him. Across the
street the.e was a window exactly rp-
Oh a level with his own. Framed by
it, looking out as longingly as he, and
also dressed in white. but evidently
because he was an invalid, sat gen
tleman in a chair. He must have Just
come there, because Wilbur had never
| noticed him before.
The child saw that he was observed,
and with the frieadliness which was
natural to his lonely little heart, he
showed his teeth in smile and waved
his hand. The gentleman smiled
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