The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-11-22
THE OTHER MAN


pigeonhole in the P. ". D. novels. her
parents made Miss Gaurey marry Colonel
SchreiderIing. He could not have been
much more than 3o years her senior, and
as he lived on 200 rupees month and had
money of his own he was well off
Understand, 1 do not blame Schneider
ling. He was q good husband according
to his lights, and his temper only failed
him when he was being nursed, which
was some II days in each month. He was
almost generous to his wife about money
matters, and that, for him, was a conces-
sion. Still Mrs. Schreiderling was not
happy. They married her when she was
this side of 20 and had given all her poor
little heart to another man. l have for
gotten his name, but we will call him the
Other Man. He had no money and no
prospects. He was not even good looking,
and 1 think he was in the commissariat or
transport. But in spite of all these things
she loved him very badly, and there was
some sort of an engagement between the
two when Schreiderling appeared and told
Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her
daughter Then the other engagement
was broken off-washed away by Mrs.
Gaurey's tears, for that lady governed her
house by weeping over disobedience to her
authority and the lack of reverence she re-
ceived in her old age. The daughter did
not take after her mother. She never cried
NOT even at the wedding.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly
and was transferred to as bad station as
he could find. Perhaps the climate con-
soled him. He suffered from intermittent
fever, and that may have distracted him
from his other trouble. He was weak
about the heart also-both ways. One of
the valves was affected, and the fever
made it worse This showed itself later
on.
Then many months passed, and Mrs.
Sehreidorling took to being i'll. She did
not pine away like people in story books
but she seemed to pick up every form OF
illness that went about a station, from
simple fever upward. She was never more
than ordinarily pretty at the best of times,
and the illness made her ugly. Schneider
ling said so. He prided himself on speak
ing his mind.
When she ceased being pretty, he left
her to her own devices and went back to
the lairs Of his bauhelordom. She used to
trot up and down SiTnla mall in a forlorn
sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well Oh
the back of her head, and shocking bad
saddle under her. Schreiderling' gener-
osity stopped at the horse. He said that
any saddle would do for a woman as nerv-
asked to dance, because she did not dance
we'll, and she was SO dull and uninterest-
ing that her box very seldom had any
cards in it. Schreiderling said that if he
had known that she was going to be such
q scarecrow after her marriage he would
never have married her. He always prided
himaelf on speaking his mind, did Schrei-
dcrling!
He left her at Simla one August and
went down to his regiment. Then she re-
vived little, but she never recovered her
looks. 1 found out at the club that the
Other Man was coming up sick-very sick
on an off chance of recovery. The fever
and the heart valves had nearly killed
him. She knew that too, and she knew
what 1 had no interest in knowing-when
he was coming up. l suppose ne wrote to
tell her. They had not seen each other
since month before the wedding. And
hero comes the unpleasant part of the
story.
A late cali kept me down at the Dove
dell hotel till dnsk one evening. Mrs.
Schreiderling had been fitting up and
down the mall all the afternoon in tho
rain. Coming up along the cart road
tonga passed me, and my pony, tired with
standing so long, set Off at a canter. Just
by the road down to the tonga office Mrs.
Schreiderling dripping from head to foot,
was waiting for the tonga. L turned up
hill, as the tonga was no affair of mine,
and just then she began to shrek. 1 went
back at once and saw Under the tonga office
lamps Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling in the
wet road by the back scat of the newly ar
rived tonga, screaming hideously. Then
she fell face down in the dirt as [ came up.
Sitting in the back seat, very square and
firm, with one hand on the awning
81,
and mustache, was the Other Man-deadl
The 80 mile up hill jolt had been too much
for his valve, 1 suppose. The tonga driver
said: "Ihis sahib died two stages out of
Scion. Therefore L tied him with rope
lest he should fall out by the way, and so
came to Siimla. Will the sahib give me
backsheesh? It''-pointing to the Other
Man should have given a rupee
The Other Man sat with a grin on his
face as if he enjoyed the joke of his ar
rival and Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud,
began to groan. There was no one except
US four in tho Office, and it was raining
heavily. The first thing was to take Mrs.
Schreiderling home, and the second was
to prevent her. name from being mixed up
with the affair. The tonga driver received
rupees to find a bazaar 'rickshaw for
Mrs. Schreiderling. He was to tell the
tonga babu afterward of the Other Man,
and the babu was to make such arrange
ments as seemed best
Mrs. Schreidcrling was carried into the
shed out of the rain, and for three-quar-
tiers of an hour we two waited for the
'rickshaw. The Other Man was left ex-
actly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schneider
ling would do everything but cry, which
might have helped her She tried to
scream as soon as her senses came back,
and then she began praying for the Other
Mans soul. Had she not been as honest
as the day she would have prayed for her
own soul too. l waited to hear her do
this, but she did not. Then 1 tried to get
some of the mud off her habit. Lastly,
the rickshaw came, and 1 got her away,
partly by force. 1t was terrible business
from beginning to end, but most of all
when the 'rickshaw had to squeeze between
the wall and the tonga and she saw by the
lamplight that thin, yellow hand grasping
the awning stanchion.
She was taken home just as every ono