Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1895-06-20
LOST REVENGE.

The news of his death came upon her as
! blow. There could be no doubt of that
She had never anticipated that he would
die SO soon, while the rosebushes were all
| in flower and the nightingales were awake
in the coppico and the sun had the glow
and the shadows the cool reticence pecul-
lar to the earlier days of the summer. She
had never anticipated that he would die at
all while she was alive. 1t seemed SO I'M
likely. She was such delicate slip Of a
! snow white maiden with the vagueness of
the undiscovered country in her great
brown eyes, with tho trouble of Il tragic
future In the curving lips of her tremulous
rosebud mouth And he had been so strong
so terribly strong. The iron of his great
! arms might have held up world, she
thought. His voice was the voice of the
ruler In his eyes u Threatening command
dwclt always. And now he was dead. She
had just heard SO, and scarcely any one
knew it yet. His mighty frame was
stretched out in tho room below-the gar
don room, where sho generally sat Mt even
ing; tho garden room to which one some
times came as evening fell. But she did
not think of that Immediately. That tho
world would go on just as usual now all
was so changed for her did not occur to
her The man below had boon her husband
and no was dead. She could only think OF
| that at first.
How she had hated him!
He had bought her as the wife he desired
! So, surely, he must have once loved her.
But he had mover shown it. She had feared
him terribly that very first day, when they
won't away together from the church, down
tho fat, gray road by the almshouses
where tho old women stood bobbing in the
rain, over tho village green haunted by
wandering geese, whose feathers were
blown the wrong way by the wind that
stormy day of their marriage. He must
/ have once desired her. How he had stared
at her in the shadow of the shut carriage
while the hooGs Of tho horses splashed in
tho puddles of tho country road. His eyes
never left hor. They were slightly blood
shot and looked excited rs they Travelled
over her face and his full lips moved un-
I der his black mustache. But he said moth
| ing.
How she had hated him!
Tho morning after their wedding she
had tried to escape from him. She slipped
out of tho great Lord Warden hotel at Do
yer in the gray dampncss of tho dawn
when he was sleeping. The sullen sea,
which they were to cross presently, roared
! in her ears, and the sea gulls cried to her
from tho foam flockcd pebbles of the steep
ly curving beach Tho hull Of steamer
doomed ON tho ragged horizon, and the rain
drove over tho shining asphalt ways. Two
or three sailors hanging about, with peaked
! caps drawn down above their wet faces and
| hunched shoulders, pecred ut her as she
crept from tho hotel, grain of humanity
swept by tho whirlwind. How cold 1t was,
and how desolate! In the wind came tc
/ her tho stranglod whistle of an engine and
then she knew sho was too late. The train
was flashing away rs she struggled on
against tho tempest. She returned to his
embrace
How she had hated him!
And they travelled together. The snow
peaks of Switzerland; the green valleys,
where tho chalets rested on the steep slopes,
as If tired and pausng but for II moment;
tho blue lakes of Italy; tho old, sad cities,
with their streets full of tho echoes of dead
voices; the weary ruins, passively enduring
shrill calling tourists; the vineyards,
where life was laughter and was song-sho
had seen them all with him. She hated
erablo Nile and the rose gardens of Damas-
Gus were loathsome to her. She had
watched tho flame blue line of Arabs wind
away beneath tho flame blue sky. She had
heard tho tinkling bells of caravans and
the wild chant of the sailors sweep up from
the pallid gray green mimosa bushes, and
she had only Sickcned and longed to die.
She had only longcd to die. And now he
lay dead, and she could hear the nightin-
gales beginning to flute. Yet was she
glad?
They had come back to England. Peo-
Pile envied her. Women murmurcd his
name rs she passed by, murmurcd 1t in ad-
miration, while tho blood famed in her
cheek at thought that she was his. Tho
great world took her for awhile, took her
and gave To her only such profound weari-
ness. In the park, as her victoria stood
against the ratings in the hot sun, and the
murmur of society rippled round hor be-
meath tho trees, and the queens of society
and tho courtosans who Were the recognized
quecns-the sinner incognita and the
queen incognita-passed her by, she sick
oned again and thought of the rose gar
dens OF Damascus and of the flame blue
line OF tho Arabs and wondered II the
world could give to her nothing II his
shadow must be upon everything, like the
shadow of fate brooding black over the
plcaSaunce Of life She wondered in
malady of dreaming and the voices under
the trees said she posed, because for
moment she ceased to think of them. Then
she drove home MS the twilight gathered
about the city and tried to hush ii oil, in
vain. She dreaded the falling of night rs
children broad the grave.
How she had hated him
And then u golden thread twined into
the web of her tangled young life. One,
in the midst of tho ignorant and the care
less, understood that she was in the prison
house OF despair and staid awhile outside
the grating OF her cell TO whisper of com
for.. The dew fell upon the poor parched