Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-07-13
LOST

The news of his death came upon her as
q 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 coppice, and the sun had the glow
and the shadows the cool r%eticence 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 un-
likely. She was such a delicate slip Of q
snow white maiden, with the vagueness Of
the undiscovered country in her great
brown eyes, with the trouble of q 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 a world, she
thought. His voice was the voice Of the
ruler. In his eyes q threatening command
dwelt 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 the room below-the gar
den room, where she generally sat at even
ing; the garden room to which some-
times came as evening fell. But she did
not think of that Immediately. That the
world would go on just as usual now all
was SO changed for her did not occur to
her. The mar below had been her husband,
and he was dead. She could only think of
that at first.
How she had hated himl
He had bought her as the wife he desired.
G. a,ro1, 10 ,o,,,% 1ox,o oY,o 1ox,oI how
But he had never shown it. She had feared
him terribly that very first day, when they
went away together from the church, down
the fiat, gray road by the ~almshouses,
where the old women stood bobbing in the
rain, over the 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 tho hoofs of the horses splashed In
the puddles of the country road. His eyes
never left her. They were slightly blood
shot and looked excited as they Travelled
over her face, and his full lips moved un-
der his black mustache. But he said moth
ing. :
How she had hated him!
The morning after their wedding she
had tried to escape from him. She slipped
out of the great Lord Warden hotel ut Do
yer In the gray dampness OF the dawn
when he vas sleeping. The sullen sea,
which they were to cross presently, roared
in her ears, and the sea gulls cried to her
from the foam flecked pebbles of the steep
ly curving beach. The hull of a steamer
doomed on the 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
launched shoulders, peered at her as she
orept from tho hotel, a grain of humanity
swept by the whirlwind. How cold it was,
and how desolate! In the wind came to
her the strangled whistle of an engine, and
then she knew she was too late. The train
was flashing away as she struggled o.
against the tempest. She returned to his
embrace.
How she had hated him!
And they travelled together. The snow
peaks Of Switzerland; the green valleys
where the chalets rested on the steep slopes,
a If tired and pausing but for a moment;
the blue lakes Of Italy; the old, sad cities,
with their streets full Of theechoes of dead
voices; the weary ruins, passively enduring
shrill calling tourists; the vineyards,
where life wa laughter and was song-she
had seen them all with him. She hated
them all. Even the flat reaches of the ven
cradle Nile and the rose gardens Of Damas-
GUS were loathsome to her. She had
watched the flame blue line ofsArabs wind
away beneath the flame blue sky. She had
heard the tinkling bells of caravans and
the wild chant Of the sailors sweep up from
the pallid gray green mimosa bushes, and
she had only slckened and longed to die.
She had only longed 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 murmured his
name as she passed by, murmured 1t In ad-
miration, while the blood famed in her
cheek at thought that she was his. The
great world took her for awhile, took her
and gave to her only such profound weari-
ness. In the park, as her victoria stood
the ratings In the hot sun, and the
Of society rippled round her be-
meath the trees, and the queens Of society
and the courtesans who were the recognized
.queens-the sinner ~incognita and the
queen inoognita-passod her by, she sick
ened again and thought Of the rose gar.
dens Of Damascus and Of the flame blue
line Of the Arabs and wondered II the
world could give to her nothing, II his
must be upon everything, like the
Of fate brooding black over the
nj life Che III tn =