Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1896-10-31

u a WIN INV hVtiCu DOIltEFdllIlS III
had been given TO him by Adrian Singleton.
AS he turned over the pages his eye fell on
the poem about the hand of Lacenaire. tho
cold yellow hand "da supplicc encore NAL
ldUee," with its downy red hairs and its
''doigts de tdume.1
How exquisite the verses werel As one
read them, one seemed TO be floating down
the green waterways of the pink and pearl
city, lying in a black gondola with silver
prov and trailing curtains. The mere lines
looked to him like those straight lines of
turquols blue that follow one as one pushes
out 10 the Lid The sudden flashes of color
reminded him Of the CLEAN of the opal and
iris-throated birds that tiutter round the
tall-honey-combcd Campanile, or stalk, with
such stately grace, through the dim arcades.
Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he kept
saying over and over to himself:
'Devant unc facade rose.
sur le mnrbrc d I'm esealier."
The whole of Venice was in those two
lines. He remembered the autumn that he
had passed there, and a wonderful love that
had stirred him TO delightful fantastic
follies. There was romance in every place.
But Venice, like Oxford, had kept the back
ground for romance, and background was
everything, or almost everything. Basil
had been with him part of the time, and
had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor Basil
what a horrible way for a man to diel
He sighed, and took up the book again,
and tried to forget. He read of the swal-
lows that fly in and out of the little cafe ut
Smyrna where the Hadjis sit counting their
amber beads and the turbaned merchants
smoke their long tasseled pipes and talk
gravely to each other; of the Obelisk in the
Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of
granite in its lonely sunless exile, and longs
to be back by the hot Undiscovered Nile,
where there are SphinXes, and rose-red
ibsses, -rd white yulturcs with gilded
claws. and crocodiles. with small beryl
eyes, that crawl over the green steaming
mud; and Of that curiolls statue that Gautier
compares TO a contralto voice, the "monSt'e
chdrmdnt' that crouches in the p%orphyry-
room Of the Louvre. But after a time tho
book fell from his hand. He grew nervous,
and a horrible lit of terror came over him.
What if Alan Campbell should be out Of En-
gland. Days would elapse before he could
come back. Perhaps he might refuse 10
come. What could he do then: Every mo-
il'hb was VI WAL Importance,
They had been great friends once, five
years b~efore-almost ~inseparablc, indeed.
Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an
end. When they met in society now, il was
only Dorian Gray who smiled Alan Camp
bell never did.
He was an extremely clever young man,
though he had no real appreciation Of the
visible arts, and whatever little sense Of the
beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained
entirely from Dorian. His dominant in
tcllectual passion was for science. At
Cambridge he had spent "a great deal Of his
time working in the Laboratory, md had
taken a good class in the Natural Science
tripos of his year. Indeed he was still de-
voted to the study of chemistry, and had a
laboratory Of his own, in which he used To
shut himself up all day long, greatly TO the
annoyance of his mother, who had set her
heart on his standing for Parliament and
had a vague idea that Il chemist was a per-
son who made up prescriptions. He was an
excellent musician, however, as well, aud
played both the violin and the piano better
than most amateurs. In fact, il was music
that had first brought him and Dorian Gray
together-music and that indennablo at
~ AAiNN ''i ihA N'lli' W w hbl' w
exercise whenever he wished, and indeed
exercised often without being conscious of it.
This was the man that Dorian Gray was
waiting for, pacing up and down the room,
glancing every moment at the clock, and
becoming horribly agitatcd as the minutes
went by. At last the door opened, and his
servant entered.
Mr.. Alan Campbell, sir"
A sigh of relief broke from his parched
lips, and the color came back to his checks.
Ask him to come in at once, Francis"
Tho man bowed, and retired. In a few
moments, Alan Campbell walked in, looking
very stern and rather pale, his pallor being
intensified by his coal black hair and dark
eyebrows.
"Alan! this is kind Of you. / thank you
for coming
81 had intended never to enter your house
again, Gray, But you said it was a matter
of life and death" His voice was hard and
cold. He spoke with slow elaboration
There was "A look of contempt in the steady
searching gaze that he turned ON Dorian.
He kept his hands in the pockets of his
Astrakhan coat, aud appeared not TO have
noticed the gesture with which he had been
greeted.
at is a matter Of life and. death, Alan,
and to more than one person. Sit down"
Campbell took a chair by the table, and
Dorian sat opposite to him. TIL two mems
eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite
pity. He knew that what he was going TO
do was dreadful.
After n strained moment of silence, he
leaned across and said, very quietly, but
watching the effect of each word upon the
face Of the man he had sent for, "Alan, in u
locked room at the top of this house, a room
TO which nobody but myself has access, a
dead man is seated at n table. He has been
dead ten hours now. Don stir, and dom
look at me like that. Who the man is, why
he died, how he died, are matters that do
not concern YOU. What you have to do is
this"
"Stop, Gray. don't want TO know any
thing further. Whether what you have
told me is true or not true, doesn't concern
me. ] entirely decline to be mixed up in
your life. Keep your horrible secrets 10
yourself. They don't interest INC any more. "
"Alan, they will be of interest you. This
one will have to interest you. ] am awfully
sorry for you, Alan. But | CAM help my
self. You are the one man who is able to
save Inc. | am forced to bring you into the
matter. have no option. Alan, you are a
scientist. You know about chemistry, and
things of that kind. You have made OK
perimcnts. What you have got to do is to
destroy the thing that is upstairs-to de-
stroy il so that not a vestlgc will be left of
il. Nobody saw this person come into the
house. Indeed, at the present moment he
is supposed TO be in Paris. He will not be
missed for months. When he Is missed,
there must be no trace of him found here.
You, Alan, you must change him, and
everything tina. belongs TO him, into a hand
ful of ashes that ] may scatter in the air"
You arc mad, Dorian"
"Ah! ! was waiting Tor you TO call me
Dorian"
You are mad, | tell you-mad TO imagine
that | would raise a finger to help you, mad
tn make this monstrous confession. | will
have nothing TO do with this matter, what
ever IL is. DO YOU think ] am going TO peril
my reputation for you! What is IL To me
what devils work you are up to:'
1t was a suicide, Alan"
II am glad Of that. But who drove him
to it! You, ! should fancy