Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1896-09-09

and friendship and success and not the
bitter sweet gift of genius. But though
everything which life could offer was
swept to her on the tide of the succeed
ing years, the hour came when she must
part with them and with life and with
the body in which, so she asserted, she
had for so many years carried piece of
ice in place of heart. She lay very
still, with eyes that did not see, OH the
bed where they had laid her, while her
woman friend and distant kinswoman
who had been called in to nurse her
knelt by her and held her hands tightly.
"How peacefully she seems to look
OH deathp' whispered the kinswoman.
"She was good woman," answered
the friend brokenly.
But the sick woman opened her eyes,
and they seemed to look eagerly over
the heads OF the watchers. "What do
you see?' they asked her, thinking it
delirium. Nothing but shadows" she
sighed. IT thought hoped"- And
her voice sank until it was inaudible.
When the doctor came, she gazed at
him piercingly, then closed her eyes and
murmured, 81 thought you might be-
l was looking for him."
''She means the death angel" said
the watchers.
She spoke only once more before the
death angel in very reality entered and
laid his fingers upon her lips that
would mock no more. Then she gazed
through the clouds which seemed to
surround the familiar objects in the
room, pointed to the portraits of her re-
jected lovers and weakly whispered:
"Burn them. hate them still. Dear
God, who knowest why, thou dost not
despise me-thou who madest me so?"
Then her mind wandered, and she MUIR
INJURED, "a munificent reward"- And
her lips, which still smiled scorn at
life and death as they had smiled at
love, grew suddenly cold. When she
was buried, the world came, some to
weep, all to marvel and exclaim that
here, at least, was one woman who
could live and die independent Of love
which is to say Independent Of nature.
This would have been all were it not
for the old yellowed letters which have
been mentioned. They were not SO old
and ye1lowed when the kinswoman
found them the day before she departed
for her own home, hidden in all obscure
corner Of forgotten piece of furniture,
and started as she recognized the dead
woman's handwriting and signature.
"To my dear love"- What was this?
No name on the superscription, but in
the letter the fondest terms of endear-
ment, the most passionate expressions
of love and trust and womanly cling
ing. She read the other letters, all writ
ten in the same vein, as from woman
who gloried in showing her whole heart
to her lover, to whose name and identity
there was given, however. no clue. The
kinswoman brought them to the writer's
friend. Here" she said, "look and see
the living proof that your woman who
said she had no heart was human after
all. There are more Of these letters than
I can count. They are Of all dates, re-
mote as we'll as recent-one was writ
ten the week before she died-and they
are all addressed to some man, some
lover, Of whom no one ever guessed. ="
''There was no such man." positive
ly asserted the woman friend. II knew
all her secrets; saw every one whom
she saw; was aware of every letter
she wrote or received; I was as insepa.
rable as her shadow, and there was nc
lover to whom she ever listened"
Nevertheless, when she was alone
with the letters, she read them, know
ing that there was no counterfeiting hel
friends handwriting. and as she read
her wonder grew, for she read wom-
ans heart-warm, tender, glowing,
poured out for loves sake Oh these pages
as willingly as the soldier sheds his life
blood for his country. And never did
hereto recant his errors at the stake
more absolutely than she denied her
own denials and scorned the scorn
which she had professed for love. "They
believe me when I say l have no heart, u
she wrote, but I do not care You
know-you only, and that is enough,
for no one will ever see these lines. II
could not write to you would sicken
and die of hope deferred. or my heart
would grow heavy in me and break fol
lack Of anything OH which to spend its
gold. Dearest, I am saving it for you
am spending it on you only-you Of
all the world who know my secret.
Though, is not my desire that of all
women's hearts?
~ hate those men, whose licensees
keep to remind me how different you
are. You guess why? 1t is because they
are not you. Of each hoped he might
be you, and when I found he was not
could not forgive him. did not wrong
them; they wronged and defrauded me. y
The reader gave cry and gazed fix.
eddy at the letter, which bore no name.
"There was no NAME" she whispered.
"There was no lover. Oh, lonely, lonely
woman, to cheat your heart with shad.
ows, as you have cheated mine! Had you
known, as have known, the face. the
voice, the touch of flesh and blood
lover, you could not have staid the i'm.
perious cravings Of your soul with this
poor pretense-with letters written to,
but never read by, the unful6lled ideal
of your unacknowledged dreams!''
The letter written last, before hel
death, was briefer, less hopeful in its
tone, and showed the traces of bodily
weakness; but between the lines the
loving, longing heart Of her who wrote
it throbbef with almost painful eager
ness. "Alas, dear love-" it finished, 81
sometimes become weary Of writing let.
tiers and wish you would--come-in.
stead The last page was blurred.
Fresh tears blurred it still more-the