The St. Johns herald., 1897-12-04
. !E M M
THE GOVERNOR'e
 TRAGEDY.
H B E H3#3 E E Es3 Es H Mka

Her at dLl GG- EaiuklQg IuaL SHe udu begun to develop an unaccustomed playfulness.
 She did not leave him long in error. Do not toucL me"' she said in voice which, ,lvlsh t tremhled with excite ment, showed the decistyeness of long premedtau1n. Do not touch me. I cannot bear it."
 The Governor stood m0tioness, with the puzzled look Of one whose intellect IS oYercome. She might have pitied him anu receded had -he been capable either of seeing or understanding, but she had Hecome a mere automaton, goyerned by long suppressed emotion.
 Il cannot be,r itr' she repeated. T do not love you. have never loved you. have tried t9 learn. I cannot. l have tried to become a true and duti- full wife to you. ] cannot. l have tried to forge fhe only man l eve- loved. I cannot. There must be an erd of it all, and it must come aowg'
 'Virginia" said the Governor, help lessly. "Virginfa-
 Do Dot stop me" she went on, with increasing rapidity T am rot insane, though l am near #. am a good wom- an, sir. Al least, I have nothing with which to reproach myself. except the shame of having allowed them to make you believe 1 love you It vas all my mothers fault and yours. Why did you follow me2 Why did she force me on you, when I did not love you, when never can love you; wien I have ceased to wish to love you?"
 She paused a moment for breath. The Governor did not move He had leaned his e,bow on the maDteI, and now, with his hand supporting his chin, he stood looking a f her blaEkly.
 "I Will not be stopped" she said, catchirg her breath with a sob. q will tell you everything, everything, the whole miserable truth that is killing me. love John Endicott I nave never loved anyone else. l never will. He does Tt know it, and he never can know t, unless you tell him. Now you know what a wretch I am, and you know-That you have done to make me so''
 AS she stopped drew herself up and threw back her long black hair, which had escaped from her comb and fallen around her face. As yet the GOVernOr's mind had assimilated hard ly anything of what she mad said It had come upon him ! supreme calamity at the climax of his good fortune. He seemed to himself to have died sud- denly and to be striving to wake to | conSciousness iu another " orld. The one idle which shaped itself clearly in | the chaos of his bran was that his wife had never been so splendidly beautiful as nov, when she stood with head thrown back and flashing eyes, lifted above herself by the stress of such an effort as no one person ever makes twice iu a lifetime. as very few ever make at all 4 moment later, over come by the inevitable reaction, she had rushed sobbins from the room, leaving the Governor still standing at the manteI, fmmova5le, as he had stood since she began.
 He had made no attempt to follow her. Sle had gone only a few minutes when he stood upright, threw back his shoulder, walked .Wice up and down the room and then 0oA his seat before a writing desk. drawn close to a win dow overlooking tle river. Settling down in the chair with bis elbows on its arms and his hands locked across his breast, he Iooled steadily out of the wird0w. m0t.olless, as the clock on the mantei struck the ours, one after arother. until The small, square window paDes began to grow luminous with the dawn. Then he rose, and un- locking a drawer in the lower part of his desk took out mahogany box with sliver-mouuted corners and a heavy silver plate lu the center e the lid. He unlocked 1t deliberately, and,