Omaha daily bee., 1897-05-02
Copyright. 1897. by Bret Harte.)
BY BRET HARTE.

Copyright, 1897. by Bret Harte)
And when It does come you'll see me and
Eddy just waltzin' in and takin' the chief
seats in the synagogue. And you'll have a
free pass to the show"
Either he was too intoxicated with his
~vengeful vision or the shadows OF the room
hal deepened, but he did not see the quick
flush that had risen to his wife's face WITH
this ~allusion to Barker, nor The after settling
of her handsome features into a logged de-
termination equal to his own. His blind
fury against the three partners did not touch
her curiosity; she was only struck with the
evident depth of his emotion. He had never
been a braggart; his hostility had always
been lazy and cynical. Remembering this,
she had a faint stirring Of respect FOR the
undoubted courage and consciousness Of
strength shown in this wild but single
handed crusade against wealth and power
rather, perhaps. II seemed to her to condone
her own weakness in her youthful and in
explicable passion for him. No wonder she
had submitted. .
Then you have nothing more to tell me-
she said, after a pause, rising and going to-
ward the mantel.
you needn't light up for me-" he re
turned. rising also. 81 am going. I'm
less" he added, with his coarse laugh, you
think 1t wouldn't look well for Mrs. Horn
cactle to have been sitting in the dark with
"a stranger" He paused as she con
temptuously put down the candlestick and
threw the unit match into the crate. No
I've nothing more to tell. He's a fancy
looking pup. You'd take him for 81, though
he's only 1G-clean-limbed and perfect-but
for one thing" He chopped. He met her
quick look OF Interrogation, however, with
a lowering silence that, nevertheless
changed again as he surveyed her erect
figure by the, faint light OF the window with
a sardonic smile. He favOrs you, | think
and in all but one thing, too"
And that?" she queried, as he seemed to
hesitate.
"IIe amt ashamed of me-" he returned,
with o laugh.
The door closed behind him; she heard his
heavy step descend the creaking stairs; he
was gone. She went to the window and
threw II open, as II to get rid of the atmos-
phere charged with his presence-a presence
still so potent that she now knew that for
tho last five minutes she had been, to mel
horror, struggling against it's magnetism
She even recoiled now at the thought or mel
child, as II, in these new condolences over 1t
IT had revived the old intimacy In this linz
OF their common flesh. She looked down
from her window on the square shoulders
thick throat and crisp matted hair OF hel
husband as he vanished in the darkness and
drew a breath of freedom-a freedom not sc
much from him as from her own weakness
that he was bearing away with him into the
generating night.
She shut the window and sank down in
her chair again, but in the encompassing
and compassionate obscurity OF the room.
And this was the man she had loved and FOR
whom she had wrecked her young life! Or
was il love? and II not, how was she better
than he? Worse, for he was more loyal to
that passion that had brought them together
and it's responsibilities than she was. she
had suffered the perils and pangs of mater
nifty. and yet had only the mere animal
yearning for her offspring, while he had
xn1yN, n,or tho tpi1s and duty and even the
devotion of parentage himself. But then
she remembered also how he had fascinated
her--a simple schoolgirl-by his sheer dom
ineering strength, and how the objections
OF her parents to this coarse and common
man had forced her into a clandestine init
macy that ended in her complete subsection
to him. She remembered the birth Of an
infant whose concealment from her parents
and friends was compassed by MS 10" Gun
ming: she remembered the late atonement
of marriage prOffered by the man she had
already begun to loathe and fear, and whom
she now believed was eager only for her
inheritance. She remembered her abject
compliance through the greater rear OF the
world, of the stormy scenes that followed
their ill-omened union, of her final aban,
donment of her husband, and the efforts OF
her friends and family who had rescued the
last of her property from him.
She was glad she remembered 1T; sh'
dwelt upon 1t, upon his cruelty, his coarse
ness ami vulgnrity. until she saw as sn'
honestly believed. the hidden springs OF hi
affection for their child. 1t was his chill
in nature. however 1t might have favore'
her In looks; it was his own brutal self III
was worshiping in his brutal progeny. HOY
else could it have ignored her-its OWL
mother? She never doubted the truth o
what he had told her-she had seen it II
his own triumphant eyes. And yet sh'
would have made a kind mother; she remem
bered with a smile and a slight rising o
color the affection of Barker's baby for her
she emembered with Il deepening OF tina
color the thrill of satisfaction she had fel
In her husbands fulminations against Mrs
Barker, and more than oil, she felt in hi
blind and foolish hatred of Barker himsel
a delicious conformation of the strange feel