The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-12-11
I <ocAL TALK.
TOLD BY A LIAR.

There is wine that is mingled with
tears. Wine the rosy wine, it is good
sometimes: good for the weary brain, the
aching head and exhausted muscle. 1t
refneshes and invigorates, and the QUICK
ened pulses responding TO It's electric
thrill tell that Tsew life has entered where
was before paIsiad energy and lifeless zeal
But onmingled with this fiery drauSht
from Odin's bowl may be the bitterest
gall of wormwoOd and despair. There are
Tears melted with the crushed fruit ana
yelling fiends scream into the ears which
are confused with the din of earthly woe
and troubled disappointment. Hope and
Gespair: elevated ideas and vulgar failure;
achievement and vanquLshed efforts; con-
Guest and defeat; all merge and dovetall
one into the other like the sutures OF the
bony cage which protects the mystic
brain.
Seven years ago last week a wedding
aurriedly took place in Wichita which
was all that mockery can mean All par
ties were strangers in the city, and the
ceremony took place in secret at the rec
tory of a. then prominent divine, years ago
left the city. Four covered carriages
drove up TO the parsonage soon after din
ner on that bright and sunshiny autumn
day. All the ladies were richly dressed
and heavily yelled. Two gentlemen, also
stylishly attired, accompanied the party
and all entered the private study Of the
minister The civil features had been COM
piled with and the law was satisfied
Then followed the sicl1ening tragedy. The
ritual which sounded the knell Of a prom
Using life and stomped as hollow farce
the solemn ceremony of marriage. The
bride was a lovely and lOvable girl OF
probably eighteen years. Her mother was
always close at her side. sometimes with
one arm around the trembling, shaking
form Of her daughter-she who was to be
driven like lamb to the slaughter, the OK
in the fattening shambles. Pale, terribly
nervous, and with the pallor of the grave,
the stricken girl-wife approached the or
deal Ike the quarry slave TO his doom
She tried TO appear very calm, and even
attempted a smile. But it withered away
into the old set stare of the mailman
chilled like winters withered leaves. The
frost OF a fearful woe had forever blight
ed the youth and the elasticity of the child
martyr. The groom was a much older
man. whose face, though intelligent and
attractive in expression, bore the cynical
sneer Of one who has accomplished some
thing by subterfuge and duplicity which
never could have been done by honorable
methods and logical sequence The mock
heroic scene was enacted in all its hOrri-
BILE details. the last benediction was pro-
nounced as was required by law and the
regulations of the church, and the party
started 70 retire. Just then the door open
ed and in walked a young man, griny and
soiled with long and hard travel. With
q fierce, hurried look over the room and
into the faces OF the party, he stalked de-
Etberately across the room. He gave a
bitter smile Of ironical disgust at the Off
ciating minister. another Of undying hate
and satanic defiance toward the parents
Of the now marble caste girl, and with a
bound like that of a cat at its helpless
victim he sprang deity upon the mieera-
bile, quailing groom and with one fearful
blow laid his senseless on the floor. The
delicate form Of the girl now lay pros
trate on the floor by the side of her just
shade husband. Tenderly and with eyes
dimmed with the mist of just that sub
lime affection which only heroes anu
strong men can know. the phantom guest
bent over the unconscious form of her
who was. in heavens sight, his own, and
imprinted on her brow a kiss Then he
arose, slowly lifted the lifeess form OF
the girl to a divan, pressed her fingers
psssionately to mis- lips again and again,
arranged in proper manner her disarrang-
ed garments, removed from one finger a
nelicate ring of diamonds, and before a
word had been spoken by the dumbfound-
ed parents OF the puzzled advance agent
of the everlasting gospel, the young man
had escaped from The house and no one
ever knew how or when he left the city
The wine of life had that afternoon been
stalled by the unearthly fluctuations of
heart fury and troubled soul had been
released TO enter the unknown spaces be /
tween Here and There. There had been
wine mingled with tears. That evening
n modest newspaper notice read this way:
This afternoon young woman, a
stranger in the city on her way west
dropped dead from heart disease while
nwaitins her train