The Opelousas courier., 1898-01-01

II must WOrK, she SAID, 3 long
as I can hold a BRUSH"
"But you will de-" I said, bluntly,
eff you do not take a few weeks of
entire rest"
"Diel' she said, quietly, not as If
there was any terror in the thought,
but as if it was a new possibility in
some problem of life. ono, I must
not die yet!'
"Then you must obey me!' I
answered. II will send q carriage
every afternoon, with a careful driver,
and you must go with Susan for O
drive. You must be outdoors as much
as possible, excepting during the heat
! of the day, and then, if possible,
sleep"
Her dreary smile confirmed my
| opinion that sleep was a rare visitor
at hesspillow, but she did not say SO.
Indeed, she made no complaint, evil
IDENTIFY allowing my visits solely out Of
regard for Susan.
And to Susan I turned at last for
council. She had come to my house
for some medicine I had%Shgktt from
Partisan opiate not yet in use iLashis
country. And I pointed to a seasa
saying: "Susan, I am{past sixty years
old, crippled, as you see, seldom leav.
ing my home except for fpseign travel
no gossip. If you think you can
trust me with Mrs. Raynor's secret
trouble, I may be able to cure her."
Tho u,or,,r lool,oIA o&,rx1ol Cor a
moment, and then, bursting into
tears, said:
ooh, sir, it's awful trouble, and we
don't want it to be known about
here!'
"I1l not betray you," Isaid gently.
"You see, sir, she is not a widow,
after thinking herself one for four
yearsl He, Mr.. Raynor, sir, for she's
never hid her name, is a bad man, a
man who nearly killed her with his
drinking and gambling and bad COM
pany. He spent all the money her
father left her, he crippled her boy
with a blow of his drunken fists, and
then he left her poor and sick, and the
boy all crushed. She worked day and
night for the child, little Harold, and
he grew to nine years old, but always
crooked and puny. Then Mr.. Raynor
found us out, and he would have taken
the child, he would, the fend, because
she loved it. So we stole Harold away
In the night and sent him to Germany
with a friend. I'm telling my story
ell wrong, sir. We heard Mr.. Raynor
was dead-hsard it from his W
brother, too who believed it, and Miss
Edna-Mrs. Raynor, I mean thought
herself free, when she let Mr.. Du-
chesne come to see her, and-ah, we'll,
doctor, he was a true man 4; gentle,
kind and loving, and 80 good to
Harold. She thought she was a
widow, and her heart was sore, so sore
you can never guess, for she was one
to take trouble hard-and what harm,
If they loved each other? They would
have been married If Mr.. Raynor had
not come back, pleased as Punch to
find he could make a little more
misery for his wife"
"'But he is not living now9"
eyes, he Is, sir; the more's the
pity! MI. Duchesne is in Germany
with Harold, and my poor dear is
working her precious life away to pay
for the baths for the boy, and to keep
Mr.. Raynor away. She pays him 50
much q month to leave her in peace"
"And this delicate woman supports
q husband and child2" I said.
eyes, sir, and lives upon the mean
est Of everything for the sake Of being
alonel It's awful, doctor, to think Of
those loving hearts, one in Germany,
one fretting here, and q bad man be-
tween them. They won't even write
to each other, but we hear from Harold
how kind MI. Duchesne is to him.
1t is like him to try to comfort her by
being so good to her crippled boy!"
eft is a sad story" I said. "And I
too hasty in thinking I might
help Mrs. Raynor If I knew it. We
have no medicines, Susan, for such
as this"
But yet / was glad to have heard
the story. / sent books to the cot
tage, and I went yer frequently, try
ing to win the heavy-heatted woman
away from her own troubled thoughts,
and amazed ut her rare patience and
I had done but little in nv
efforts to restore her health, when
Susan came hastily to summon me one
heavy August day.
"Come, please" she urged. "He's
there, hurtl"
"Who?" I asked.
"Mr. Raynor! He came cursing
md swearing, because his money was
not sent last month, and this morning
he went over to Crawford and got
He was coming home again,
when he stumbled somehow. and fell
Under a hay cart. He's badly hurt. I
5hink the wheels went over his breast.
[ suppose, bad as he is, we'll have to
Nurse him."
And bad as he was, tyrant, tor
mentor and traitor, the new patient
,hus thrown upon my hands was
lursed as tenderly as if he had been
10Th loving and beloved. Out Of her
leavy dependency, throwing self
side, Mrs. Raynor developed her
charitable, forgiving nature In the
weeks Of illness that followed her
husbands injuries, fatal from the first.
believe she would have kept him in
if by any s~elf-sacrifce it had been
but she could only make
moother the passage to the grave.
I had thought her own tenure of
ife but frail, but in her devotion she
rev stronger. She gained sleep by