Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-03-24

tiny patio, WIN its fountain long ago
gone dry, and Hastings stumbled
through the shrub cholzed entrance and
sat down dizzily in the shady patio.
His head was rapidly growing worse
burning, dizzy, with queer, binding
queer, too, for he could see all sorts of
things.
Dolores favorite perfume was still
hanging about the patio everywhere,
but Dolores was not there-she had left
the city the day he was married in Lon
don. Therefore why was it that he
could see her moving about in the patio
before him and in the empty rooms,
with the little green lorito perched on
her shoulder and the sunshine lighting
up her blue black hair and the red rose
in it? She had always worn the deep
red roses in her dark hair after the first
time that he had noticed and admired
the adornment in his careless way. But
then in all ways she had tried to
please him. Not good woman, she had
been very unselfish-and she had loved
him. Perhaps, after all, if he had mar
ried her instead of coolly breaking to
her after their two years together the
fact of the other woman in England
the sweet, pure girl, his wife-she
would have staid with him to the last,
nursed him, held to him even in death.
Well, it was over whit didn't mat
ter much anyway-the wife was pro-
vided for, and if he went under all
alone in this plague cursed town
bueno!
And then, very tired and stupid, his
head aching horribly, he stretched him
self on the floor in the shade of the
lemon tree and dozed. In uneasy sleep
he passed off into Inconsistencies, as is
the way with the tito. In another hour
he was quietly raving. The birds flew
close and chirped at him curiously. A
few lizards, attracted by the warm sun
shine, crawled up and basked on the
edge Of the patio near him. The sun,
going down, blazed furiously on him
and increased the fever heat, but there
was no one else
just about shutdown. as the sun s rays,
cooler now, fell athwart the patio and
the body of the delirious man, some one,
heavily perfumed and in rustling clothes,
came through the gate and the shrub
berry and stood in the doorway, looking
about her with a fierce, scornful express
sion that slowly faded away as she
unused. Over there was the fountain
of which they had been so proud. 1t
was dry and grass grown now. The
lemon bushes planted by them with SO
much tender care and pruned and low
ingly tended were now great rough
trees, unpruned and gnarly. Even the
big rosebush that they had planted SO
that she could always have red roses
was wild and struggling. Everything
dead, gone! One slow tear trickled
down her painted cheek as she looked
about and thought. These little mute
things-fowers and the like-will stir
even a nameless woman into remorse
and sorrow and even agony sometimes.
She turned to go, signing heavily.
But some impulse moved her. She
wanted to go back through the patio tc
the room that had been hers. One look
at it would not hurt, as she was going
away that night. He was out of the
city, SO she had been told-in Provi
dencia-with that white faced woman,
his wife. Nobody would know it if she
made fool Of herself and cried and
wept in that room for a little space.
When one has been fool and broken
| ones own heart one has to weep.
| Sha vorv nearly, ct,,,,, b1oJ o1,o,, @l,<
form Of the man as she went. He was
still raving, but not violently, as he lay
there, and, strange to say, in Spanish
Perhaps if it had been in his own Ian
guage she would not have cared. Blu
she listened, her heart wildly beating
as he murmured word after word
phrases in her own tongue. She lister
ed, and soon a thought struck her
there was no mention of the other WON
an, his wife, the wife who had gon,
away and left him when trouble ant
plague came near, She listened-wha
was it he was saying, in thickened
husky tone? DOLORES, to amas! Do
lores, mi querida''- And then, ovel
and over again, sweet Spanish words
always of Dolores. Dolores not tn,
white woman Oh, thank God! The,
he had not loved her after all-he hac
married her, but his heart had been tru,
to the poor Mexican.
Sobbing now, with all che pent VI
passion Of many past months, the WON
an leaned over and clasped the burning
delirious form in her arms, pressing he
lips to the unconscious face and the un
seeing eyes. She knew that it was to-
late to check the fever now-nothins
could be done-there were no medicos
no botica, no drugs not even water
nothing. He could only die. But she
who had loved him best, could die will
him.
Months after, the plague extinct, two
skeletons were found in the patio of the
little cottage. One was identified as thai
Of Harry Hastings, M. E., which was
fortunate for his widow in England
Otherwise she could not have claimed
the life insurance policies. But they
were paid, and the little widow invest
ed quite large sum in pretty, black
Grape gowns. And she was SO fair ant
childish and innocent and helpless il
her black robes of bereavement that an
| all, soIx