The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1899-10-17
ESTABLISHED 1879.

wol-d Is used to seeing the man grow
Indifferent and the woman cold and
pale; but you-you might take the trag-
edy as 1t is within the four walls and
make It live and throb In there. You
might put it that at first the mans
mistake was in always straining for
ward to his goal, forgetting that the
happiest time is now-forgetting how,
when he looks at last he win not find
just the same laughing girl as he mar
ried. Often he left her, we will say;
he wanted cheerful faces and relaxa-
ton after his work, and the wife was
only like a ghost creeping about the
house. And so at last, for her the only
alternative to a broken heart was
heart hardened to stone. And, oh, she
had so loved him-had 50 determined
always to look her brightest and best
for him! That might have gone on till
the end, as it often does; but there
came blow-one blow more than she
could bear. Well suppose-weA sup
pose that one day the wife, somehow
or other, heard him talking to a friend.
liz W0o l0ACbg LC A<N0 NbACQs
What's the matter with--with her? All
the romance gone that you used to TALK
abOutY Make it-make 1t that she held
her breath for the answer, even then
even then; that even then she was
hungering to put her arms all around
him, and tell him, oh, no, it was not
gone! And supposing she heard him
say: Herr Pooh, take no notice of her
always the same. Wish to God some
times I'd never married-what with
the expenses and the miseries at home.
Can't make her out-not like other wo-
men. Given it up long ago Don't you
ever marry, old manp And supposlng
the wife stood and cried to God to take
her on the spot, and that God did not
answer, and that at last-at last, when
something seemed as If it would snap
in her brain-she crept into her hus-
bands study and took out the pistol
that he kept in his desk and put it to
her forehead, and-and almost pulled
the trigger. Wouldn't paper accept
a story like thatY'
Still no answer. The man had cram
ed still farther forward, his hands grip
ping the desk. his face gray In the
dusk, his stare widened. It looked-it
somehow looked as IL he feared for his
life to look around, in fear Of a hand
waiting for his throat 1t was not his
wife talking. 1t was tragedy that had
come creeping into the room, as 1t
sometimes did when he wrote late, and
something stood and breathed behind
each shoulder.
The voice came again, as from long
way OF.
Eyes! Say she paused the moment,
and that saved her. She looked at his
work and thought of his long struggles
and the mind that always strained aft
er something in life that is never to be
found. But the thought had come into
her head. and it staid and staid, and
more than once, when he had passed
her with hardly a word or look-no,
my God, she could not bear it, God
forgive her, she cannot bear itP'
The indescribable sob and a swift
rush. A hand had plucked open the
drawer at the mans side. and some
thing bright flashed out just in time
he realized something and swayed up,
with hoarse cry: winnie! No, mop
and faced the picture that was to eat
into his memory for all time.
The dead silence, the stare with
which the wide eyes in her worn,
white face seemed to search his soul
wildly for flicker of the TRUTH Then
her hand dropped, and her face began
to twitch piteously. His arms were
out-and the heart beat there yet.
'WinnieF' he had whispered-sucha
whisper. Don't, don'ti Come back
to mel Come back to meP'
And for those two Time put back the
hands of his clock. But the story.
That was not for publication.-London
| Star.