Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-12-14
and looks up at her e husband pitt

| Look at him! Doesn't he seem very i'll
| to your" she asks, with quivering lips.
| Lord Ennisford does not glance at him.
ssI expected you home to dinner last
evening, George; made sure Of it some
/ how. Why didn't you Gomez" she asks,
with a troubled look, after little.
81 told you / was busy; besides Bella
said you were going to the opera"
/ ellai-operar' and her usually mild
voice. positively quivers with resentment;
| "Bella will never tell the truth about me.
| And you know I am not in spirits to go
| t. operas!'
| ''More's the PITY" he sneers, thinking
| that he has never seen Frances look sc
ugly as she does at this moment, huddled
| up in her crumpled muslin, with the light
! pouring down straight on her face.
'.How coldly and critically you look at
| me- she cries, passing her hand rapidly
over her head as if to smooth down the
rough, tangled hair "And yet | have
done nothing but think of you" And she
bursts into positive hurricane Of tears.
| Her nerves are SO unstrung by one thing
and another, that she knows she must
cry, no matter if by doing Sc the heavens
fall.
''Scene!' he answers, with hateful,
provocative laugh. ''Well, l am getting
used to it.
She dashes at her eyes, and looks at
him. startled, thunderstruck, then she
| means aloud.
ooh, why do / live! George, I know
you spent your evening with her. am
sure of it, 1t was all the same to you
if Chester was ill and / miserable so long
as you were with that woman! Why do
/ live!
I'm sure don't know!-to worry my
life out, I SUPPOSED he says, in cruel,
savage tone that awes her and seems to
petrify all the expression on her face.
She sits as if stunned on the couch,
the light still revealing the flaws in her
face, the flaws which are the real Of
tenders in his beauty worshiping eyes; at
last she draws hand slowly across her
brow.
"This is not like you, Ennisford," she
says, very softly; sif-if it is, | know
you will be sorry some day."
please don't come the pathetic dodge
over mer' he replies, roughly; "that is all
played out; nor the lofty moral dodge,
either. | am just as good and righteous
as you are, though you have made it your
duty, ever since we were married, to as
sumo a superiority Of sanctity."
The woman that listens to all this Is
the daughter of duke, and in her TWEEN
ty-three years she has never come into
contact with that awful thing called
''snobbism."
Yet, though she would not breathe the
thought to save her life. she has a full,
vivid consciousness staring her in the
face that this husband Of hers, in spite
of his marquisate, his noble quarierings
and patrician face is a cad at heart. The
consciousness quite petrifes her,, ossi6es
her, as she sits staring at him with dull,
almost leaden eyes, out of which color
and expression have faded, leaving just
dead blank.
At this moment a tap comes to the
door, and Bella, dressed in her rigid soeur
de charlie fashion, appears, looking from
husband to wife as she enters.
AS she looks she grows sure that that
for which she has so long worked and
watched has come to pass, namely, a
thorough disunion between them, but, ex-
cept by an uncanny twinkle in her pale
eyes, she does not in any way betray her
knowledge of this acceptable fact, and
going up to the sofa, quietly takes the
boy in her arms.
IF you care TO save his life, you had
better take him to Highcliffe," she says,
in short, decisive tone to her cousin
II have no objection. I cannot leave
town just now, but the sooner you both
go off with him the better, to my think
ing
II said that she and 1 would soon drift
away in the same boatn' Bella Kisses into
his ear, and to this Lord Ennisford an
swers nothing.
Perhaps there is a small spark of COM
junction, however, as he bends down for
his wife's offered kiss of good-by; but it
is too faint to rise above the ascendant
and overwhelming sensation that now
/ now for a time, at any rate, he is free
free to go where he WILL linger where he
will, as he did in the blessed halcyon time
of bachelorism. No Bella, with her cat
eyes, to dog his movements; no wife to
nag at him with either looks or tears or
words. Liberty, thou art SWEET he
murmurs, in melodramatic fashion, as,
dressed up within an inch of his life"
he descends the steps at Charles street.
The pleasant, amber sunshine glints
down on the choicest of hats, and subtle
fragrance crosses his aristocratic nostrils
from the spray of stephanotis that nes-
ties in his buttonhole.
/ Young, handsome as god, tolerably
rich, and on his way to the park to meet
Lady Aylmer. What more can he want?
Nothing.
1 The skies above him are not so serene
and blue as his eyes as he forgets that
he even has a-wife!
/ Six weeks later there is a new shrine at
| Highcliffe.
In quiet little room that lies at the
far end of one of the many galleries, with
it's windows looking on to green, Sc
questered portion of the grounds, Lady
Ennisford has gathered everything that
belongs to her boy. Belongs! She never
puts the word in the past tense to herself,
for to her Chester lives both night and
day; she never forgets him-neyer! No
matter what bright hour. life may bring,
j her heart can never be filed by it, for
most of that heart lies in her darling's
grave.
(To be continued.)