The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-11-12


| lap lay a book unheeded, with its leaves
tlUttering in the wind. Her hands were
| gloved to guard them from roughness.
| Upon her head, combining her brown curls
| but slightly, was a small jockey cap
| with the vizier front just shielding her
| forehead. Those who noticed her that
| day noticed In her eyes a straining, earn
est, ardent, intent gaze that it was after
ward said was always characteristic of
her since the days of her childhood.
No one could ever tell afterward lust
now or what happened. The most they
knew was that in ono terrible instant
they heard terrific, piercing scream, a
! cry so shriI, so agonized, that it seemed
| to penetrate from one end to the other Of
! the boat.
AT the same moment man with blood
| that poured from his flesh in floods swept
| past the terror stricken passengers and
hurled himself with one swift unerring
| plunge into the waters beneath them.
Pan1c reigned on deck until the passen-
! gers We're made to understand that a.
man of the Storage had cut his throat
| and then drowned himself
Ihere was one parsonage only upon
whom this explanation seemed to have
no effect. Little Mrs Courtenay's shrieks
| rang out through the snip with terrible
| disrinctness.
Her husband, who had rushed from be-
Glow stairs at the first intimation of some
thing wrong, sought TO hold her In his
| arms to Seothe her. ~
When he approached her her paroxysns
t7pecame=th the more violent. esl.-
go away she cried, wild-eyed and
Nhysterical. Don't kill mel Don't kill
| nae. You killed yourself You are dcadl
| L saw you with your throat cut-with
| blood pouring from it.
| You are dead-dead-dead!
| You are ghost!"
| The scene that followed were terrible
| 1t Was impossible to soothe Mrs Courte-
| nay or to persuade her that the man she
I had seen commit suicide was not her hus-
| band
| The physician on board did all in his
| power, the passengers lent their SYM
| pathy and their aid when they could
! More and more violent grew the poor
| little bride. In her deIirium she saw in
| her husband emily his spirit. She longed
| to annihilate him and so obtain her peace.
| She sought TO do him bodily harm ard
| was only restrained by constant watch
| ing.
! 1t was asserted by those who had
| known the suicide that ne did astonish-
ingly resemble Harold Courtenay, and
| that young Mrs Courtenay's hallucina-
| ton was somewhat pardonable. 1t was
| predicted that as soon as she was re-
| moved from the scene of the fearful
| tragedy she would forget 1t and recover
| He was advised to take her to a sani-
! tarium He tried day by day during that
| trip, which seemed endless, to think of
| words by which he might convey to her
| family the state Of their dear Isabella.
Pale and worn, Harold Courtenay, two
| weeks after his wedding day, arrived in
| Genoa with his wife in straitjacket.
Physician after physician, first in one
| European city, then in another, examined
her and sought to find cause why she did
not recover. One after another they pro-
nounced her hopelessly insane. After a
time she was placed in the Sbertoll asy-
ium at Pistoga, Italy.
Under the blue skies of that far eff
shore where Harold Courtenay had
dreamed that he would WOO his love, he
came gradually to the realization that
she was hopeessly insane.
His heart at that time was filed only
with pity and misery. The terrible duty
of informing her family became his. How
he studied to perform 1t gently he tells
now with bitter denunciation.
In Italy the father of his unfortunate
wife Joined him at last.
Gradually after this meeting an ava
lanche of terrible facts seemed to crowd
themselves into the mind of the unhappy
husband. He began to be convinced that
he was the victim of plot so overwhelm-
ing, so terrible that he feared for the
balance Of his own brain.
For the first time he reviewed the days
of his wooing with horror.
He remembered that never for an in
slant had he been allowed to see his fu-
ture wife alone.
He recalled with absolute terror how
day by day and hour by hour an attend.
ant had sat with her eyes fixed upon Isa-
bella. He called himself fool now wher
he remembered that he had seen in this
attitude Of reticence only the charm OF
maidenly reserve.
Gradually he recalled that he had never
heard any explanation of a period Of time
during which Isabella Cutting had beer
away from her home. One day he ques-
toned the father on this subject The an
swer he received was evasive.
Later Harold Courtenay says he learned
that his wife had been insane for two
years before he met her, and had beer
confined in a private sanitarium in War
wick, Narragansett bay.
In the midst of his anguish the young
Englishman came to the conclusion that
he had been entrapped into the meshes OF
a plot so cruel that he swore to have res
titution from the millionaire fruit packer
of San Francisco.
In the courts there Courtenay will claim
that Isabella Cuttings father arranged
for her marriage with him when he knew
hef TO De or unSound mind; that he did
this in the hope that marital felicity
would restore her reason.
"I, Harold Courtenay," claims the
young Englishman, was selected as a
medium through which this might be ac-
complishedl I see 1t all now. My poor
wife was introduced to me in one of her
lucid Intervals, afterward the marriage
ceremony was fastened and 1 sailed on
nay honeymoon the victim Of plot so
| heinous that 1t seems Incredible"