The times., 1899-10-07
ONE APRIL NIGHT.


man and a woman and a young girl
sat on vine-grown gallery Before them
lay broad expanse of velvet lawn, bathad
now in the white light light OF an April
moon. From clump of dwarf magnolias
a mocking bird triiled madly his first glad,
exulting notes of spring.
The man and the young girl had met
for the first time that evening. They had
found many common friends and inter
ests, and thednan talked fiuentiy and we'll
The woman sat little apart from her
guests, speaking only when forced 10 do SO
in reply TO some question
BY one of those odd turns which the
tide Of conversation sometimes takes, a
celebrated divorce case. then claiming the
attention of the society world came un-
der discussion.
There is, there can be- no excuse or
pardon for divorce aside from absolute
cruelty or unfaithfulness, asserted the
young girl with the positiveness which
represents the innocence and ignorance of
youth
''You think not" said the man LIS
ten" He had thrown himself with the
grace born of long athletic training in
college days, on a heap of cushions at
the feet of the older woman and as he
spoke his eyes sought the sad, quiet face
above him; bat if she was conscious of
the searching gaze, she made no sign.
He had talked fuently before He was
eloquent now, speaking with all the inten-
sity ard earnestness of one who pleads
cause with life or death in the balance
You think there is no excuse or pardon
for a divorce except on grounds of cruelty
or unfaithfulness? What OF case like
this7 A man ] knew loved woman mad
ly, desperately. She was a married woman
an .tbpr hrra oil ho
ed that his love was returned he did the
only thing man can do under those cir
cumstances; he went away.
He was rich, young, and fond of adyen-
ture, and he lived for seven years in the
mining camps of the Far West.
Hopeless as was this one love of his
life, he had somehow always chung to the
thought that some day out of darkness
they would meet and read lifes meaning
in each others eyes
He was not a religious man in the or
dinarily accepted meaning or the term; but
he had an abiding faith in eternal justice
He believed that in world ordered by
some supreme force, Allah, or Buddha, or
God, as one may be pleased to designate
the ruling power of the universe, things
would somehow so adjust themselves that
he and the woman he loved would finally
tSfF Will dnu Ndtu plnfT- HOW LnlS
vas to come about he never asked himself.
He simply felt that it was to be. For years,
without ever hearing her name mentioned,
not even knowing whether she was alive or
dead. be loved her
Many a night, lying before the fire in
some rude miners cabin he would. think
Of her and wonder whether she ever sent
a wish or thought after him Or, rolled
in his blanket on the open plain ne would
look up at the brilliant stars, which SEEM
ed so close above him that he could al
most reach out his hand and touch them,
and there amid them he would see her
loved face, and would fail asleep dreaming
OF and loving her. Once entombed by the
caying Of nine. he had almost cursed God
that he was TO die without ever again seeing
the face of the woman he loved
In all those years he never drove stake
in claim but twas for her--all for her,
and his life beside
A he spoke the woman bent forward over
the graceful, athletic figure at her feet, as
If she would caEess the head which now
rested near the broad crepe fold which bor-
dered the hem Of her black gown. But with
a strong effort she checked the impulse and
leaned ever further back into the friendly
shadows.
The man continued: when my friend
finally returned to the East he was given
the warm welcome which society alway1 ac-
cords to success. He found most of his
friends married and settled, and gradually
the conviction came to him that he might
find certain content and satisfaction in
being master of household.
Happiness he could not hope for. but
as the old restlessness came upon him, he
realized that his one chance for anything
ching an xgn IL in he
ton Of ties which would keep him from Civ
ing away to his love of adventure
His only sister, married now and pos
sessing that instinct of matchmaking
which every woman has 10 certain de-
gree, had settled il IN her own mind that
her brother and her best girl friend were
exactly suited TO each other. The best
girl friend was OF the same mind and
my friend laziiy fell in with their plans
since they carried him along the lines of
least resistance He was duly mar
ried and would probably have lived hap
PLY ever after in true story book style,
had it not been that three months after
his marriage, Fate, who seems sometimes
TO torment her victims for the pure love
of the thing brought him suddenly and
Unexpectedly in contact with the woman
he loved She was free and he God
pity him, bound by ties which you say
cannot be broken. And you condemn
three people to lifelong misery because
your social code finds no justification for
divorce2 J say three people, glancing
upward into the face of the woman. at
whose feet he lay and pressed even closer
against the crepe fold of her gown. She
shivered slightly and drew back BE
cause. he continued neither my friend
nor the woman ne loves can ever know
moments happiness apart from each
other, and sooner or later the wife viii
learn the truth. / know that legally this
case gives no justification for divorce,
but morally there is equally no justifca-
tion for the continuance OF marriage ties
which hold free souls as with chains of
iron. God made but one woman this
man could call wife, and he is disloyal
to her every moment he lives with the