Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1900-01-12
and looks up a, her irate husband piE

l couI0 not Dear TO nave him upstairs.
Look ut him! Doesn't he seem vay i'll
to You" she asks, with quivering lips.
Lord Ennisford does not glance at him.
Il 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 a little.
II told you l was busy; besides Bella
said you were going to the opera"
"Bella!-opera"! and her usually mild
voice positively luivcrs with resentment;
bella will never tell the truth about me.
And you know l am not in spirits t. go
to operas!"
"More's h pity. he sneers, thinking
that he has seen Frances look so
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 tn smooth down the
rough. tangled hair. And yet have
done nothing but think of YOU" And she
bursts into a 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 n hateful,
provocative laugh. We'll, L am getting
used to it.
She dashes at her eyes. and looks at
him. startled, thunderstruck, then she
means aloud.
"Oh, why do l live! George, 1 know
you spent our evening with hey. I am
sure of it,! 1t was all the same to You
if Chester was ill and l miserable so long
as You We're with that woman! Why do
l live."
I'm sure l don't know!-to worry my
life out. l SUPPOSED" he says, in a cruel,
savage o that awcs her and seems to
petrify all the expression on her face.
She sits as il 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 a hand slowly across her
brow.
This is not like you. Ennisford,' she
says, very softly; tiff it is, 1 know
you will be sorry some day"
please don't come the pathetic dodge
over me!' he replies. roughly; that is all
played out: nor the lofty moral dodge,
either. l 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 a duke, and in her TWEEN.
ty-tlree 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 n full,
vivid consciousness staring her in the
face that this husband of hers, in spite
of his m%arquisate, his noble quarterings
and patrician face, is Il cad Mt heart. The
consciousness quite petrities her, o~ssilies
her, as she sits staring at him with dull,
almost leaden eyes. ont of which color
and expression have faded, leaving lust
a dead blank.
AT this mOmen n 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 hetruy Iler
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 Highclilfe," she says,
in a short, decisive tone TO her cousin.
II have no objection. l 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 / would soon drift
away in the same boat" Bella Kisses into
his ear, and to this Lord Ennisford an
swers nothing.
Perhaps there is Il 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
Il overwhelming sensation that now
now!-for n time, at any rate, he is free
free to so where he will: lingcr 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.v' he
murmurs, in a 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 a subtle
fragrance crosses his aristocratic nostrils
from the spray of stephanotis that nos
ties in his buttonholc.
Young, handsome as a god. tolerably
rich, and on his way to the park to meet
Lady Aylmcr. What more can he want!
Nothing.
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 nj
Highcliffe.
In IL quiet little room that lies at the
far end Of IL of the many galleries. with
its windows looking on to a green, Sc.
questered portion of the grounds, Lady
Ennisford has gathered everything that
belongs to her hoy. Belongs! She neve,
puts the word in the past tense to herself
for to her Chester lives both night and
day; she never forgets him-never! Nc
matter what bright hour life may bring
her heart can never be filled by it, fol
most of that heart lies in her darling.
grave.
TO be continued.)