El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-01-04

world is used to seeing the man grow
Indifferent and the woman cold ard
pale; but you-you might take the ira =
edy as it is within the four walls AID
make it live and throb III there. You
might put it that ct first the mans
mistake was in always straInlng for
ward to his goal, forgetting that the
happies time is now-forgetting how.
when he looks at last he will 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 st last, for her the only
alternative to a broken heart was a
heart hardened to stone And, oh, she
had so loved him-had SO determined
always to look her brightest and best
for himI That might have gone on till
the end, as it often does; but there
came a blow-one blow more than she
could bear. Well suppose-weu sup
pose that one day the wife, somehow
or other, heard him talking to a friend.
The friend was quiet; he had asked:
What's the matter with-with her? All
the gone that you used to talk
about?' Make it-make it that b held
her breath for the answer, ever then
even then; that even then she was
hungering to put her arms all around
him, and tell him, oh, no, it was not
goneI And supposinS she heard him
say: Her! Pooh, take no notice Of her
always the anne. 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 1t up long ago.. Don't you
e marry, old man! And supposing
b wife stood and cried to o to take
her on the spot, and that God did not
answer, and hat at last-at last, when
something seemed as if 1t would snap
in her brain-she crept into her hus-
bands study n took out the pistol
that ne kept in his desk and put it to
her forehead, and-and almost pulled
b trigger. Wouldn't a paper accept
q story like that?'
Still DO answer. The man q Gran
ed still farther forward, his hands grip
ping the desk. his face gray in the
dusk, his stare widened. 1t looked-it
somehow looked as if he feared for his
life to loo 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 it
sometimes did when he wrote late, and
something stood and breathed behind
each shoulder.
The voice came again, as from a long
way off.
"Yes! Say she paused the moment,
and that saved her. She looked at his
work and thought of his long struggles
n the mind that always traine aft
er something in life that is never to be
found. But the thought had come into
her head, and it staid n staid, and
more than once, when he had passed
her with hardly a word or look-no,
God, she could not bear it! God
forgive her, she cannot bear itv
The in~describabIe 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 a hoarse cry: "WinnieI No, noI']
and faced the picture that was to eat
his memory for all time.
The dead silence. the stare with
the wide eyes in her worn,
face seemed to search his soul
for a flicker of the truth Then
her han dropped, and her face began
to twitch ~piteously. His arms were
out-and the heart beat there yet.
"Winnier' he had whispered-such a
whisper. Don't, don't! Come back
to me! Come back to mel"
And for those two Time put back the
hands of his clock. But the story.
was not for NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.