Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1900-09-15
CLARENCE
DY BRET HARTE.
PART i.
CHAPTER /.
CHAPTER /.


AS Clarence Brant, president OF the
Robles Land company, and husband
" the rich widow Of John Pcytoh, of
the Robles ranch, mingled with the
outgoing audience of the Cosmopolitan
theater at San Francisco, he ELECTED
the usual smiling mods and iecogni-
ton due TO his good looks and good
fortune. But as he hurriedly slipped
through the still lingering winters
rain into the smart coupe that was
awaiting him, and gave the order
home the word struck him with d
peculiar i%ronical significance.
His home was a handsome one, and
lacked nothing in appointment and
comfort, but he had gone to the the-
alter to evade it's hollow loneliness.
Nor was it because his wife was not
there, for he had a miserable con-
sc~iousness that her temporary absence
had nothing to do with his homeless
ness.
The distraction of the theatcr over,
that dull, vague, but aching sense of
loneliness which was daily growing
upon him, returned with greater
vigor.
He leaned back in the coupe, and
gloomily reflected.
lie Fad been married scarcely d
year, yet ever in the illusions of the
honeymoon, the woman, older than
himself and the widow of his old pa
tron, had half uhconsciously reassert.
CT herself, and slipped back into the
domination of her old position.
1t WAS a first pleasant enough
this hair maternal protectorate, which
is even apt TO mingle with the af-
fections of younger wonderland Clar-
ence in his easy half feminine intui-
ton of the sex, yielded, rs the strong
are apt to yield, through the very
consciousness of their own superiori-
ty But this is n quality the weaker
are not apt to recognize, and the
woInaa who has once tasted equal
power with her husband, not only
does moi easily relegate it, but even
makes lis continuance n test of the
affections.
The usual triumphant feminine CON
clusion: Then you no longer love
me- lac in Clarence's brief expert
ence Pgre even farther and reached
It's i~nscrutable climax-"then / no
longer love you"-although shown
only in Il mcmentary hardening Of the
eye and voice. And added to this was
his sudden but confused remembrance
that he had seen that eye and heard
that voice in marital alteration dur
ing Judge Peyton's life, and that he
himself, her boy partisan, had sym
pathized with her.
Yet, strange to say, this had given
him more pain than her occasional
other reversions to the past-to her
old suspicious of him when he was
q youthful protege of her husbands,
and a presumed sutton of her adopted
daughter Susy.
High natures are more apt to for.
give wrong done to themselves than
my abstract injustice. And her capri
cious tyranny owe her dependents
and servants, or an u~nreasoning enmi.
ty to n neighbor or friends, outraged
his finer sense more than her own
misconception of himself. Nor did he
dream that this was a thing most wo.
men seldom understand, or, under.
standing, ever forgive.
The coupe ratified over the stones OF
swirled through the muddy pools OF
the main thoroughfares. Newspapers
and Geographic Offices were still bril-.
liantly lit, and crowds were gathered
among the bulletin boards. He knew
that news had arrived from Washing.
ton that evening Of the first active
outbreaks of secession, and that thu
city was breathless with excitement
Had he not just come from the the.
oter where certain insignificant allu.
sions in the play had been suddenly
caught mp and cheered or Kissed lbs
hitherto unknown partisans, TO tht
| Hnmh Ctnnigh t,nT,f of On :, ,Nr.f, -,
the audience comfortably settled &c
money-getting and their affair."
alone? Had he not applauded, albeit
half scornfully, the pretty actress -
his old playmate Susy who had auda
ciously and all anonymously waved
the American flag in their faces?
Yes! he had known it: had lived fol
the last few weeks in an atmosphere
electrically surcharged with it-and
yet it had chiefly affected him i'm his
personal LONELINESS. For his wife
was a southerner, a born stakeholder
and a secessionist, whose noted preju
dices to the north had even outrur
her late husbands politics.
At first the piquancy and reckless
ness of her opinionated speech
amused him rs part of her character
istic flavor, or as a lingering youth
~fulness, which the maturer intellect
always pardons.
He had never taken her politics Sc,
riously-why should he? With heI
head on his shoulder he had listened
to her eXtravagant diatribes against
the north; he had forgiven her out,
rageous indictments of his caste and
his associates for the sake Of the i'm.
perious but handsome lips that ut.
tered them.
But when he was compelled to list.
en- TO her words echoed and repeated
by her friends and family; when he
found that with the clannishness o.
her race she had drawn closer tc
them in this controversy-that she
depended upon them for her intelli
gence and information rather thar
upon him-hc had awakened to the
reality of his situation. He had borne
the illusions of her brother, whose
old scorn for his dependent childhood
had been embittered by his sisters
marriage, and was now scarcely con.
cealed.
Yet while he had never altered his
own political faith and social creed
ia this antagonistic. atmosphere, Inc
had often wondered, with his old con
sci~entiousncss and characteristic self
abnegation, whether his owl politica'
convictions were not merely a revul
sion from his domestic tyranny anc
alien surroundings.
In the midst of this gloomy retro
spect the coupe stopped with a ierl
before his own house. The door wa.
quickly opened by a servant who ap
peared to be awaiting him.
Some one to see you in the library
sir" said the man, ''and-' he hest
tated and looked toward the coupe
We'll" said Clarence, impatiently.
HE said, sir, as how you were not