The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-24
A WOMAN FROM THE . NEITHER WORLD.

She stared out of her window upon l the busy thoroughfare, with eyes that l saw not and ears that heard not. ner l black brows were drawn together III | frown, her red lips closed and tight ened till they showed tinge or Wnlte. | Her hands. crossed in her lap, rest | lessly twined and untwined. Masses | of blue-b hair fell to her snouloers | in semi- disorder; her wrapper of pink hued silk was open at the neck and re- | vealed the upper curve Of rounoeo | bosom, Her eyes of a brown so deep | that it seemed ts be tetty, showed q slumberous fire The hands were | slender, speaking of an artistic nature. The fingers were especially oeautiIui, | with carefully tended rose-colored nails. Looking at the sm all right nahd you would not have said that its fin- gers closed around the hilt of Knife | whose blade was buried Tn man brown hairy breast, but this nao nap l D ned.
 Other things as strange had iap- pened. She had sat behind long la | ble and extracted cards from a faro | box. while men went mad in front of l her. mad with drink and the lust for gain and lust for her beauty. She | had ridden bareback in circus. AS | the Princess Chamounix" she had | been ordered from Nice. She had
 waited on table in a cheap French res- taurant of New York city. She had nursed patients through a months | long epidemic of yellow fever in vera | Cruz. She had been a female detec-
 tive and a burglars mistress. Sne | had been the consOrt of score ol
 lovers. but no man whom she could call husband. American ny birth, she | 6uantlv Ranl divinely, knew much of Europe, Asia
 Africa and South America, and hae
 been thoroughly happy but once il
 her life. That was during a sever weeks revolution in Guatemala. A it's end she saw the "Generaf b,
 whose side she had lain placed witt
 his back to a white wall. Then m
 pitched forward on his face and sh
 walked a hundred miles to the neares
 port, penniless, shoeless and ragged.
 She asked herself what 1t al amounted to- and she answered noth
 ing. Having drunk life's cup to 1t
 dregs she was tired of its acrid taste One week she dined upon triufftes, tn
 next cSon husks, and she wanted res'
 At 90 years old, her beauty at it ripest, her intelligence at its stronges' the fact was borne in on her savagel that no woman can afford to forfeit re | spectability. She was weary of war , ring against the world. From the roor
 ne txto her came the querulous cry c
 a baby and a mothers voice hushin it. She shrunk when she heard an
 her hands clenched tightly.
 That. too. might have been mine, she muttered.
 Suddenly she rose and decision wa on her face. She would put the ol | h k14 N~lI ch 1t into the background. utterly, irreVC
 cably. She did not expect to pose a
 moralist: she did not expect to be
 come a good woman; but she swor
 that she would live cleanly hencefort
 if she died in a ditch attempting tt
 She had sold her soul and her charm
 for the last time.
 , A week later. registered simply a Miss Guernsey" she was at a littl hotel surrounded by the foothills ( : the Alleghenies. The roar of railwa
 trains which passed five mics ava was dimly audible. An utter quie reigned Here she thought, If any where. she would be free. not onl from the memo ries of the past. but tn
 persons of the past She knew man
 men and it was her desire to forge , them. No pencil-mark was on he . eyelashes here. no rouge upon he cheek. She had discarded the golde
 wig with which she sometimes hi
 her own black locks. She wore onl the plainest cloth gowns. Her finer ! had been sold as too striking for he 7 new found honesty and decency. was her purpose to remain hidden fC
 six months. In that time she was SUI
 her old world would have forgotte her and she would be at liberty to b' : gin elsewhere.
 At the end of a month her days ha ' settled into a steady routine of walk