The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-05
sx MAUD E. LEONARD.
A JEST OF FATE.

The man was in a brown study. Ap- pArentiy he was engaged in q dim- cult experiment in his laboratory for his hands moved automatically among | the chemicals. Liquids met, min eied and were separated deftly. but in reality he was entirely ignorant of what his sensitive fingers were doing. for his mind was busily engaged oth- erwise.
 He was a well-built man. and his profile spoke of strength, with its slightly aquiline nose, deepset. eye. l and closely trimmed beard. That the | mouth hidden by this same beard held doubtful curves and a curious droop was fact naturally unknown | to most persons. When Dr. Packard chose to address a meeting of scien- lists his auditors always were aroused and listened. For he had brain. Whether he was troubled by heart was something women liked to spec ulate about. Those who had solved the question discreetly hid their dearly bought knowledge, for women Go not parade their hurts.
 In the face of this, 1t is som swhat remarkable to understand that at the moment when he was so aimlessly put tering about in his mechanical work with iackluster. interpretive eyes, Dr. Packard's brain was in reality entirely occupied with woman. She had come out of the past so far back that the halo of mystery was beginning to adorn her memory. and because he was son of Adam Dr. Packard found this | uniquely attractive. She needed some such softening nimbus, he reflected. | with touch of sardonic humor, for she must be forty years old-it was over twenty years since he had left that miserable small town in the West when opportunity had stretched out a finger to his restless grasp. The tu- multuous and fast following years had ciuttered his mind, and it came to him l that this was the first time he had | ever so seriously and leisurely contem- plated his act.
 He set down a siphon smartly and | smashed 1t as he reflected what a fool he had been. At nineteen he had | married Bessie Crowell. She was | waitress in the railroad restaurant and alone in the world. She had been | pretty. of course, and she was good.
 As to her spelling he was not so sure. Carefully he pieced out his boyish
 recollection of her. He knew precise
 iy what her type would have degene-
 rated into in the time which had
 passed. With the uncompromisingly &C., curate knowledge of the mature man
 he could see her as she undoubtedly
 was after the larse of twenty years
 She was fat and wore broad, fiat shoes with the buttons off Her gowns were
 of the dreary. nondescript wools stu
 Did women affect, and her waist went by courtesy. Her hair-tt had been
 brown and roughly curly-was thin- ming and shiny and screwed into a 1 tight knot. Her complexion was coarse and oily ,and she was gross, stolid and | entirely repellant to man of fastidi- ous tastes. Her mind had never risen
 above the gossip of the store and cor
 ners. As this picture grew, so corre- 1 spondtngiy faded the idea which as a
 just man had attacked him, that he
 had done wrong in running away from
 her. It was with sort of pride he
 recollected in all these years he had
 never failed to send regular remit
 tances back to her and the child. For | there had been one, but 1t had not ap-
 oealed to his restless youth and still
 siumbsrtns emotions of fatherhood. His
 lawyer relieved him of the delicate task Of forwarding the allowance to Bessie. l Mrs. Abbott. When be ran away he
 had changed his name to Packard and | she had never traced him. though his
 invaluable legal man had once care
 iessly conveyed to him the impression
 that vindictive and spasmodic search
 for her strangely missing husband was
 now and then made by his clients ben
 eaciary, Mrs. Abbott. Packard had
 thanked his legal man grayely without
 vouchsafing any information concern
 ing the recaicitrant husband to his ex-
 pectant legal man, and had gone to his
 club to offer up thanks that his trail
 was covered.
 Dr. Packard, the scientist, the favor
 ed. the admired by the lovely and gra-
 cious women of society and by men of
 affairs-what had this man in common
 with the hot-headed boy of a quarter
 of centu:y before, whose name was Abbott and who had been a fool? She
 could never find him.
 With a short sigh, Dr. Packard sci
 down the retort he held and reached
 for the glass of water he had drawn
 some moments before. The day was
 warm and he was thirsty. He drank
 every drop before he emerged from hi:
 mental wanderings and stood blinking
 as one whose sleeping eyes have open.
 ed suddenly on glare of light Ther
 he stumbled !, sat down, and stared stu.
 Saturday. "GERMIk. OF A 1