The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1901-10-15
,ns nssse she MAD seen, ana Knew IT Tor

me ngdfe she naG seen, ana Knew It Tor
satan's self.
'sDemon, you have done this!" he cried
as he sprang into the water after his
wife.
She had risen to the surface, and he
caught her and swan with her to land.
He impiored her pardon, and she gave it
to him freely. But, alas, the deed was
done. In a little while she lay in her
coffin with her baby on her bosom, and he
followed her to the grave, and over her
the turf grew green In time, and stone
was placed on which were these words:
"Mina, the beloved wife of Max Ru-
dolph. A Jewel lost to him forever"
Max returned to his desolate home and
dwelt there alone. Shortly he began his
pursuit of rare jewels again with more
energy than ever. No one knew what he
did with them, for no one saw him go at
midnight to his wife's grave and there
bury them one after another until the sod
above her heart was rich with jewels.
He lived on wretched food, with scarce
" fire enough to warm him. He wore the
garb of beggar. Piece by piece the old
furniture of his house, its pictures and its
ornaments were sold, the money convert
ed into gems. But it was to Mina's grave
that he bore them, and there he buried
them, with prayers and tears, and the
black fiend that had haunted his youth
ceased to appear to him, nor was it ever
seen by any one at his shoulder.
At last it was known that he had sold
his home and his land and retained only
the right to dwell, while he lived, in the
room from which extended the balcony
L. LII which ATino stood whom
he laid the jewel In her palm and whence
she had fallen to her death beneath his
blow upon her bosom.
There he sat often the whole night
through A fatal disease had come upon
him. He knew its dread symptoms well,
but he sought no physician. Death was
welcome to him. Only he prayed always
for some token that Nina had forgiven
him. His hair was white as bleached
linen. He had the aspect Of very aged
man, though he was not really old.
Grief and remorse and terror Of the fend
had made him what he was, and now he
was poor-so poor that he could not buy
the smallest gem to bury in his murdered.
wife's grave.
One night he had in the house only one
little piece of black bread and no more.
He sat upon a wooden bench, and in the
corner lay an old straw bed. He sat in
the balcony. The broken rail had not
been mended. The water sobbed below.
He was weeping-weeping for her whom
he had killed so long ago = and his re-
morse and grief would have touched the
hardest heart that could have read his
Alright.
Assuredly it appealed to heavens mer-
cy, for as the clock In tower hard by
struck midnight strange thing happen
ed. The waves, never SO high before, be-
gan to leap up and wash the floor of the
old balcony. They were white in the
moonlight-white as woodland they look
ed to him sometimes like the faces and
hands and arms of sea spirits, so that in
spite OF himself he stretched out his own
hands to touch them, and, grasping some
thing that melted between his fingers,
still held fast a small hard substance,
which, as be opened his palm, glowed like
a coal of fire.
A candle stood upon the hearth within.
Trembling and overwhelmed with super
stitious terror, he arose and staggered to-
ward 1t and saw that what he held was a
great ruby, the very stone that he had
laid In Mina's palm so long ago, the
gem of priceless value for the possession
of which he had Wed with kings.
An hour later the moon at her setting
looked on him as he tottered over the
road to the graveyard and knelt at last
beside Mina's grave.
There, with little knife he carried. he
dug a hole and buried the ruby hands
depth deep, close against the white stone
on which her name was written, and
with the effort his strength forsook him.
He knew that the supreme moment was
at hand.
NINA, Minaw he cried. Murdered an
gel, intercede for me with heaven"
And suddenly all about and above the
grave began to glow with clear light
like that Of jewels, and in the midst he
saw the figure Of an angel who bore his
wife's face holding out her arms toward
him.
The next morning some laborers found
Max Rudolph dead beside his wife's
tomb, and for months men searched the
house where he had dwelt for the treas
ure he was believed to have hidden. But
no one ever thought Of looking in the
right place. No one dreamed Of what we
know-that he had offered all he had to
his murdered love and to the heaven he
had so offended and that the turf beneath
which Nina sleeps is rich with jewels.