The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-12-31


Florence De Voc was a woman born
to have experiences, to suffer sorrows,
to arise alert from the buffets of fate
Her character showed in every line of
her imperious, slender figure, in the set
of her rose-red lips, in her firm chin,
aquiline nose and flashing black eyes
Her father had achieved his many mil
lions through steady battering at the
gates of finance. Much of his aggressive
ness was in her-his obstinacy, his cour
age, his fine disregard of the feelings of
others. He worshiped her, and she loved
him deeply, but their wills were in clash
twenty times in a year. He was the only
one who had ever bent her; she the only
one who had ever successfully defied him.
There came into her young life Alex
ander Patton, countrybred, raw, patient,
brainful and determined. Poverty-strick-
en-, but with limitless confidence in his
ability to conquer fortune in Chicago,
he became a clerk in the offices of De
Voc & Fotheringay, promoters and spec
ulators; made himself useful and gained
the senior partners confidence. From
there was but a step to the senior part
ner'S house. and from there not half
step to failing passionately in love with
the senior partners daughter. Unused
to the ways of society and realizing that
in the city dollars weigh heaTilys he pro-
posed, was laughed at and left the house,
panied, but not crushed He began bust
ness for himself and went utterly out of
her life
There came then Clifton warren,
young handsome, dashing. Samuel De-
Voc, with a judgment of men that had
failed seldom mistrusted him from the
first Stormy seer es with the girl fol-
lowed. The upshot of these was stern
order that Warren should be denied the
house The result of this was an elope-
ment Warren return ed Immediately to
the city with his bride, and old De Voc
would see neither of them
you have made your bed he wrote
to his daughter. Lie on it. 1t will be
bed of Goals but if you have my blood
in YOU, your means will be too soft for
outsiders to hear
Two DAYS afterward Warren was az
rested on charge of enlightenment. he
had not a friend. Moneyless and cordial
ly disliked, the road to the penltentary
was swift and smooth. On the day that
he got his sentence his wife got d.
vorce. On the day that she got a Oh
yorce her father, his hair whitened ana
dry. his cheeks sunken, his form stopped,
went YEARLY to sleep. One bold news
paper said that it was poison, put IL was
not De Voc, man of trade, OF mercliess
business methods, of q giants strength,
died of a broken heart.
Florence Warren did not attend the
funeral She did not wait for read
ing of the will. She had private panK
account and she drew on it to the last
cent Before the sods had fallen on her
fathers coffin she was on the Atlantic,
rlunging eastward-her one idea to get
beyond the sound of old voices to shat-
ter old associates, to be henceforth all In
all to herself, to bear in silence her
hurts. to nurse in secret her desperately
wounded pride.
Anywhere, anywhere out OF the
worldi'' she said to herself, pacing the
deck a. night. A bold and decisive
woman, she felt competent to face all
ills of the future if only she could es-
cape those of the past.
In a village set back from the sea
in the hills of one of the Barbary states
she rested 1t was a queer colony or
which she was part. Here were men
wanted, in half the capitals of tbs
globe; here were women with unsPeak-
able pasts. tall, pale man, gray and
wrinkled. was a Nihilist who had help
ed to make the bomb which slew car;
a dapper Frenchman, debonair and
absinthed, had bought the knife when
found the life of Cornot; a woman with
red hair and green eyes had stabbed her
keeper, an Austrian prince, in Monaco;
a fat. red-faced politician, who spoke
fractured grammar, was spending part
of 5000 900 distracted from the treasury
of New York City; slender man, with
mustache and goatee, sallow OF skin ana
an inoessant chewer of tobacco, had
come from one of the Southern states OF
| America. stopping en- route long enough
| to dispose of quarter of million of
stolen ocnds. Back at home he was
| known as Honest Jim" Brown. Ihey
were much alike, these lonely criminals,
not bad-hearted for the most part, bound
| by common ties of sin and expatriation
and they were disposed to welcome her.
But she put them aside.
| The only man who seemed to have no
| stain on him was an Englishman named
| John Spencer Norton, and he had gone
to the hills in the hope of staying the
| rayages of consumption. To this derelict
| with some odd idea of atonement, she
| devoted herself. She talked to him,
| she sang to him; she gave him his fire.
| ouent medicine; at his weakest she
wheeled him up and down the long hotel
piazzas. He was very grateful and his
| gratitude grew into liking, and his lik-
ing into love- One day he asked her to
marry him. Still with the idea of atone
ment dominating in her she consented
| without hesitation. One of the colony
was a little parson who had fed to Bar
/ barry because of a deficit in his church
] accounts He was still a minister, how