The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-08

not have spared them-it was never
patient member, that tongue!-but for
such artillery, as you would call 1t,
my prosecutors were out of reach.
There is a gravity of words; they de-
scend and never climb; they must, like
a stone, come tumbling from above to
do an injury. Wherefore these folk
high up were safe from me-safe from
everything except my beauty; and since
l maintained myself without a stain
upon my virtue, even my beauty wore
for them and theirs no real peril.
Above, on the cliffs of society, they
rolled down tale and whisper against
me like so many black stones; in re-
! tort, though / might be beautiful and
so madden them with the possession of
what they lacked, from below could
harm them nothing. 1 think, too, some
in pain of their own ugliness, envied
and would have changed places with
me. They would not, had they known
what I knew and felt what / felt. My
soul was in torment, and l grew never
so callous but the darts of their fork
| ed malignancy would pierce and pain.
1T was to avoid conditions which
| grew at last intolerable-for brooded
when alone and magnif1ed the evils of
| my position, turning morbid the while
that 1 welded Mr.. Undertake.
| never loved him; took him to be a
| refuge rather than husband. and my
| little life with him was not a happy
one. By no fault of his, however; I
| think he loved me, and l know he did
his best. 1 had nothing from him save
Kindness and when he died in the
| Mediterranean, I doubt not he car
ried into the other world a sincere re-
gard for me.
| II would have loved him if could"
| Peg waved her hand with an accent of
I Il -. L. .k--srT
| and failed beyond recall. But l could
| not-could not; strive as I might, love
would not come. I felt guilt to live
| with him; l was glad when he sailed
| away; and. God help me! my signs
over his death were the signs of one
/ released from bonds"
| Peg broke and cried like any child.
| You should understand, however, that
she was unjust to herself. What she
said of her brooding aforetime to the
| frontier of the morbid was overture.
! And, supersenstive, proud, her hope
| had wasted as her gloom grew; her
| griefs of girlhood, enlarged many fold
| doubtless, as she herself suspected, by
| stress of her own fancy sorrowing with
a wound, had left solemn stamp upon
! her; and this took far too often and
unjustly the shape of self-blame. Be
| meath ALL and hidden deep within her
| breast, Peg carried small opinion of
| herself; thought herself selfish, hard,
shallow, and of no rich depth of heart.
| She was wrong to the core; for her in
ner self was as beautiful as her face
And yet, despite knowledge on her own
] part, and her friends assurances, in
| the ultimate recesses of her thoughts
| there existed a torture chamber and
| therein she ever racked herself as the
one wrongdoer in which she had pass
ed through. There was no driving her
| from this she was merciless against
| herself; and while none not the closest
might know, for in the presence
of non-friends and strangers she
| showed the iron fortitude of
an Indian or a soldier, to myself
and those with whom she practiced no
reserve these neutrality-suspicious. were
much too painfully plain.
| say, folk near to Peg were aware
of this morbid lack of soul-vanity and
be one exception counted. and that,
curious to tell, her own husband. Peg,
for all he might be double her age,
and / think no very handsome man at
| that, l could see, when l talked with
her, loved Eaton as she loved her eyes
or mothers love their children. And
| yet, never to him did she show her
true feeling; in his presence she was
the brave, gay, bright strong, bril-
| liant Peg, asking in the fight which
| followed no quarter and granting none,
| she seemed to the common world. 1t
is curious, and presents a problem too
involved for my solution, that Peg
should have guarded against the one
| she most loved and shut the door upon
discovery by him of her own wondrous
| self. Yet so it was it stood patent
to me from the beginning that Eaton
knew no more of Peg than of her whom
he never met.
In her morbid estimates of her worth
it is possible she feared to grant him
too clear a view. She may have
thought she would lose by it. The rea-
son, however for this great secrecy
couple with great love-this hiding
from him for whom she would have
died. shall leave to be searched for
| by those scientists of souls who are
| pleased to explain the inexplicable. For
| myself. confess l was baffled by it,
This, however. / will say: The fact
that Peg could do practice upon Eaton
to his blindness gave me no high opin-
| ion of that gentleman. He should have
| CROPPED for her and grasped her, and
| found her out for the loving, loyal.
sorrowing heart she was; and that he
did not but went in placid darkness
/ of the treasure he held in his hands.
content to have it so. marked him for
a lack of insight and want of sympa-
| thy which I'm bound to say do not
| distinguish me. Such stolidity on the
! part of folk has caused me more often
than once to consider whether the an
| gels, by mere possession, may not at
last find even heaven commonplace.
| Still, it is none the less infuriating
! to witness so much beauty so much
thrown away! Indubitably, the econo-
my of existence asks for pigs as loud
| ly as it asks for pearls and to blame
Eaton for falling in appreciation of
Peg is as apart from equity as would