The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1903-06-17
ACT /.

hciently distressing miXture-of youth
and love and inexperience-she added
a worldly-minded mother, and he the
very smallest thing that could pos
sibly be called an income. Also
they heaped the measure of their
Joint unhappiness with such trifles
as unfailing obedience to the maternal
voice, reliance that was child
like on the maternal wisdom, q
self-deprecating fear of hurting n be-
loved object, and all sorts of mahenly
and gentlemanly scruples behind the
age, but not by any means less fresh
and sweet for that. They hadn't the
suspicion of vice, selfish thought
between them. and they were so OBJ
viously and entirely made for each
other that II was, from the first, quite
Inevitable that they should be parted.
They proved, indeed, only too easy
to part. Even the world-minded
mother would have been better salts
fed with n victory not so quickly won.
Her daughters tears hardly moved her
more than the young mans gentle,
sad-faced reasonablepess, and together
they almost persuaded her to overlook
the microscopic income, though neither
made any but the most passive efforts
to achieve that so desired end.
But she hastily summoned her world
ly-mindedness, and by its aid decided,
once for all. that it would be n pity
to disturb their angelic resignation for
the sake of poor and preposterously
commonplace marriage. And she urged
the man to accept n post that had been
offered him In India with n voice so
tenderly like her daughters that he very
nearly refused to comply-he missed
from it the sting. goading to sacrifice,
which he had lately cone to associate
with himself and Fate.
However, he did comply. The offered
work held out hores of advancement,
of moderate but sufficient wealth, IN
the vague middle distance of life. And
who can tell what other mad hopes
were bred of that solitary hope,
welded to desire, in the mind Of a man
very young, very inexperienced. very
much in love? But he did not say any
thing to the girl about waiting for him
and his future fortunes. He had prom
ised her mother not to, and he was the
very pattern of an honorable youth.
And thus the girl, while he was away,
was hurried into a marriage which she
told herself would break her broken
heart afresh. At any rate. 1t broke her
spirit. But, then. she had never been
consplcuOusly spirited.
IL ACT II.
Herein lies a story often told already.
So many times written so many times
read, that the greatest indulgence of
reader and writer alike are surely
craved for It. She, tricked by a mis-
taken Yea into a marriage much
against her inclination, to become a
self-effacing but never interesting wife,
the pale mother Of pale children. He.
ignorant for years of the full extent of
the barrier dividing them, lured by n
forlorn hope across half a lonely life
time.
His figure had lost its old boy.shness,
his hair was thickly fiecied With gray.
but his pockets We're comfortably lined
and his position assured, when, quite
casually. he learned that the woman
whose fidelity he had clung to through
all their separation and silence had
failed him within twelve months of
their parting.
He told himself that every dividing
year, every Woodworking cay, every
long. breathless night, had built his
old love more firmly into the fabi ic
OF his being. In the early twent.es,
knowing her to be false, he might have
put her image from him and lived to
be no less ultimately happy for the
healed wound. But, coming now. so
late. after so long, it unnamed him.
He told himself again that he was
heartbroken, and, absorbed in that
sex, betrayed BY single individual,
belief. forgot to rail at the whole false
which is the acknowledged paracea OF
the broken-hearted.
The news had reached him not only
tardily, but with q singular lack of
detail-just the bare fact of her mar
riage at that far-off date and nothing
more. No doubt, he might have col
lected further informa ton from the
same source, but he shrank nervously
from doing so. To know what man
ner of man had supplanted him-what
good could that do him? That any
man had been allowed to appropriate
what he had so long looked upon as
his own seemed in itself a sorrow dense
enough to darken the remainder of his
days. Habit chained him for time
TO his work. but his interest was gone
and his health began seriously to fail
How much that was due to continuous
residence in trying climate. how
much tn the blow. 1t would be difficult
to determine. He. ut any rate, exon
Grated the climate.
But for all that. he was forced to
ooaye It. His friends carried him, too