Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1904-12-09
81 +: :: =: + +: r. T ! !

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
iuenclng her is proved iy the shock
he suffered ut finding she had taken
her punishment into her own hands"
MFR. Jeffrey will please answer the
question" insisted the major, where
upon the latter. with great effort. but
with the first appearance of real can
dor yet seen in him. said earnestly:
II did nothing to influence her.
was in no condition to do so. was
benumbed- When first she told
melt was in some words muttcred In
her sleep-1 thought she was laboring
under some fearful nightmare, but
when She persisted and I questioned
her and found the horror true was
like man turned instantly into stone
save for one intolerable throb within.
] am still SO. Everything passes by me
like a dream. She was so young, SEEM
ingly so innocent and light hearted. I
loved her! Gentlemen, you have
thought me guilty Of my wife's death,
this young fairylike creature to whom
l ascribed all the virtues. and I was
willing. willing that you should think
80, willing even to face the distrust and
Opprobrium Of tho whole world. and so
was her sister. the noble woman whom
you see before you. rather than that
the full horror Of her crime should be
known and name so dear be given up
to execration. We thought we could
keep the secret-we felt that we must
keep the secret We took an oath-in
French-in the carriage, with the detec-
tives opposite us. She kept it-God
bless her! kept 1t. But it was all
useless-a tiny bit Of lace !, found
hanging to a lifeless splinter. and oil
our efforts, all the hopes and agony Of
weeks, are gone for naught. The world
will soon know of her awful deed-and
u
he still loved her. That was appar-
ent in every look, in every word he ut
tered. We marveled in awkward 81
lence and were glad when the major
said:
''The deed, as take 1t, was an un-
premeditated one on her part. Is that
why her honor was dearer to you than
your own, and why you could risk the
reputation If not the life of the woman
who you say sacrificed herself to it?"
Eyes. it was unprecedented. She
hardly realized her act. II you must
know her heart through all this dread
full business We have her words to
show you-words which she spent the
last miserable day of her life in writ
ing. The few lines which I showed
the captain and which, have been pub
lished to the world was an Enclosure
meant for the public eye. The real let
ter, telling the whole terrible truth,
kept for myself and for the sister who
already knew her sin. Oh, we did ev-
erything we cOuldv And he again
moaned. But it was in vain; quite In
vain"
There were no signs Of subterfuge in
hfmnOw, andwe all, unless except Dur
bin, began to yield him crecence. Dur
bin never gives credcnce to anybody
whose name he has once heard asso-
ciated with crime.
And this Pfeiffer was contracted to
her? A man she had secretly married
while q schoolgirl and who at this
very critical instant had found his way
to the house,
"You shall read her letter. It was
meant for me, for me only-but you
shall see it. I cannot talk Of him or
Of her crime. 1t is enough that have
been unable to think Of anything else
since first those dreadful words fell
from her lips In sleep. thirty-six hours
before she died." Then with the In
consistency Of great anguish he sud-
denly broke forth into the details he
shrank from and cried:
"She muttered, lying there, that she
was no bigamist. That she had killed
one husband before she married the
other. Killed him in the old house
and by the method her ancestors had
taught her. And I, risen on my elbow,
listened. with the sweat oozing from
my forehead, but not believing her, oh,
not believing her, any more than any
one Of you would believe such words
uttered In dream by the darling Of
your heart. But when. with a long
drawn sigh, she murmured, Murderer
and raised her nsts-tiny fists, hands
which had kissed a thousand times
and shook them in the air, an awful
terror seized me, and sought to grasp
them and hold them down, but was
hindered by some nameless inner recoil
under which / could not speak or
gasp or move. OF course, It was some
dream horror she was laboring under,
a nightmare Of unimaginable acts and
thoughts. but it was one to hold me
back; and when she lay quiet again
and her face resumed its old sweetness
In the moonlight, found myself star
Ing at her almost as II it were true
what she had said-that word-that
awful word which no woman could
use with regard to herself, even in
dreams, uness-something, an echo
from the discordant chord in our two
weeks married life, rose like the con-
f1rmation Of a doubt In my shocked and
rebellious breast.
From that hour till dawn nothing in
that slowly Frightening room seemed
real, not her face lying buried in its
youthful locks upon the pillow, not the
objects well known and well priced by
which we were surrounded-not my
self-most Of oil, not myself, unless the
Icy dew oozing from the roots Of my
lifted hair was real. unless that shape,
fearsome, vague, but persistent, which
lowered in the shadows above us,
drawing a line Of eternal separation
between me and my wife. was a thing
which could be caught and strangled
and Oh. I rave! chatter like q
mailman, but did not rave that night.
Nor did I rave when, in the bright,
broad sunlight, her eyes slowly unclos-
ed and she started to see me bending
so near her, but not with my usual kiss
or glad good morning. I could not
question her then; dared not. The
smile which slowly rose to her lips
was too piteous-it showed confidence.
l waited till after breakfast. Then,
while she was seated where she could
not see my face, whispered the ques-
ton, DO you know that you have had