Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1904-05-11
LOST REVENGE

~O~O~o~o~o>o~~
His death came upon her as q
blow. There could be no doubt Of
that. She had never anticipated
that he would die SO soon. The man
below had been her husband, and he
was dead. She could only think Of
that at first.
How she had hated him.
He had bought her as the wife he
desired. So surely he must have
once loved her. But he had never
shownit. She had feared him terri
bly, that very first day, when they
went away together from the church
down the fiat, gray road by the
almshouses, where the old women
stood bobbing in the rain, over the
village green haunted by wandering
geese, whose feathers were blown
the wrong way by the wind that
stormy day of their marriage. He
must have once desired her. How
he had stared at her in the shadow
of the shut carriage, while the hoofs
of the horses splashed in the pud-
dies of the country road. His eyes
never left her. They were slightly
bloodshot and looked excited as they
travelled over her face, and his full
lips moved under his black mus
tache, but he said nothing.
How she had hated him!
The morning after their wedding
she had tried to escape from him.
She slipped out Of the great Lord
Warden hotel at Dover in the gray
dampness of the dawn when he was
sleeping. The sullen sea, which they
were to cross presently, roared in
her ears, and the sea gulls cried to
her from the foam hecked pebbles
of the steeply curving beach. The
hull of steamer doomed on the rag
ged horizon, and the rain drove over
the shining asphalt ways. Two OF
three sailors hanging about, with
peaked caps drawn down above their
wet faces and hunched shoulders,
peered at her as she crept from the
hotel, o grain of humanity swept by
the whirlwind. How cold it was
and how desolate! In the wind
came to her the strangled whistle
Of an engine, and then she knew she
was too late. The train was flashing
away as she struggled on against the
tempest. She returned to his en-
brace.
How she had hated him!
And they travelled together. The
snow peaks of Switzerland, the
green valleys, where the chalets rest
ed on the steep slopes, as if tired
and pausing but for a moment; the
blue lakes of Italy; the old, sad
cities, with their streets full of the
echoes of dead voices; the weary
ruins, passively enduring shrill call
ing tourists; the vineyards, where
life was laughter and was song-she
had seen them all with him. She
hated them all. Even the fiat reach
es of the venerable Nile and the rose
gardens of Damascus were lOath-
some to her. And now he lay dead,
and she could hear the nightingales
beginning to flute. Yet was she
glad?
They had come back to England
People envied her. Women muir
INJURED his name as she passed by,
murmured it in admiration, while
the blood famed in her cheek at
thought that she was his. The
great world took her for awhile,
took her and gave to her only such
profound WEAKNESS. In the park,
as her victoria stood against the
ratings in the hot sun, and the muir
mur Of society rippled round her be,
meath the trees, and the queens OF
society and the courtesans who were
the recognized queens---the sinner
incognita and the queen incognita--
passed her. by, she sickened again
and thought Of the rose gardens Of
Damascus and wondered if the world
could give to her nothing, if his
shadow must be upon everything
like the shadow OF fate broodine
black over the pleasaunce OF life
She wondered in malady of dream
ing, and the voices under the trees
said she posed, because for a mo-
ment she ceased to think OF them
Then she drove home as the twilight
gathered about the city and tried tc
hush it all, in vain. She dreaded
the falling of nights as children
dread the grave.
How she had hated himl
And then a golden thread twinet
into the web of her tangled young
life. One, in the midst Of the ig
norant and the careless, understood
that she was in the prison house Of
despair and stayed awhile outside
the grating of her cell to whisper
of comfort. The dew fell upon the
poor parched flower, and she opened
her petals to receive it, but so Sc
cretly, always so secretly. Surely
no one ever knew. Outside the gar
den room in the dusk he came wher
all was quiet. The jailer was away