Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1904-08-11
By a Trick
Of Fate
Copyright, 1901, bR T. C. Mcclure
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
By lola L. Forester

Since daybreak there had been no
change in the ceaseless lurching of
the yacht or the dull roar of the waves
| as they swept in long, heavy seas over
its sides.
Twice Katherine had tried to leave
her stateroom and reach the cabin and
had been forced back. Once the. white
faced stewardess had come to her door
There was no immediate danger. she
assured her. They would be notified
at once if there were If she was
nervous, Mr.. Hetherington said he
would come to her. And Katherine
had sent back word that she was not
at all nervous, and Mr.. Hetherington
need not trouble himself at all about
her
When the girl had gone, she had
thrown herself on the couch and given
full vent to the terror that had haunted
her all night long. She was afraid,
afraid with her whole heart, of the
great, lashing, hungry sea, that tossed
and played with the yacht like some
huge monster with its helpless prey
and threatened every moment to hurl
1t down to death.
If Hetherington had been with her.
if they two could have faced eternity
In each others arms, with the old love
strengthening them, she would have
known no fear. But as it was, a wild,
unreasoning, childish terror made her
tremble at every crashing wave, and
she longed for even d sight Of his face
before the end should have swept them
irrevocably apart.
The week at sea had passed like a
troubled dream. They were to have
made harbor the previous morning,
and the storm had driven them off the
course down the southern French
coast BY this time she had thought
everything would have been over-the
brief, fearless parting with Hether-
ington, the meeting with her mother in
Paris and the trip to Berbec
Dear, lovely, lonely little Berbec up
on the Normandy coast! The two sum
mers she had spent there, in old Mar
tigny's classes, had been the happiest
of her life. She loved even the mem
DRY Of the crescent shore line, with the
old boats drawn up on the sand and
the nets drying in the sunlight and the
brown skinned fisher boys and girls
gossping over their baskets Of silvery
scaled fish.
1t had all been arranged and settled
so decently, as Hetherington said.
There had never been any open quar-
rels between them for the servants
and public to gossip over, merely a
quiet, courteous anita gonism which re-
qulred no explanation. The marriage
had not been voluntary.
1T was the blessed stupid mothers"
Katherine said with gay cyniclsm at
| their last interview Were not the
kind who settle down, Bruce, and be
married and then do nothing but give
house parties and dinner parties and
yachting parties and all the rest of 1t.
You were rich and nobody in particu-
lar, and | was poor and a Lorimer,
and the wise little mothers simply saw
a chance to found dynasty of mutual
benefit, and we drifted until they land
is a little tangle of fate's skeins We
can't go back and untangle it, but we
can do the Alexander trick and cut it"
He had agreed to the separation too
readily, she thought. Even acknowl-
edging perfect Indifference on both
sides, little hesitancy would have
been desirable. He had almost seemed
cheerful when he had asked her what
she intended doing at Berbec.
You haven't the ghost Of a right TO
ask me- she had told him, but there
is nothing to conceal. Martlgny keeps
up his summer classes still. You know
| studied under him there and in Paris,
too, when we were poor, before
She hesitated and went on with light
touch of bitterncss-"before | was the
fortunate Mrs. Hetherington. There is
certain TO be some Of the old class left
and l can rest and study"
And be happy" continued Hether-
ington. She had not answered
She felt that he could not understand
how she longed for the old quiet life
away from the world 1t was at Ber-
bee he had first met her Young and
| handsome, he had come to the little
fishing hamlet on a yachting cruise
and. with all the confidence Of new
riches, had expected to enter the little
exclusive art and social coterie that
gathered there. 1t had been her favor
that had won him the entree. and be-
fore the ivy that clambered on old
Martigny's garden wall had turned to
crimson they were engaged.
1t was not until after the wedding
in Paris at Eastertide that Katherine
had realized how the world. her world.
was smiling Mt her In polite amuse-
ment 1t was so palpably a marriage de
| CONVEYANCE. Not a breath OF the sweet
ness Of the wOOiDE at quaint Berbec
had reached it. 1t was merely that
Kitty Lorimer had married Bruce
Hethertngton for his money, and all
the host Of nouyeau richie Hethering-
tons were 10 sweep into society under
the shadow of the Lorimer wings.
And the knowledge OF the worlds
| Judgment Of them had bred a vague,
mutual distrust. fear born of love