The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-10-12

best thing for both Of them was to
| embark on a new life that should blot
out the errors Of the old one.
In fewer words, he had abandoned
her and her child forever.
Daphne bore the blow with a quiet
ass that, for a girl Of her age and
temperament, BODIED no quick recov-
cry. Amid the tumult of thoughts
that thronged her brain, the one, per-
haps, which stood forth the clearest-
the impossibility of her, Daphne Ches-
ter, having done with happiness. Nine
teen years old and the sun shining
into the hearts Of springs first roses,
the birds chanting up and down the
lanes-there was, literally, as yet mo
place in the existing fabric Of her
thoughts" for the realization OF her
own despair. It needed time-time.
whom the superficial name Healer!
| the slow engraver and perpetuator Of
grief in human hearts-to teach her to
be wretched. The initiation over, the
A, 3, G of suffering mastered, she was
no inapt or laSgard scholar for the
future.
In marrying Barry Chester she had
| invested her all-or she believed so;
and are not our beliefs the sternest
facts we know? In losing him, her
docket was struck. She was bank
rupt.
Amt Hosie, with love-born keenness
Of insight, saw that the poor child's
wound was likely to fare best If left to
Natures curing, and when they were
alone together-by alone I mean, Of
course, with little Paul-the name of
Barry Chester dropped gradually into
disuse. But Miss Theodore, with sur
face sympathies-sympathies for the
| crying outward disgrace, not for the
stifed inward groan-was far from
| approving or practicing such reticence.
Theodore was all for heroic treatment
In the moral ailments Of others, the
| blacksmith's hand of iron rather than
the surgeons hand Of steel. Theodore,
during Daphne's illness, had exercised
her conscience by writing a kind Of
| circular letter to such Of Mr.. Chester's
relations as she had knowledge Of Qn-
|. GLIDING, I rather believe, the War
| wickshire Stamers), and had accumu-
lated facts that she considered it a
sacred duty to lay before the girl in
her hour Of darkness. "Facts that
will at least show you, child, what
kind of a man you waste your regrets
upon"
"Barry Chester comes Of a doomed
STOCK" So, in IN upright feminine
hand, wrote one Of Miss Theodora's
unknown correspondents, a Chester
herself by marriage. smarting, posi-
| bly,, under wrongs that infused gall
into her ink. "His father was worth
less, his grandfather worthless. The
boy was born, as every Chester must
be, to a hopeless inheritance Of evil.
| Although I do not know Mrs. Barry
| Chester" the writer ended, II tell her
honestly that I congratulate her on
her good fortune in having seen her
husband for the last time. From faith
er to son. the Chesters have brought
| shame and desolation to the heart Of
every woman who has loved them. 1t
will be so to the end"
Facts with a vengeance, these.
Facts, each of whose written syllables
seems to Daphne's soul to look up at
her with cruel human eyes, and whose
influence sank, like the stain Of some
dark poison flower, through all the
get unopened pages Of her young life.
Born to a hopeless inheritance Of
evil" even as the babe, just begin
ming to smile up in her face, must be!
| She felt herself. and, what vas dearer
than herself, the child, to be in the
grasp Of memorable law, marked-out
victims of necessity. If she had grad
uated in the very newest school Of
scientific Calvinism, had listened to
the last "high teaching" of Bile, Phos-
phorus and Despair. her morbid sense
Of slavery to circumstance could
scarce have been p%rofounder. And the
other worldly utterances Of pious
friends-powerless, like all seemly
phrases signifying nothing, against
the shock Of any great crisis-the job
like consultations Of the elder Miss Van
! %sittarts, everything save the influence
of Aunt Hosie's healthy, u~pward-look-
ing spirit, tended to sink her more
helplessly in the slough Of fatalism;
the most dreary creed, however
| Io1-->1 hAu-nHnr fnrYor11nfn6 fhnf
| ever served to render human life IN
sweet.
The roses opened, fell from their
stalks; then rang harvest songs as
heart whole; then shone harvest moons
as silver, as Of old. And then the
woods faded from red to dun, the chill
| November rains began to sweep up
| from the Atlantic; and Daphne, wan
dering alone under the gray skies by
| the stormy shore, realized that her
winter had set in. In the blossom of
ner youth she stood in an empty world,
the plaything Of a blind destiny
through the very affections which were
as the fbres and life blood Of her be.
ing.
Had Chester lived, her unhappiness,
however acute, must, with the prog
ress of time, have become checkered.
| Barry Chester, living, must infallibly
have wanted money, infallibly have
fallen back upon the Miss Vansittarts
for help; and Daphne, thirsting to for
| give on any terms, would. you may be
| sure, have relented over the very first
letter that implied reconciliation and
asked for sovereigns.
| Rut no such nnnortunitY came to her