The San Francisco call., 1905-04-09

had held. The story, of his wife's flight
which the Courier had displayed on its
front page had been a masterpiece of
dark hints and yelled insinuations. To
Gordon, who had read ii with aching
eyeballs. it had seemed printed in
monstrous symbols of flame.
1t was to prove the opening note of a
chorus whose vicious strength he had
not comprehended till the following
day, when the avalanche of abuse
broke over him with the morning
newspapers. Every personal grudge,
every pygmean hater of success. every
covering enmity that had sickened un-
der his splendor had reused. He
shut himself in the library, telling
Fletcher he was at home to no one,
and srimly read the charges they pre-
ferred; he had carried his unprincipled
prof1igacy into his home and ensconced
beneath his own roof Drury Lane
inamorata; he had prosecuted his wife
with inhuman cruelties. denied her the
offices of religion, fired pistols in her
bedroom to frighten her while she slept
these were the lightest of their accu-
sations
Gordons mind. racing over the pages,
was catching glimpses of heterogene-
Gus elements which blended in dim
dread futurity. He saw suddenly the
inertia of Annabel's passive correctness
saw why his own name, with it's &c
centric dazzle, had stood forth blackly
against her even ways, her spotless,
conventional Dureness. The mute con-
trast had always been there. and he
had suffered accordingly. To the world
she stood a martyr-a stony pillar
once woman. who had looked back to
catch some lurid fume from doomed
cities sinking under Dead Sea waters
he
monstrous calumnies? Might the reit-
crate malice Of the public prints infect
his nearer COMMUNICATIONS at
whose ia sbles he had sat almost week.
ly, the cliques of the clubs, the gay set
at Almack's, the circle of Melbourne
House?
He drew sharp breath. for he
thought of William Lamb. heir to the
Melbourne title. from whom he had
daily expected a cartel. He would
leave no path of revenge untrod; nor
would Lady Caroline. Could their dis
associate hatred envenom even the few
for whose opinion he cared?
The Courier had reserved it's bitter
est attack. On the second day it pub
lished the stanzas entitled Fare the
Well" signed by Gordon's name He
saw them with a strange sensation, his
mind grasping for the cords he felt en-
meshing him, his eyes fully opene,!
now TO the devilish ingenuity of hi.
persecution.
But he himself stood appalled, at the
deadly effect of this attack Innuendo
was thrown aside: invective took its
place. Paragraph, pamphlet and carl
cature held the lines up to odiurn. The
hypocrisy of q prof1igatei A cheap, in
sincere appeal to mawkish sympathy,
A tasteless, vulgar parade of a poseur
strumming his heartstrings. on the
highway
II came to Gordon with a start that
during the past forty-eight hours he
had forgotten his mail. He rang the
bell and asked for his letters.
There are none. my lord"
No letters? And daily for year his
table had been deluged with tinted and
perfumed billets crested and sealed
with signets Of great houses. No let
tersi
Who has called to-day?"
Fletcher's honest eyes could scarcely
meet his masters. mfr. Hobhouse
called this morning, and Mr.. Dallas
this afternoon"
That is alp"
Yes, your lordship."
Gordon went to the fireplace and
stared down dazedly into the embers.
He had been a santon: now he was an
lshmaelite, a mark for the thrust of
every scurrilous poetaster who welded
a pen-a chartered Bluebeard-another
Mirabeau whom the feudalists discov-
cred to be monsteri The world had
learned with pleasure that he was a
wretch. Tom Moore was in Ireland,
Sheridan dead. OF all he knew only
two rallied to his support-Hobhouse
the sturdy, undemonstrative. likable
companion of his early travels, and
BALLAST
Gordon laughed bitterly. He had
been Londpn's favorite. Now, without
justice or reason, ii covered him with
obloouy and went by on the other side.
There had followed days and nights
or mental agony, of inner crying-out
for reprisal-hours of fierce longing for
his child, when he had sought relief in
walking unfrequented streets from
dark TO dawn, in desultory compost
ton, more often in the black bottle that
lay in the library drawer. Meager news
had reached his sister, and q brave,
true message from her was the only
cooling dew that fell into his fiery
Sahara Of suffering. A packet left by
a messenger reused him TO a white
fury. il was from Sir Samuel Romilly,
the solicitor under his retainer. Sir
Samuel had reversed his allegiance.
His curt note inclosed a draft of sep
aration proposed by Sir Ralph Mil
banke. and though couched in judicial
phrases. voiced a threat unmistakable.
Almost round of the clock Gordon
sat with this paper before him, his
meals untasted. His wife at that mo-