The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-08
AT THE RUBICON'S EDGE.
BY cRACE a. BosTwICK.

Copyright, 1905. Daily Story Pub. co.) | Dear Old Jimmy: This letter Will surprise you. have no doubt. It will shock you little, too. think, for have almost determined upon step that means a great deal in one way or another. l am considering the question of marriage, Jimmy.
 | I suppose it will seem odd to you that can contemplate such a thing at my age--having attained the years of discretion and supposed wisdom but it is just that. l am getting old I feel 1t. I need a home. companion ship. love. There is no need to con- l ceal the fact-I am horribly lonely. My work does not fill my life. Work never fills a weman's life; her heart is still left empty and desolate and her heart is the mainspring of her ex- istence in more than one sense.
 He is a good man--good in the broad way; kind. charitable liberal; man of ready sympathies with a great tender ness of heart. He is cultured and re- fined and--to sum it all up--one whom any woman might we'll be proud to call her husband, but I can not love him. Jimmy, wish l could--I want to love him. let him kiss me last night, co, know 1t was disgracefuD just to see if it would beat through my blood in l I--I didn't ever shudder--I didn't care. felt utterly turnover. I think it chilled him a little. T can make you | oareP' he declared, and his voice shook. Such feeling should rouse a Pesponse-- but it doesn't. I even felt little faint amusement that shames my woman hood. for he cares so.
 Jimmy, I closed my eyes as I sat there by his side. recalled other kisses and the memory-cold gray ashes of long-dead past--stirred to life and burned with quick response. My heart leaped with the old-time throb of delight and this. after all these years. He knows. for told him, but ! will spare you his remarks Jimmy, can I do this thing-daFe I? Yes, dare, for l dare do anything | that has been my curse--but I can not bring myself to 1t unaided. He is too good to be bound to an unloving wife, O, this loving! What a thing it is! What a power in our lives and yet you-you, with your hard mouth that might be tender-you, with your cold gray eyes; you. with your passionate nature-know 1t not. I can not under stand it, Jimmy. Have you never l longed to hold me in your arms, to feel my kisses warm and passionate on your lips, to feel my heart beat l against your own, once again after this long separation? Will love of woman never quicken to life within your breast? Are you all cold? No-no, for you cared, once. little. How I used to rejoice--tremble with happiness when felt your cold lips grow warm against my own, tremulous with love. How I used to long and long for one tender word, one loving look.
 Jimmy, tell me what to do. I need your help your sympathy, for I am at the parting of 'the ways where a mis- step means life-or death. Don't mis- understand me. I ask your advice only I-nothing more. gave up, long ago, all. hopes of anything from you other than the mere impersonal friendliness | you rendered me and yet, the old wound stirs and aches. Jimmy.
 used to think that in time you would come(to care-I felt that love | like mine must win, and harbored the belief as a precious jewel, priceless. | It has been eight years-we have not met for four--and your letters hold the same impersonal note-the same atmos- phere of friendly affection--O affection, what is it but the poorest of imita- tions!
 o. Jimmy don't fail me now! Help mel You must--you shall! Do all | LnGS6 years or ulY HSdEL CTuGSI Q0NO- | tton count for nothing? I will do what you tell mel will take your advice, let 1t be what it may-but be gentle, dear, be merciful-I am only a woman weak, pitiful fool of a woman-and for the sake of what might have been to you if you had cared, grant me your help--do not fail me. Polly. My Dear Polly:--Your words touched me in a peculiar way. coming as they did just at the present time when I. too. am contemplating a change in my conditions.
 I will not fail you. if you count what I am going to write, as anything. I will do my utmost to come up to the standard you would set for me, grant ing you that right.
 Pauline, I knew you had suffered. I have meant to be kind and sympathet- ic, but you know we men who we do not care much for women in general and even very strongly for one in par ticular-are chary of our words. per- haps. even of the feeling that prompts them. I know too well that am hard not easily moved, and unloving, but that is something am not responsible | for.
 You reach ed depth that no other woman ever touched for an instant and still. I can not say and say hon. estly that I love you. or have ever loved you. You are infinitely removed from me. in a variety of ways; by tenn perament, by training, by the very foundations of your being. We are the two extremes; you are all fre-I am ice and strangely enough, it does not melt in your warmth.
 If we had met in our young days our youthful days--when, I will own had my dreams, my boyish dreams
 of what love was to mean to me-
 might have loved you then; I might
 have given you as deep a devotion as you desired. cannot say as to that. Life has altered my nature strangely am of a fiber that cools and hardens