Perth Amboy evening news., 1905-07-31
HER ELOPEMENT. I
By BARRY PAIN.

He was a middle-aged man, intensely
respectable in appearance and inclined
to portlihess. On his return from his
Office in the evening he found a letter
waiting for him on the table in the
hall. 1t was addressed to him in his
wife's handwriting. He took it into
the library with him, selected a com
Portable chair in q good light and ad-
justed his reading s~pectacles. Here
foiloweth the letter:
MY dear George, | have eloped. Ii
| say it in this plain and direct way
without periphrasis and without break
ing it to you gently it is because you
must for some time past have been ex-
pecting something of the kind. | credit
your intelligence with that.
ssWe have been married ten years,
and, as you pointed out the other day,
we have never exchanged one angry
word with each other. Somehow that
seems to me to speak for itself. The
dead level of decency has never been
disturbed. You, as a correct and ortho-
dox solicitor, regard this with intense
satisfaction. 1 confess that do not.
To me the dead level has become-wefl,
pretty deadly. 1t sounds perhaps an
exaggeration, but | almost wish that
you had on some occasion completely
lost your temper with me and used me
violently. Perhaps it would have been
better still If you had permitted me
to lose my temper with you. You new
er did. Your discretion and tact are
beyond all praise. At the same time
they have proved fatal to the m
who is your wife. have been through
ten years of it. The time is up!
There is really a good deal of bro
ken contract about it on both sides.
Ten years age | was pretty and you
were romantic. 1t was understood be-
tween us-tacitly, | admit-that this
kind of thing would continue. 1t has
continued. At the present moment |
am quite we'll preserved and you are a
solicitor and we never exchange an
angry word. Nor do we ever exchange
a word of affection which could be
called hysterical or idiotic.
."The fact that for the better part
Eof ten years | have been acting a part
magnifcently. / have acted the part
of housekeeper SO %splendidly that at
times | have deceived myself and be-
lieyed that | really did take an interest
in the tradesmen's books. Perhaps
the self-deceit went further than that.
deceived myself into believing that
| really enjoyed the portentous and eX-
tremely dull dinners that we give every
month. | deceived myself into heliev-
ing that our we'll regulated and rather
somnolent affection was the placid hap
piness of married lovers. But all the
time nan has beer alive in mt and
the flame on the altar is not yet burned
out. (My poor George, what on earth
will you make of that sentence? Meta
phor always did muddle you.) The
flame will not burn forever. One gets
older and older. The cold night is
coming. have an hour still. to enjoy.
"All this came TO, me after you had
left for the Office this morning. You
will never know how very nearly |
dashed your silk hat from your hand,
kicked it across the hall and went into
Mysteries. That hat had somehow be-
come the symbol Of my ugly, we'll
groomed, respectable life. went into
the kitchen and gave the orders Il was
able to get the red mullet after alb,
and then | went upstairs and packed.
| have told the servants a plausible
story and you may be able to save a
scandal if you back it. Really, there
is nothing to be surprised about. Civ
en- gray monotony and a romantic
woman and another man, what else
can be expected?
"And now you ask who the man Is.
Your eye flashes back over your visit
ing list. Which of the men that have
eaten your. bread and your salt at your
porlentous dinners can have done this
treicherous thing? You may make
your mind easy, George. There is nc
maA in the question, | have lately
come to the conclusion that men are a
good deal overrated. 1 am clipping al
by myself and | think it will be per
fectiy beautiful. need not worry
about money. My own f20O a year
will not give me the carriage WIN tWo
fat horses and the big house and the
portentous dinners, but | have grown
to value these things very little. Two
hundred pounds will be quite enough
for me. BY the time that you get this
Letter l shall be in Paris. | shall net
write another letter, but you shat
know my address from time to time
This will facilitate the work Of the
private detectives if you are ldlot
enough to waste any money on them.
"And, seeing that | go all alone, per-
haps it should not be called an elope-
ment, but simply a holiday. And II it
liz Just a holiday it may one day be
over and then l may return to work
again. | promise nothing"
The letter was signed with her chris
tian name. The man who had read it
meditated for some time and then rang
the bell.
Look here" he said to the man who
answered it, "there is some red mullet