Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-09-01
The Fatal Three
MISS IL. E. BRADDoN
-=-=I%I=
CHAPTER XIX.

clple, as Mildred understood it, had been
too strong for love; so there was moth
ing left for the forsaken husband but
submission. He went back to the home in
which ne had once been happy, and he sat
down amidst the ruins of his domestic
LIE; he sat by his desolate hearth through
the long, dull wintry months, and he made
40 effort to bring brightness or variety
into his existence. He made no stand
against unmerited misfortune.
Il am too old to forget" he told him
self; that lesson can only be learned in
youth"
A young man might have gone out as
wanderer-might have sought excite
ment and distraction amidst strange cities
and strange races of men; might have
found forgetfulness in danger and hard
ship, the perils of unexplored deserts, the
hazards of untrodden mountains, the hair
breadth escapes of savage life, pestilenco-
famine, warfare. George Greswold felt
40 inclination for any such adventure.
The handspring of life had snapped, and
he admitted to himself that he was
broken man.
He sat by the hearth in his gloomy Ii
orary day after day. and night after night,
until the small hours. Sometimes he took
his gun in the early morning and went
out with a leash of dogs for an hour or
two of solitary shooting among his own
covers. He tramped his copses in all
weathers and at all hours, but he rarely
went outside his own domain nor did he
ever visit his cottagers or small tenantry,
with whom he had been once so familiar
friend. All interest in his estate had
gone from him after his daughters death.
He left everything to the new steward,
who was happily both competent and
honest.
AS he sat by his solitary hearth in the
cold March evening, the large reading
lamp making a circle of light amid the
gloom, George Greswold's mind Travelled
over the days of his youth, and the period
Of that fatal marriage which had blight
ed him in the morning of his life, which
= lighted him now in life's meridian, when,
Cat for this dark influence, all the ele-
ments of happiness were in his hand.
He looked back to the morning of life
and saw himself full of ambitious plans
and aspiring dreams, well content to be
the younger son, to whom it was given to
make his own position in the world, scorn-
resolute to become an influence for good
among his fellow men.
1t was after his Swiss travels that he
went to Italy, and established himself in
Florence for quiet winter. He hired On
apartment on a fourth floor of nqlacr
overlooking the Arno, and here, for The
ElSG time since he had left England. he
went a little into general society. His
mother had sent him letters of introduce
ton to old friends of her own, English
FlC Florentine he was young, handsome,
and a gentleman, and he was received
with enthusiasm. Had he been fond of
society he might have been at parties
every night; but he was fonder of books
and of solitude, and he took very little
advantage of peoples friendliness.
The few houses to which he went were
houses famous for good music, and it
was in one of these houses that he met
Vivien Faux.
1t was in the midst of a symphony by
Beethoven, while he was standing on the
edge of the crowd which surrounded the
open space given to the instrumentalists.
that he first saw the woman who was to
be his wife. She was sitting in the re-
cess of a lofty window, quite apart from
the throng-a pale, dark-eyed GIRL with
roughened hair carelessly neaped above
her low broad forehead.
He found his hostess directly the svm-
phony was over, and asked her to intro
duce him to the young lady in black vel
vet yonder, sitting alone in the window
''Have you been struck by Miss Faux's
rather singular appearanceT asked Sig
nora Vicenti. 'She is not so handsome
as many young ladies who are here to-
night -
mo, she is not handsome, but her face
interests me. She looks as if she had
suffered some great disappointment"
II believe her whole life has been a
disappointment. She is an orphan, and
as far as l can ascertain, a frendless
orphan. She has good means, but there
Is q mystery about her position which
places her in manner apart from other
girls of her age. She has no relations
10 whom to refer, no family home to
which to return. She is here with some
rather foolish people-an English artist
and his wife, who cannot do very much
for her, and | believe she keenly feels
her isolation. 1t makes her bitter against
other girls, and she loses friends as fast
as she make them. People won't put I'D
with her tongue. Well, Mr.. Ranome. do
Fou change your mind after that?'
ION the contrary, feel so much the
more interested in the young lady"
They went across the room to that dis
tant recess where Miss Faux was still
seated, her hair and attitude unchanged
bince George Ransome first observed her.
Ehn al lo~lx
when Signora Vicent and her companion
approached; but she accepted the intro
1uction with a ponchalant air. and she
replied to Ransome's opening remarks
With manifest indifference. Then by de-
grees she grew more animated. and talk
I'd about the people in the room, ridicu-
ng their pretensions, their eccentricities,
their costumes.
After this he met her very often, and
while other young men avoided her on
account of her bitter tongue, he showed
preference for her. society, and encour-
aged her to confde in him. She went
everywhere chaperoned by Mr.. Mortimer,
dreary twaddler, who was forever ex-
rounding theories of art which he had
picked up, parrot-wise, in a London art
school thirty years before. His latest
ideas were coeval with Maclise and Null
ready. Mrs. Mortimer was by way of
being an invalid, and sat and nursed her
ueuralgia at home. while her husband and
Miss Faux went into society.
1t was at the beginning of spring that
an American lady of wealth and standing
invited the Mortimers and their protege
to a picnic, to which Mr.. Ransome was
IL nd Joni, IN
sealed George Ransome's fate. Pity for
Vivien's lonely position had grown into
a sincere regard. lie had discovered warm
feelings under that cynical manner. a
heart capable of profound affection. She
had talked TO him of a child. kind of
adopted sister, whom she had passionately
loved. and from whom she had been part
ed by the selfish cruelty of the little