Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-02-09
PART w.
HIS GRACE OF WESSEX,
CHAPTER xxx.
Thoughts.

In the loneliness ana silence OF the
tower the Duke of Wessex had enough
leisure to think.
One fatal autumn afternoon and what
a change in the destinies Of his life! Yes
terday he was the first gentleman in
England, loved by many. feared by a few.
reverenced by all as the perfect embodi-
ment of national pride and national
grandeur-almost a king,
And today:
But of himself, his own obvious fate
the shame and disgrace of his present
position, he thought very little Ever
an easy-goipg philosopher, he had as yet
kept the insouciance of the gameste,
who has staked and lost and is content
to retire. from the board. One thing
more, remember! Lie in those days
was not the priceless treasure which
later civilization would have us believe
faith. more chldlike gertrude in the
great truths of futurity, which we in our
epoch are SO ready to cavil at.
If nations and individuals committed
excuses Of unparalleled cruelty in the
name of their respective creeds, if men
hated each other. tortured each other
destroyed one another, it was because
they misunderstood the teachings of re-
ligion. and not because they ignored or
disbeiieved them.
BILE: the mind of twentieth century civil
ization can but gaze at them in mute
horror; history can but record and de-
pore. But the religion which prompted
them-fcr il was religion-was not the
feeble, anemic plaything of an efrete
generation in search of new excitements:
It was strong and virile alike in the atroc-
ity OF its crimes and the sublimity OF
its virtues.
Thus with a man like Wessex! Life had
Iaa, III nrt - L-1 e
worthy even of one of our modern syba-
rites, but to him only the episode which
higher thoughts and Christian belief have
ever suggested that it should be.
Perhaps it would be too much to say
that faith alone caused him to look light
ly upon this sudden, tragic ending of his
brilliant caree-. but it undoubtedly helped
him to preserve that easy and unembit-
tered frame of mind o. the philosopher
who, with life, loses that which hath but
little value.
And now. indeed. what worth would
life have for him? This is where thoughts
became bitter and cruel not over DEATH
not over disgrace. but over the treachery
of a woman and tie fight of an illu-
sion.
What did it all mean?
Sometimes now. when he sat looking
straight before him at the cold, gray
walls of his prison, he seemed to see
that strange dual personality mocking
which had mystified and tortured him
His Fanny" That beautiful vision of
innocent girlhood! Arch, coquettish' ten
der yet passionate; the clear depths of
those blue eyes, the purity of that radi-
ant smile!
And then she! Ursula Glynde, with
bare shoulder and breast. cheeks flushed
but not with shame, eyes moist, yet not
with tears. submitting with feeble hoa- se
to octo fI.1 of
insOlent Spaniard only to take revenge
later with the elemental barbarity of the
street wench, too drunk to understand
her crime.
this was not the woman who had pluck
ed a marguerite petal by petal. and quiv-
cred with delight at the sound of the
nightingale's voice among the willows:
not the woman on whose soft gi-lish
cheek he had loved to call forth. with
blush of rosy red: not the woman whom
in one brief second he had learnt to love
whom in one mad. heavenly moment he
had kissed.
liei that it had all been an ugly dream.
an autumn madness from which he would
presently wake at her feet.
Every sense! Yet his eyes had seen
her, his ears had heard her respond to
her name, when uttered roughly by the
man who seemed to be her master.
The truth itself never once dawned upon
him. The whole trick had been man
aged with such devilish cunning, every
piece in the intricate mechanism of that
intrigue had been SO carefully adjusted
that 1t would have required superhuman
insight or the cold, calculating mind of
an Unconditional mathematician to have
hit upon its natural explanation.
Wessex possessed neithe-. He was Just
a man touched for the first time In his
life with the strongest passion of which
human creatures are capable. He loved
woman with all the ardor. all the un-
reasoning instincts, all the sublime weak
ness and folly. of which a loyal and
strong heart Is capable. That woman
had proved liar and a wanton In his
sight.
He was forced to believe that: had
he not seen her? Which of us hath ever
really CRASHED that one human may be
fashioned line for line feature for fea-
ture. exactly like anothe-? Yet such
thing is. Nature hath every freak. Why
not that one?
He thought of everything. of every solu-
ton. Of every possibility. Heaven help
him. of every excuse. but never of that
That nature in one of those wayward
moods in which no one would dare deny
that she at times INDUCES. had fashioned
a kitchen wench as lifelike replica of
one of the most beautiful women in Eng
land-that one Smple indisput hle en- Sily