Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-09-15
The Fatal Three
BY
MISS NJ. E. BRADDON
CHAPTER xx1.-fcontinued.)

CHAPTER XXI.-(Continued
Gradually memory began to return. He
asked why his wife did not come to see
him. ''She used to be so fond Of me-" he
said, 'foolishly fond of me and now she
deserts me-
Then he talked of going home again.
The image of his latest dwelling place
had gradually shaped itself in his mind
lie saw the hedges of pale amber roses
and carouba trees, dark against the gilt
tering blue of the sea, which shone
through every opening of the branches like
background of lapis lazuli, and the rug
ged mountains rising above the low curry
ing shore steeply toward the sky, with
patches of olive here and there on their
stony tanks, but for the most part bare
and barren, reddish-yelow, STEPPED in sun
light
Yes, he remembered every feature of
that lovely and varied scene. The village
of Eza yonder on the mountain road-a
cluster of stony dwellings perched upon
rocky foundations, hardly to be distin-
guished from the rough crags upon which
they were built-and higher still, in
cleft of those yellow hills, Turbia and
its cloven towers, the birthplace of Rom
an emperors. How lovely it all was, and
how pleasant it had been to lounge in
his garden, where the light looked daz-
zling on beds of white gilly-fowers, and
where the blue summer sea smiled in the
far distance, with faint purple cloud
yonder on the horizon, which represented
Corsica
Why had he ever LEFT that familiar
home? Why could he not return to it?
Get me a carriage" he said to one of
the attendants. II want to go home i'm
mediately. Ny wife is waiting for me-"
1t is not customary to make explana-
tons to patients even in the best regu-
lated asylums Nobody answered him;
nobody explained anything to him. He
found himself confronted with a logged
silence. He wore himself out in an agony
of Impotence, like bird beating itself to
leath against its bars. He languished in
a miserable ignorance, piecing his past life
together bit by bit, with a strange inter-
weaving of fancies and realities, until by
slow degrees the fancies dropped out of
the web and left him face to face with
the truth.
plete. He knew that his wife was dead,
and remembered how she had died. He
knew that he had been a prisoner, first in
Jail and then in a lunatic asylum; but
he did not acknowledge to himself that he
had been mad. He remembered the bell
tolliLs in the saffron light of dawn; he
remembered the magistrates exasperating
questions remembered everything.
After this he sank into a state of sui
len despair, and silence and apathy were
accepted as the indications of cure. He
was told by the head physician that he
could leave the institution whenever Ee
pleased There was an account against
him as a private patient, which had been
guaranteed by his landlord, who knew
him to be man of some means. His
German man servant had been to the asy-
gum many times to inquire about him. The
doctor recommended him to travel-in
Switzerland-until the end of the autumn,
and to take his servant as his attendant
and courier. Change of air and scene
will be Of inestimabe advantage to you,"
said the doctor ''but it would not be wise
for you 70 travel alone"
what month is it?"
"August-the twenty-second."
And my wife died early in April" he
said. only a few months; and L feel
as if l had been in this place century
He took the doctors advice. He cared
very little where he went or what be-
came of him. Life and the world his own
individuality. and the beautiful earth
around and about him were alike inditfer-
emf to him. He went back to the villa at
St. Jean. and to the garden he had loved
SO we'll in the bright, fresh springtime.
All things had an overgrown and neglect
ed look in the ripeness of expiring sum-
mcr: too many flowers, rank luxuriance
Of large leaves and vivid blossoms-fruit
rotting in the long, grass-an odOr of de-
caying oranges the waste of the last har-
vest. He went up to the graveyard on
the hill above the harbor. 1t was not
picturesque burial place. The cemetery
at Clinics was far more beautiful. The
cemetery at Nice was in a grander posi-
ton.
lie felt sorry that she should lie here,
amidst the graves of sailors and fisher
men-as even if after death she were
sighted and hardly used.
He was summoned back to England
early in the following year to his mothers
dpath-bad. Neither she nor any of his
family had known the miserable end of
his married life. They knew only that
he had married, and had lost his wife af-
ter year of marriage. Hazard had not
brought any one belonging to him in con-
tact with any of those few people who
knew the details of that tragical story.
His mothers death made him rich and
independent. but until the hour he met
Mildred Fausset his life was a blank.