Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-07-23

for a shilling's worth of h%asheesh?
Then there was opium in its many
forms. Guy had visited Chinatown in
San Francisco. He recalled a pestl-
lential den, where he had seen a
miserable wretch SO thin that his
bones were nearly through his face,
but with a seraphic smile on his blue
lips. To the horror of everybody 1t
vas discovered that the man was dead,
but his smile was alive. 1t could
speak, it was eloquent of that silence
to which the spirit informing the bun
die of skin and bone had passed.
At Eastleigh, Guy got out to wait for
a slower" train.
While suspending Judgment on what
followed, it may be we'll to consider
briefly but carefully what went be-
fore. Guy had been bcguiled by a
siren, In men of Guys tempera-
ment and character, where there is
the fusion (far less rare than is-com-
monty supposedly of doer and dreamer,
you will find a fund-a deposit &C
count, SO to speak-of love and sym
pathy which accumulates impercept-
IDLY during the period of action,
when practically 40 drafts are made
upon it. Such m as Angela
Tempest have a nose for these &C
foundations. Her first cheque was
honoured instantly. To carry on the
figure, she OWNED her credit to be un-
limited. After that for a couple of
years all drafts upon friendship were
met. At the end, as we have seen,
Guy had honoured-dishonour
Up to the very last Angela inter-
posed a rose-co1oured glamour be-
tween sense and sentiment, between
fact and fancy. McAllister, X. c., tore
this pretty veil to tatters. One sees the
chiffon floating from his horns-a bull
in a boudoir. Some pretty sinners in
the galleries felt quite faint when
they heard his raucous Scotch accent
dealing with what they had conceived
to be a romantic situation.
We have said that Guy suffered
acutely, but his sufferings in the court
room had been alleviated by the re-
Election that what was stripped from
him served as a carpet between An
gela's feet and the mud. She was be-
spattered, of course, but not sunk up
to the, neck in mire as it was. Nc
Allister, perhaps d~esignedly, had
spared her. If he saw the butterfly
which is almost certain-he realised
that to pin it quivering to his brief
would ALLEVIATE the sympatnies of the
jury, honest ~householders to a man,
married to plain, respectable wives,
served by plain. respectable parlour-
maids, and therefore the more easily
dazzled by beauty. McAllister, canny
p1eader. had attacked strength, not
weakness, and had triumphed superb
ly.
When he had presented his case, no
illusions were left to Guy, or, indeed
to anyone else. This, perhaps, was
the famous counsers greatest tri-
umph: he had revealed Guy to himself.
Also, to Guy (and to a very few Of the
elect he had revealed Angela. His
pitiless logic exhibited to the ground
lings a lovely creature in the tolls,
struggling desperately from the first,
but physically and mentally unable to
extricate herself. Every incident, the
accumulated testimony of the wit
nesses on each side, set forth and
illuminated this abominable spectacle
of spider and fly. (McAllister dis
dained not the tritest metaphors
But to Guy and the very few (Cynthis
Charteris was n of them) his bruta
revelation exposed Angela as spider
The limelight of cross-examinatioI
Illuminated her motives and designs
not Guys. What made the whole case
so black was the evidence Of plot ant
plan-an organized campaign from the
beginning to end. When McAlliste1
pushed his wig into place and sa
down for the last time, Guy knew tina
Angela was no more capable of low
than a limpet. But what would be
come Of her if she we're tor from thu
rock to which she had attached her
self?
The answer came to Guy in thu
train. She would attach herself tt
some other rock.
Under the most favourable cir
cumstances, Eastleigh station Is nc
a place one would choose as a spo
wherein to linger. Guy went into tn
General Waiting Room, where-win
dows and boor being tightly sh'it-i
fire, struggling against an atmospher
lacking oxygen, had pr~ematurcly es
pired. Guy sat down upon a woodel
bench. Outside it drizzled, the fin
rain fallin gsilently through a thicker
ing mist. The too short day was draw
ing to a close, pickering out like tn
few red cinders in the CRATE. !
spark burned in the solitary gasje'
, Guy might have turned the spark il
to a flame, but this did not occur
, him. Nevertheless, this wretche
spark fiickered upon the faces of tw
women who sat huddled up near tn
) crate upon the only two chairs pr
vided by the company. They WEI
4 dressed in rusty black, wearing e.
traordinary bonnets, tilted forward {
a ludicrous angle to their yellow
. shiny foreheads. Two sharp re
e noses looked as if they had poke
themselves into queer ner Fro
: two pairs of thin discoloured liz
e dribbled an endless prattle concernlr
s a funeral from which they were r
turning. Their hands, red and roug
misshapen from constant toll, ls
e patiently upon their laps. They ha
taken off their gloves to save the
v against a future occasion.
Her was glad to go. lad it fro
4 - ~. 1~,, C,,~Iar @ &c II nyI