The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-12-04
Former Handsome Army OFF,
Ger Is Very Pathetic Figure
Since His Arrest for Murder
Of Annis.
HIS LOVE FOR PRETTY
WIFE HAS ALL FADED
Declares She Has Betrayed
Him and Disgraced Their
ChiIdren-DetaiIs of Killing
Blank to Him.
BY Dorothy Dix.

New York, Dec. fl want you to
say one thing for mel want you to
contradict the assertion that has been
made that / still love Claudia. It is
monstrous grotesque, that l should
have one particle of lingering affection
for her after the way she betrayed me
and disgraced my little children
So spoke Capt. Peter Hams to me,
his brooding eyes that never lightened
and never frightened, fixed upon the
table where his restless hands that are
never for g. single second. were
tracing meaningless marks. upon the
soiled Jail table cloth.
Is Pathetic Figure.
He was the most pathetic figure on
earth-a young man broken on the
wheel of fate in his youth, the joy of
living quenched forever for him, old
in sorrow before he is old in years. He
is the tallestof the three brothers, a
fine soldierly outstanding figure of a
man that must have been handsome
enough to have captured any girls
fancy when his face was lit up by hap
piness, but now he looks wan and
pinched, as If some cruel wind had
blown over him and blighted him.
He is thin to the point Of emaciation.
His clothes hang on him loosely. His
hands are transparent and bony. The
skin Is drawn tightly over his cheek
bones and across his forehead. He
has the pale, ascetic look of young
monk who has tasted and kept lonely
vigils until he is ready to faint from
exhaustion. His face is the saddest
human face l ever saw and his voice
when he speaks is like the voice Of a
ghost, so surcharged with deathless
woe is it.
You don't need the doctor to tell you
that melancholy has marked him for
its own. You see it in the dropping
figure and stricken face; you hear 1t
in the tired speech that trails off into
forgetfulness every now and then, as
the dim memory struggles to bring
back first one fact and then another,
and tries to weld them into coherent
whole.
For Peter Haines' mind now is slow
ly emerging from the eclipse that dark
ened 1t on the day after his wife shat
tered his universe by her confession to
him. He still remembers many things
only In part, and he is pathetically
nervous, with twitching hands and
trembling lips that he cannot keep
still for all his efforts. But he says
he is better now--Oh, much. much bet
ter-that he is beginning to sleep lit
tie. 5U Z,
ct is the first time have been able
to rest since got those terrible letters
of Claudia's in San Francisco, and it
has done wonders for me. l hope to
be we'll very soon now-if I can only
sleep.
"Those Terrible Letters"
Those letters-those terrible, terri
hle letters" he went on, his hands
fluttering over the table. You know
/ had been gone for three months to
the Philippines and back with trans
port, and l had not heard one word
from Claudia or my babies. When I
reached San Francisco l was already
wild with anxiety about them, for she
had never failed to write before, and
SO when I saw the great package of
letters with her dear handwriting On
them, l fell on them like a famished
dog on a bone. But I could not IN
derstand them. Everyone was filled
with accounts of her smoking and
drinking and going about. with Annis.
and doing things that she never did
before that knew of, and then read
on to where she mentioned that gossip
was busy with her name. Then
knew something was wrong at home,
and it made me crazy"
Il rushed like a mad man to my su-
perior officer and told him must go
home. that something dreadful had
happened. l didn't know what, but l
must go, even If l had to resign my
commission to do so. He saw that l
was awfully upset and SO he stretched
q point and let me go.
II can't tell you anything about that
trip. / only know that / was insane,
that l never ate now slept between
San Francisco and New York; that all
] thought of was that Claudia, my poor
Claudia, was In trouble, and l was 60
ing to help her. That way | came to
1T. Hamilton, and / suppose | looked
like crazy person when burst in up
on her."
He stopped. with face bowed and the
sorrow of sorrow upon him.
Coming to the time when as alleged
Mrs. Haines confessed to him her
rrong-doing with Annis, Capt Hams
said:
After that remember things Only
in part. / went to Tony's (his broth
er and we were together, and couldn't
Weep nor eat. l would walk the floor
night after night, wild with grief and
shame, tortured beyond endurance. and
:hen came that awful charge tina,
Claudia made against me-a charge
that would make me an outcast among
my fellow men. They told me Of
chat, and that Annis had put her ur