The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1909-08-05
CHAPTER ".

The hours of Christmas day rolled on,
bringing, the world over, to lonely hearts
the retrospective pangs that no amount
of soothing can wholly choke down.
Brighton, Paris, Nice are the means
sought by the prosperous, who have need
to smother such meDories. A novel by
the fire, with a masculine pipe or a
feminine cup of tea, supply a second
class train to the land of forgetfulness.
The third. is often an investment of all
available cash or family valuables in al
coholic oblivion. But there are hours
of darkness when all such attempts to
cheat the inner self fail Hours when
the spirit must stand and face its own
shattered past, its desolate future-hours
when dead hands reach out from grave
damp, and touch the heart and chiller
still, comes the breath from shattered
ideals, and now hopeless self-possibili-
ties.
Ii was into some such valley of shad-
ows that Miss Thorne had gone down
during that long afternoon spent in her
state-room.
The clatter of the lunch hour in the
pantry had eliminated and subsidized, the
afternoon had early darkened, and the
stewardess, after several futile messages
that tea was ready in the saloon, had
brought 1t In, and set it on the trunk be-
side her, but still Miss Thorne sat star
ing at the white wooden partition where
a selection from her wardrobe swayed to
and fro with the ships motion. 1t could
hardly be called thinking, this vivid reali-
cation that possessed her mind of all her
own losses and disillusions: the kindly
old father; the dignifeu, ample home life
OF which sne had been the head the
brothers older than herself and settled in
their own homes, who, without much
community of interest had formed a
friendly background to he: life; and the
central figure, the good-looking, cheerful
lover, always SO humbly devoted to her.
self, always holding before her eyes the
prosperous married life ahead of them
1t was strange to remember now how she
had grown to lean on his self-confident
decision, and to accept his coloring OF
the schemes for their future.
1t was not more than a month or two
since such had been her surroundings
and now they were more scattered thar
the leaves which had seen them 60. Her
iaSher was dead, her home broken up
E-o hers anu their wives had shown O
perfunctory interest and kindness which
had sometimes seemed a shade worse
than open Indifference. Offers of a home
had not been wanting, but there was moi
one in which she would not have known
her presence to be more tolerated thar
desired. But brothers and their wives
would have mattered little il the centra
| figure of the play could have kept hi:
part of hero.
/ At first there had been ardent sympa
| thy and every self-forgetful effort Il
soothe her sorrow, until the girl was
| filled with remorse at not having better
| appreciated such devotion. Then came
longer intervals between meetings, a de
pressed dwelling on the difficulties of the
| future, and the postponement Of the mar
riage. Then there were journeys on the
| plea of business, and letters full of the
disadvantages of long engagements, unit
in one binding fash of comprehension
Miss Thorne had seen what it all meant
She sat down at once and wrote a lettel
which brought back perfect composition
in the way of a sorrowful acquiescencC
in her decision, and pathetic remuneration
of all claims.
She was of the sort in whom con
tempt kills all affec ion, and her sister
in-law considered that, in what followed
she showed a great deal Of womarly
feeling. Boldly and gravely she made
! Known the breaking of Of her engage