Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1910-07-21

Those clothes, have you examined
them?"
mo-" said the chaplain, sit has been
too dark in the first place, and"
II will look at Them" said Mr.. Whit
taker. Perhaps we may find some
new clew in them"
The lieutenant-commander stopped
over the pathetic little heap Of worn
garments. There were the blouse, the
skirt, the stockings, and the worn and
torn white shoes. The Bible lay upon
them as if to weigh them down, and
they had been placed we'll above the
reach of the highest tide. The tide
was then just coming in to the island.
The Bible had been opened and laid
face downward on the clothes. Mr..
Whitaker lifted it up reverently. He
observed as he did so that his own
pencil, which he had left, he now re-
membered, with the woman, lay be-
meath the open book. On the blank
leaves between the Old and New tes-
taments something was written. No
mention of any writing had been
made in the affidavit of the night be-
fore. He lifted it, turned his back
toward the east where the sun was
just on the verge Of rising, and stud
led it out.
DO you find anything?" asked the
chaplain.
There s writing on this page" said
the younger man. II can just make it
out"
Man." he read slowly, studying
each word in the dim light, II loved
you. In one sense, in your sense, |
was unworthy Of you, perhaps, but
not in mine. You alone had my heart.
! The past was a frightful mistake for
which / should not be blamed, but for
which I must suffer. | tried you with
the world by your side. The world
was kind, but you were not. You
broke my soul and killed something
within me which l had thought dead,
but which you had revived. No power
could revive it again. / cannot marry
Langford, for I do not love him. | will
not marry you, for you do not love me.
I will not 60 back to the world now.
I have no desire to do so and I cannot
live alone with you upon the island,
You will not go without me, and so l
will go first by myself alone. You will
think of me, l know, in the great
world. Perhaps you will Judge your
self harshly, but I do not fudge you
at all. You did not know, you did not
understand. 1t came too suddenly
upon you. You cannot forget me, but
do not repine we me and remember
to the very last that I loved you.
Good-by. May God bless you, and
may he pity mel"
Underneath she had written the i'm
personal name which he had loved to
call her, Woman"
So characteristic was the letter that
that superscription was supererogatorJ
thought Mr.. Whitaker, Only a won.
an could have written 1t. She had
gone out of his life, because with her
in it there was no solution Of it for
him, because-how pitiful 1t sounded
there In the gray of that morning in
that lone island to those two men!-
because he did not love her. And she
had gone out Of 1t with excuses fol
him on her lips and love for him II
her heart. No wonder that, divinins
this which he had not seen, realizing
only that she was gone, he had beer
stricken as he was.
The doctor arrived presently. HI
ordered the man, still unconscious, Il
be taken back to the ship where h,
would do what he could toward reviv
ing him and pulling him through thil
great and terrible crisis that had com,
upon him. Tho chaplain went witt
: him, conceiving his duty to be In al
, tendance upon the living rather thai
searching for the dead.
The captain, with the other officers
brought 100 men to the shore. TIL,
island was systematically searched. !
: was all open. There was no place 9
3 ~concealment, but not a foot Of 1t wa
' left unvisited. Again and again tn
: men traversed the island. They foun
. nothing, absolutely nothing. TIL
7 woman had vanished and left no trace
. In the search, and made quite fral
q tic by the necessity Of it, Langfor
Joined. Indeed, he would not be pc
e suaded that the woman he had treate
SO badly, whom he had hunted SO d,