Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1910-06-24

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put to him with the direct simplicity OF
the American public through its tmpe-
rious representatives, the reporters.
And to these questions Mr.. Langtord
could return no adequate answer what
aver except the truth. which he could
not bring himself to tell. He de-
clared that she had left the yacht IN
the South seas, that he did not know
her present whereabouts, and refused
to say anything further privately or
in public. Miss Brenton had no near
relations; what was everybody's bust
was nobody's, and presently pub
lie interest in her declined. She n
her philosophy were practically for
gotten by all but Langford himself.
Fortune, which had done him some
evil turns, here, however, interpOsed to
his advantage. The lady who legally
bore his name departed this life and
left him a free man. Brute though he
had been, Langford was not without
some strong Idea of honor and de-
cency. Indeed, he had enjoyed long
and undistributed hours of meditation
upon his sins of omission and commits
sion during his period of GONZALES
cence, and the calm consideration of
character and career had done him
good. At heart, in spite Of his brutal
conduct, for which drink had largely
been responsible, he was a gentleman,
and capable Of things fine and high
under the stimulus of some really
great emotion. He Ia come to real
ize, to put it mildly, what an awful
fool he had been to say nothing Of his
villa1ny. What had led him to this
realization had been the remembrance
Of the hours he had passed with Kath-
arine Brenton before the clouds had
arisen which had eliminated in that
awful storm, the recollection Of which
fairly made him shudder. However,
he had deceived her by professed ad-
herence to her wild theories and i'm
possible PHILOSOPHERS, he had honestly
loved her, and association with her
had been of benefit to him. If he
only had not given away to his tenn
per and his appetite! If it had not
been for his former obligation!
He had married his wife in a mo-
ment of boyish i~nfatuation. The union
had been impossible almost from the
first. She was little more than an
adventures, much older than he, who
had entrapped him for his money.
There had been a separation ON a lib
eral financial basis, to which the WON
an had readily, even cheerfully,
agreed. and he had no lingering re-
mains of affection to hold him back.
Her death was only a relief to him.
He felt that he owed r~eparation to
Kofhorinn Prnnt0n on6 no woC moro
willing tt pay the debt because he was
honestly and genuinely in love with
her so far as a man of his tempera-
ment could be in love with a woman.
He wanted to make amends for his
treatment. He would have given any
thing he possessed to nave been able
to say how ashamed he was of all that
he had done, and to beg her to forgive
him and marry him.
The death of his father and the ne
cessity for the administration of the
vast interests Of the bonanza kings
estate prevented him from at once
engaging upon the search which he
promised himself he would make, but
he expedited matters, sometimes to
his own loss, as rapidly as he could,
and after nearly a years stay in San
Francisco, he found himself in posi-
ton to undertake his quest. For a
year thereafter he and the Southern
| Cross traversed the unexplOred, unvis-
tied waters of the South seas. He
had landed upon island after island
which he had examined with minute
particularly. Some he had found in
habited by natives, whom, through in
terpreters he had procured, he Ques-
toned unavailingly. He ran across
stray vessels trading among the is
lands, and through them with con-
stantly increasing, yer widening me-
diums, he carried on his search, but
| without result. In thus sweeping the
Pacific, he visited everything that was
Charted, and all that he could find
that was not, and vas now hOmeward
bound, convinced that the launch must
have ~foundered and that he would
never solve the mystery of her disap-
pearance.
So a~ssiduously lao he prosecuted
his search that the crew of the South
ern Cross, who knew nothing as to the
cause Of the eagerness, with the ex-
ception of the ship master, looked
upon him as a harmless visionary.
They had been ava SO long and had
visited so many islands with 50 much
hardship, oftentimes with so much
danger from uncharted reefs in the un-
known seas that they were one and all
wildly anxious to return from the, to
them, aimless wandering. If he had
communicated to them at the first his
quest, they would have shared his
eagerness, but he kept it to himself,
as he had kept his own counsel in
San Francisco, and he straitly charged
his sailing master to say nothing of it.
Consequently the lookout on the
fore-topmast cross-tree on a certain