The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1911-04-28
(Continued.)

Cecil and I began with the usual
that friendship between a young man
and q young woman is always posi-
BILE among the truly civilized, and Is
moreover Of the greatest educational
value. I have every reason. by the
way, to believe the truth Of the latter
part of this creed. But that is a
DEPRESSION.
"At last, one day, we found out,
simultaneously, with binding sudden
ness, that we loved each other. 1t
was the kind Of experience never to
be forgotten-as if one moved bodily,
or rather were caught UP bodily, into
higher plane; or as though win
ter landscape should suddenly burst
into leaf and blossom. For a few
days we Rugged our delicious secret,
then we began to desire the greater
freedom accorded to avowed lovers.
It seemed that we must announce
our engagement.
"And then Cecil told me. Sitting
by the fire in my little drawing
room-the last word in correct style.
and rejecting the jargon Of it's day
as faithfully as it's one mirrors
recumbent oval-reflected the extre-
nifty Of my surprise.
"He had a wife irving. She was
mad
The speaker paused a moment, her
hands, lying upon her knees, clasped
and wrung each other. Vernon kiss
ed her hair, but did not speak.
Their married life had lasted just
thirteen months. Her madness was
the kind that comes to some women
after the birth of a child. Something
went wrong-there was an incompet-
emit nurse, I think. The baby died,
and she went mad. There is always
OR usually-in such cases the hope
of recovery. He waited patiently for
that to happen. He had waited elev-
en- years, and she grew steadily worse
and worse. 1t seemed that there, was
insanity in her family-the type of
insanity which comes from melan-
cholia The doctors now told him
that there was no hope of her recov-
cry. But her health was excellent.
She might easily outlive him.
At the first moment of his telling
me; in spite of my education, in spite
of all my advanced views. I had a
curious, violent revulsion of feeling.
had something of the sensations which
may have visited Jane Eyre, when
she learned the same thing concern
ing Rochester. I remember that this
occurred to me, even at the moment
angriIy asked myself whether I was
middle-class Puritan.
THAT helped me to pull myself to-
gether, and listen to what he said.
at was all just what I was accus-
toned to hear, and to say myself.
The laws of man forbade his having
the ordinary human happiness of
companionship, but the laws of God
were different-not, of course, the
cramped, intolerant God of the
Churches, but the great free God of
our own fancy; in other words. the
dedication Of our own desires.
ST asked him whether he had loved
his wife before her affliction. He
answered yes; he had supposed him
self to be deeply in love with her, but
that he was then boy. She had
been a girl Of weak mind from the
first. Pretty enough, but, compared
to me, like a rushlight to an electric
torch. Even were it possible that she
could be cured, she could. never be
the companion Of his maturity
HE told me that his home had
been in Manchester, and that on COM
ing to London, seven years ago, he
had changed his name. He had not
done this with a view to contracting
a fresh marriage, but because an old
uncle had left him business upon
condition of his taking this name.
But he had not communicated his
change of name to the authorities Of
the private asylum where his wife
lived lin Cumberland. He wrote there
always in his old name, and they only
knew his business address. His wife's
people-few and obscure-lived in
Scotland. Nobody in London knew
of his former name or his former
marriage. Yet to make assurance
doubly sure, he proposed that we
should be married abroad. He said
not only would this be safer, but also
it appealed far more to his sense of
the romantic. He still remembered
the pathetic travesty of his first mar
riage-the dreadful religious cere-
mony, the hideous clothes, the we'd
ding-cake and wine. Why should not
we be Economically married in Venice,
of Florence, or anywhere where there
was an English Consul? 1 might go
abroad with Miss Brett, without an
nouncing the engagement; and then
out there, tell her we were going to
be married, and, after the ceremony,
send her home, and have a honey