Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1912-08-15

him. He had used every argument
that he could to that end and the wo-
man had hesitated and wavered, but
she had not consented; she had not
denied her love for him any more than
she had denied her respect and
certain admiration for her gallant,
trusting husband. She had refused
again and again the requests of her
lover. She could not control her
heart. nevertheless she had kept to
her marriage vows. But the force Of
her resistance had grown weaker and
she had realized that alone she would
perhaps inevitably succumb.
Her lover had been away when her
husband returned prior 10 the last
fateful journey. Enid Maitland saw
now why she had besOught him to
take her with him, she was afraid to
be left alone! She did not dare de-
pend upon her own powers any more;
her only salvation was to go with this
man whom she did not love, whom at
times she almost hated, to keep from
falling into the arms Of the man she
did love. She had been more or less
afraid of Newbold. She had soon
realized, because she was not blinded
by any passion as he, that they had
been utterly mismated. She had come
to understand that when the same
knowledge of the truth came to him,
as it inevitably must some day, moth
ing but unhappiness would be their
portion
Every kind Of an argument in adj
ditiOn to those so passiOnately ad-
duced in these letters urging her to
break away from her husband and to
seek happiness for herself while yet
there was time. besieged her heart,
seconded her lovers plea and assaiIed
her will, and yet she had not given
way.
Now Enid Maitland hated the wo-
man who had enjoyed the first young
love of the man she herself loved.
She hated her because Of her priority
of possession, because her memory
yet came between her and that man.
She hated her because Newbold was
still true to her memory, because
Newbold believing in the greatness of
her passion for him, thought it shame
and dtshonor to his manhood to be
false to her, no matter what love and
longing drew him on.
Yet there was a stern sense of JUS
tice in the bosom of this young wo-
man. She exulted in the successful
battle the poor woman had made for
the preservation of her honor and her
good name, against such odds 1t was
a sex triumph for which she was glad
She was proud of her for the stern
rigor with which she had refused to
take the easiest way and the desper-
alton with which she had chung to
him she did not love. but to whom
she was bound by the laws of God and
man, in order that she might not fall
into the arms of the man she did love,
in defiance Of right.
Enid Maitland and this woman were
as far removed from each other
as the opposite poles of the earth, but
there was yet a common quality Ii
each one Of virtuous womanhood. of
lofty morality. Natural perhaps in
the one and to be be expected; I'M
natural. perhaps, and to be unexpect-
ed in the other, but there! Now that
she knew what love was and what
it's power and what its force-for all
that she had felt and experienced and
dreamed about before were as nothing
to what it was since he had spoken
she could understand what the strug-
gle must have been in that woman's
heart. She could honor her, rever-
ence her, pity her
Sne could understand the feeling of
the man too; she could think much
more clearly than he. He was dis
tracted by two passions, for his pride
and his honor and for her; she had as
yet but one, for him.
She could understand how in the
first frightful rush of his grief and re-
morse and love the very fact that
Newbold had been compelled to kill
his wife, of whom he was beginning to
grow a little weary under such circum-
stances, had added immensely to his
remorse and quickened his determin-
alton to expiate his guilt and cherish
her memory. She could understand
why he would do just as he had done,
go into the wilderness to be alone in
horror of himself and in horror of his
fellow men to think only, mistakenly,
of her.
Now he was paying the penalty of
that isolation. Men were made to
live with one another. and no one
could violate the law natural, or by
so long an inheritance as to have so
become, without paying that penalty.
His ideas of loyalty and fidelity were
warped, his conceptions of his duty
we're narrow. There was something
noble in his determination, it is
true. but there was something also
very foolish The dividing line be
tween wisdom and folly is some
times as indefinite as that between
comedy and tragedy, between laughter
and tears. If the woman he had
married and killed had only hated
him and he had known it would have
been different, but since he believed
so in her love he could do nothing
else.
At that period in her reflections
Enid Maitland saw great light.
The woman had not loved her hus-
band after all, she had loved anoth-
err That passion of which he had
dreamed had not been for him. By
strange chain of circumstances Enid
Maitland held in her hand the solu-
ton Of the problem. She had but
TO give him these letters to show
him that his golden image had stood
upon feet of clay, that the love up
on which he had dweIt was not his.
Once convinced of that he would
come quick to her arms. She cried
a prayer o. blessing on old Kirkby
and started 10 her feet, the letters
from year to year, and there may be
years when the worlds supply is short