, 1913-02-27

To give ner story as sne gave II
would be impossible. The ramblings
of a sick mind. the terrible pathos of
It all, is impossible to repeat She
lay there. her long. thin body practical
ly dead. fighting the death rattle in her
throat. There were pauses when for
FIVE minutes she would lie in a stupor,
only to rouse and go forward from the
very word where she had stopped.
She began with her married life.
and to understand the beauty of 1t is
to understand the things that came
after. She was perfectly, ideally, H.
logically happy Then one day Henry
Butler accepted the nomination for
state treasurer. and with hat things
changed. During his term in office
he altered greatly: his wife could only
guess that things were wrong, for he
refused to talk.
The crash came. after all. with ter
rfble suddenness. There had beer an
all night conference at the Butler
home. and Mr.. Butler, in a frenzy at
finding himself a dupe. had called the
butler from bed and forcibly elected
Fleming and Schwartz from the house.
Ellen Butler had been Mortified, sick
ened by what she regarded as the vul-
garity of the occurrence. But her 10y
atty to her husband never wavered.
Butler was one honest man against
q complete organization of unscrupu-
lous ones. His disgrace, Imprisonment
and suicide at the White Cat had fol-
lowed in rapid succession. With his
death, all that was worth while In his
wife died. Her health was destroyed;
abe became me of the wretched army
Of neu%rasthenics. with only one idea;
to %retaliate. to pay back In measure
full and running over. her wrecked
life. her dead husband, her grief and
her shame.
She laid her plans with the caution
and absolute r~ecklessness of a diseased
mentality. Normally a shrin!Iing, nerv-
GUS woman. she became cold. passion
less, deliberate In her revenge. To dis
grace Schwartz and Fleming vas her
original intention. But she could not
get the papers.
She resortcd to bounding Fleming,
meaning 10 drive him to suicide. And
1ooo = hlClhOu That ~ hCuh-
ly driven him to madness Wherever
he turned he found the figures eleven
twenty-five G. sometimes just the num-
Der without the letter. 1t had been
Henry Buffers cell number during his
Imprisonment. and If they were craven
on his wife's soul they burned them
selves in lines of fire on Fleming's
brain. For over a year she pursued
this course-sometimes through the
mail. at other times In the most unex-
pected places, wherever she could bride
a messenger TO carry the paper. Sane?
No, hardly sane. but inevitable as fate.
The time came when other things
went badly with Fleming, as | had al
ready heard from Wardrop, He fed to
the White Cat, and for a week Ellen
Butler hunted him vainly. sbe had de-
htded to kill him, and on the night Mar
gerry Fleming had found the paper on
the pillow she had been In the house
She a not the only intruder in the
house that night. Some one, presum-
hb,y Fleming himself-had been there
BIZ 're her. She found a ladies' desk
broken open and a small drawer emp
~. Evidently Fleming, unable to draw
D check while In hiding, had needed
ready money. AS to the jewels that
had been disturbed in Margery's bou
DOR, l could only surmise the impulse
that after prompting him to take them
had failed at the sight of his dead
wife's jewels. Surprised by the girls
appearance. she had crept to the upper
foor and concealed herself In an empty
bedroom. 1t had been almost dawn be
fore she got out. Nc doubt this was
the room belonging to the butler. Cal
ter, which Margery had reported as
locked that night.
She took n key from the door of a
side entrance and locked the door he
hind her when she left. Within a
couple OF nights she had learned that
lWardrop was coming home from
Plattsburg, and she met him at Bell.
wood. We already knew the nature OF
that meeting. She drove back to town,
half maddened by her failure to secure
the letters that would have cleared her
husbands memory, but the wiser by
one thing; Wardrop had inadvertently
told her where Fleming was hiding.
The next night she wen to the
White Cat and tried to get In. She
knew from her husband of the secret
staircase, for many n political meeting
of the deepest significance had been
possible by its use. But the door was
locked, and she had no key.
Above her the warehouse raised its
empty height, and It was not long be
fore abe decided to sac what aha conid