The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1913-03-20
CHAPTER III.

I1o HdlhSu LCE uSxiIIy an uOuA1 hlOht
quiet. lamp-lit streets where larg'
houses fronted on gardens that ex
hailed moist earth scents and the
breaths of sweet, unseen blossoms. VI
hills so steep that 1t seemed as If ar
earthquake might have heaved up the
City's crust and bent 1t crisply like
n piece Of cardboard.
He looked down unseeing, thinking
Of the last three years.
When he ha6 first met Bernice Iver
son, she had been typewriter and
stenographer in the Office Of the Mer-
chants and Mechanics Trust Com
pany. He was twenty-four at the
time, the only son Of Cornelius
Ryan, one of the financial magnates
of the far west.
She was seven years older than he,
but told him they were the same age.
1t was not wasted lie, as she un-
doubtedly looked much younger than
she was, being a slight, trtmly-made
woman who had retained a girlish
elasticity Of figure and sprightliness
Of manner. The entrapping Of young
Ryan was a simple matter. He had
never loved and knew little of women.
He did not love her, but she made
him think he did, threw herself at
him, led him quickly to the point she
wished to reach, and secretly, without
suspicion on the part Of her family,
became his mistress. Six months
later. having driven him to the step
by her upbraidings and her apparent
sufferings of conscience under the
sense Of wrong-doing, she persuaded
him to marry her.
The marriage was a bombshell to
the world in which young Ryan was
a planet of magnitude. His previous
connection with her--though after
ward discovered by his mother-was
at the time unknown. Bernice had
induced him TO keep the marriage Sc
cret till its hour Of accomplishment,
for she knew Mrs. Ryan would try to
break It off and feared that she might
succeed. Once Dominick's wife she
thought that the objections ard re-
sentiment of the older woman could
be overcome. But she underrated the
force and obstinacy of her adversary
and the depth Of the wound that had
been given her. Old Mrs. Ryan had
been stricken in her tenderest spot
Her son was her idol, born in her
middle-age, the last of four boys,
three Of whom had died in childhood.
In his babyhood she had boarded
money and worked late and early that
he might be rich. Now she held the
great estate of her husband in trust
for him, and dreamed of the time
when he should marry some sweet
and virtuous girl and she would have
grandchildren to love and spoil and
plan for. When the news Of his mar
riage reached her and she saw the
woman he had made his wife, she un-
derstood everything. She knew her
boy through and through and she
knew just how he had been duped
and entangled.
The marriage of her son was the
bitterest blow of her life 1t came
when she was old. stilfened into hab-
Its of dominance and dictatorship,
when her ambitions for her boy were
gaining daily i'll scope and splendor |
A blind rage and determination to
crush the woman We're her first feel
lngs, and remained with her but |
slightly mitigated by the softening
passage of time. She was a partisan, |
a fighter, and she instituted a war
against her daushter-in-law which |
she conducted with all the malignant |
bitterness that marks the quarrels of |
women.
Dominick had not been married a |
month when she discovered the previ- |
Gus connection between him and his |
wife, and published it to the winds. A
social power, feared and obeyed, she |
let it be known that to any one who |
received Mrs. Domlnick Ryan her
doors would be forever closed. With
out withdrawing her friendship from |
her son she refused ever to meet or
to receive his wife. In this attitude |
she was absolutely implacable. She
imposed her will upon the less strong
spirits about her. end young Mrs
Ryan was as completely shut off from
her husbands world as though her |
skirts carried contamination. With |
masculine largeness of view in other |
matters, in this one the elder woman
exhibited singular, unworthy small. |
ness. The carelessly large checks she
had previously given Dominick on his
birthday and anniversaries ceased to
appear, and masculine gifts, such as
pipes, walking-sticks, and cigar.
cases, in which his wife could have
no participating enjoyment, took their
place. She had established a policy |
Of exclusion, and maintained it rig.
IDLY.
Young Mrs. Ryan had at first be. |
lieved that this rancor would melt |
away with the flight of time. But SIZE |
did not know the elder woman. She !
was as unmeltable as a granite rock.
Bernice, who had expected to gain |
all from her connection with the all |
powerful Ryans, at the end OF two |
years found that she was an ostracized |
outsider from the world she had
hoped to enter, and that the riches |
che had expected to enjoy were rep
resented by the three thousand year
her husband earned in the bank. Her |
attempts to force her way into the |
life and surroundings where she had |
hoped her marriage would place her
had invariably failed If her feel
tngs were not of the same nature as
those Of the elder Mrs. Ryan, they |
we're fully as poignant and bitter.
The effort to get an invitation to |