Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-02-20
The Price Of FoIIy.

The Price of Folly.
UOHN NORTH occupied the front
rooms on the first floor of the
- three-story brick structure that
stood at the corner of Main street
ana the square. The only other ten
ant on the floor with him was Andy
= Gilmore, who had apartments at the
back of the building. Until quite re-
Gently Mr.. North and Mr.. Gilmore
had been friends and boon COM
panions, but of late North had rather
avoided this neighbor of his.
Mount Hope said that North had
parted with the major portion of his
small fortune to Gilmore. Mount Hope
also said and believed, and with most
excellent justification for so doing,
that North was fool-a truth he
had told himself so many times with
in the last month that it had be-
come the utter WEAKNESS of iteration.
He was muscular young fellow of
&c, with a handsome face, and, when
he chose, a kindly, charming manner
He had been-and he was fully aware
of this-as idle and as worth
less as any young fellow could
possibly be; he was even
aware that the worst Mount
Hope said of him was much better
than he deserved. In those hours
that we're such a new experience to
him when he denied himself other
companionship than his own accus-
ing conscience; when the contempla-
ton of the naked shane of his folly
absorbed him to the exclusion of all
else, he would sit before his fire with
the poker clutched in his hands and
his elbows resting on his knees, polk
Ing between the bars of the CRATE,
poking moodily, while under his
breath he cursed the weakness that
had made him what he was.
With his hair in disorder on his
handsome shapely head, he would sit
thus hours together, not wholly in
sensible to certain grim sense OF
humor, since in all his schemes of
life he had made no provision for
the very thing that had happened.
He wondered nightly what tel-
low could do with his last thousand
dollars, especially when q fellow
CHANGED to be in love and meditated
nothing less than marriage; for
Norths day-dream, coming like the
sun through a rift in the clouds to
light up the somberness of his soli-
tary musings, was all of love and
Elizabeth Herbert. He wondered
what she had heard of him-little
that was good, he told himself, and
probably much that was to his dis
- bo CO. fhara "a
slowly shaping plans for the future.
One point was clear; he must leave
Mount Hope, where he had run his
course. where he was involved and
committed in ways he could not bear
to think of. To go meant that he
would be forsaking much that was
evil; situation from which he could
not extricate himself otherwise. 1t
also meant that he would be leaving
Elizabeth Herbert; but perhaps she
had not even guessed his secret, for
he had not spoken of love; or perhaps
saving OWNED it, she cared nothing
for him. Even SO, his regeneration
seemed in itself thing worth while.
What he was to do, how make place
for himself, he had scarcely con-
sidered. but his inheritance was
wasted, and of the comfortable thou
sands that had come to him, next to
nothing remained
In the intervals between his mus
ings Mr.. North got together such OF
his personal belongings as he deemed
worth the removal; he was surprised
to find how few were the things he
really valued. On the grounds of a
IN, matters he
threw aside most Of his clothes; he
told himself that he did not care TO
be judged by such mere externals as
the shade of a tie or the color of
pair of hose. Under his hands-tor
the spirit Of reform was strong upon
hirn-his rooms took on sober APP
pearance. He amused himself by
making sundry penitential offerings
to the flames; numerous evidences or
his unrlghteous bachelorhood disap-
pearlng from walls and boolS-shelves.
Coincident with this he owned to
feeling of intense satisfaction. What
remained he would have his friend
Marshall Langham sell after he was
gone, his finances having suddenly be-
come of paramount Importance.
But the days passed, and though he
was not able to bring himself to leave
Mount Hope, his purpose in its final
aspect underwent no change. He lived
to himself, and his old haunts and
his old friends saw nothing of him.
Evelyn Langham, whom he had
known before she married his friend
Marshall, was fortunately absent from
town. tier letters to him remained
unanswered; the last one he had
burned unread. He was sick OF the
devious crooked paths he had trod-
: den; he might not be just the stuff of
which saints are made, but there
was the hope in his heart Of better
things than he had yet known.
At about the time Mr.. Shrlmplin
was attacking his Thanksgiving tur-
key, North, from his window, watched
the leaden clouds that overhung the
housctops. From the frozen dirt OF