Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-08-04

| hours Of the night, only to vanish In
the sunshine and in ten minutes con-
versation. l had loved for five years,
| and had fretted fifteen years in that
time And here it was all over, all done
within two days!
Come on down to dinner with me
this place for a few hours. Edith.
Wen hear some music. There'll be peo-
pie in evening clothes, and everybody
will laugh and have a good time L
don't believe she had been in such.
place in her whole life! Damn that Nc
Alister!
81 haven't any dress to wear And
the tone of her voice as she said it!
| Absolutely dead. as worn as her two
hands, and dead,
II turned my back on her father and
| went on: Yen go shopping, then. and I'll
| buy you the prettiest dress in town
No. l really don't need the dress.
I'll never have any other use for it
will II She said it as if she could never
care, never to the end of the world. L
| knew what she was going through knew
all the hopelessness that tossed here and
] there around her and maffied her. She
had grown SO used to all that mess at
home-can't you see?-that 1t was just
that much solid ground to her. The rest
she was afraid of. She loved me, but we
had both been beaten. She stuck to what
she was sure of and didn't propose to be
daZzled by anything new, not even with
me. The whole sense between uS-GOu
| knows why: I've tried to figure 1t out
| many a time-was one Of apathy, wretch
| ed impassivity. il spite of our love-
!" Let's go to the theater, then. we ii
stay home for supper.
she pleaded with her eyes, the big.
sweet eyes of my dreams. cant THINK
| of going,' she answered. methodically.
| 4 can't think OF going. There's the
children, you know
Good Lord, she was woman clear
| through! A lovable woman. ayes, no
BILE woman. But she had been broken
| broken at eighteen and put into harness.
That Is certain, and the harne dldn
! even gall her now. l have never ceased
! to wonder at women. They are SO pitlful
and SO simple when a condition Is I'M
posed upon them.
| 'At the end of two days she begged me
to go away, because my presence an
| noyed her father, and it was only by
| keeping him in halfway decent frame
| of mind that she was able to bear her
life at ALL"
He concluded in strained voice and
| settled back in his chair as if he had al
| together finished his story. Then of a
sudden new virility bounded into his
! tone as he thumped the table with his
| fist and exclaimed:
| He did it, He did ii all. Thirty years
ago this thing happened. Thirty years
/ I've carried this story in me. want you
to put it into black and white! Show MN
| putting cigarettes, raucous, caWlng AT
| the world. killing his wife. tainting his
children, running her. poisoning and drag
gng down, haphazard and willy-nilly
everything he touched! Can you do that?
| Jimmy McAlister! And cap 1t all with
| the very last words l ever heard him say
| He was afraid he was going to die.
| Great God! He was afraid he was going
to die. There's your story for YOU"
! But II have thought it all over.
| have remembered McAlister with grim
| ness-and l believe the real story is not
of old Jimmy. sunken and diseased. 1t
| is that other story-the story l have but
| weakly limited in my title-the story OF
| all she stands for, of all the women who
are victims-the story which none but
I the dumb can ever speak and really tell