The Washington herald., 1914-05-09
BY JULIA CHANDLER MANY.

BY JULIA CHANDLER MANY.
John had his faults.
Even his mother admitted that, and
told Beth so several times before her
marriage to him, but the girl received
p the warning with little laugh and said
why, of course. Everybody has 7
Which is truth not to be gainsaid.
But after they had been married
awhile and the honeymoon became less
of rose-colored dream, Beth realized
that Johns faults were more serious
than she had supposed, and of such a
nature as to interfere materially with her
happiness.
Being an only son he had always Had
his own way under his parental roof.
Nor was he given to deal of thought
and consideration for others whose lives
he touched, and SO it happened that he
holly resented Beth's first interference in
his undesirable habits, and followed a
bitter quarrel with week of such surli-
ness that his young wife told him a thing
or two and went home to the sympathy
OF her mother.
Accustomed to the harmony of cul-
tured home, whose male occupants lead
a normal life, she found it hard to I'M
derstand the man she had married. and
whose real nature she had learned only
through marriage, and still harder to
forgive and go back TO their little nest,
even when Johns mother added her plea
to that of the boy, but in the end love
conquered; the hurt was assuaged, and
for a space things ran smoothly in Beth
domestic domain
Grossness VIII Ont
But grossness will out Selhshness,
egotism, and inherent brutality are quail
tiles of character with which it is i'm
possible for any woman to live, and so
it happened that Beth gave the whole
thing up; declared marriage a failure !;
spent many isolated months among
strangers in a State where divorces are
easily obtained. and in the end went
home to her fathers house determined
to forget the tragic mistake she had
made; charge it up to a too youthful
marriage, and begin all over again.
And so she might had it not been for
the world.
There is always the world to be reck-
oned with, and in this case John hid
his grossness under so fine a veneer of
good manners that he had his friends
who made point of insinuating that the
matter had not been all his fault.
As an added evidence of the pettiness
of his nature John cherished a fendish
delight in staying on the ground, and,
whenever it was possible, in hurting the
heart and the pride of the girl whom he
had promised before God TO love and
cherish for all time, until death did them
part, and. because he was good to look
upon, and had a way with him. society
accepted him, and, little by little Gust
to shun his presence), Beth refused in
vitations, and STAYED more and more at
home
Not even there could she forget for a
moment that she had made an irretriev-
able error. Younger sisters made her
feel that she was in their way; that they
begrudged her the home of her child
hood.
'Of course every man has his faults"
she overheard Mary telling Janet one
day, land | dare say John is no saint,
but if ever marry | shall certainly make
the best OF II and not come sniveling
home afterward."
Decided tn Go Away.
a week later Beth confded to her
father her wish to go away-to a new
town where she was not known, and
make her own way in an environment
that would not eternally remind her of
her tragic mistake; among people who
did not know, feeling that thus she
might forget that she was divorced.
Her father agreed that she might be
right, and so the matter was arranged.
Now, Beth was not cut out of the ma
terial of which business women are
made. She was a tender little thing, tim
id OF temperament, home-loving, sensi-
tive, and anything but robust in health,
which made it very hard in the begin
ming, and all the more to her credit that
she did make good" winning both the
love and respect of those with whom she
came in contact. until, at the end of a
year the error OF her marriage became a |
less horrible thing to her and life took |
on brighter hue.
The Second Man was a strong chap
big of Drawn and brain. Beth saw him |
day by day and felt she knew his every |
heartbeat when she gave her promise to |
be his wife, and he truly loved the girl |
in his office who was SO gentle of man
ner and so earnest of purpose
But he didn't know that she was a di- |
vorcee, and she didn't tell him. 1t was
not that she was conscious of any fault |
in the impossibility OF her marriage, but
only that it had brought her so much |
misery that she shrank from introduc-
ing the subject into her new found hap
oiness. OF course she intended to tell |
him. She was merely putting it off, and |
n the meantime forgetting once more the
world, which is an adept at being dis
agreeable.
Fate's Decree.
When the Second Man came to her
me evening she felt instantly that some
hing had happened. His face was so
white and still; his voice SO quiet and !
wen; his caress so irnpersonal.