Evening star., 1914-08-09
By EDMUND YARROW

himself over and again, belle dead. She died
quite suddenly, two days agol'
Anna stood watching him moment her eyes dim
with sudden tears then she closed the door gently,
and went back to her mother.
"Oh, poor fellowl" she whispered.
Brandow went back to his rooms; but somehow they
seemed empty and cherries. He could not spend the
evening there, his custom was, alone with his books
not with this idea, which he hardly yet compre-
hended, for sole company. One must forget first:
afterward there is time enough to remember He
to his club. The memory of that evening was never
very clear in his mind. He retained only hazy i'm
preston of evening very pleasantly spent-dnner
with old acquaintance, he could not remember
whom and afterward, in of the smoking room
little group of men gosspng easily, if little seriously,
their CIGARS of those occasions rare enough
when is intellectually lazy, one stupid, no
remembers be reserved. Only the faintest i'm
pression he could not recall the of single men,
Der of the party and did know that he himself had
been the life and soul of it.
PUT his homecoming he remembered we'll enough.
- 1t was long after midnight. His had gone to
bed, leaving the reading light turned half low the
study table, and the first thing that Brandow noticed
the bouquet of red roses faded and beginning
to shed their petals, from the manel where he had
laid them the reless hearth. Under the reading
lamp, there to catch his eye, lay from Anna
Jaffray. "The funera-Bee's funeral" she wrote 4s
to be very private: one but family will be
present. But | think perhaps you have right to
come, if you wish it. have spoken about it to Mother
and she thinks The service is eleven o'clock
tomorrow" The note had been sent by hand.
If he wished it! He not whether he wished
not But the womany kindness that had dictated
those patheticay simple words moved him deeply and
he slipped the note back into its enveop with
sensation that somehow he had received message
from her.
On the mantel beside the faded lay the little
jewel within its pasteboard box his card which
he had written the single word "Phopenal' 1t seemed
to him he took it upbut he full of strange fan
cies that nght-t seemed to him that unseen pres
beside him. that hand strove to take
the box from him. but he held it fast at hers he
said. at belongs to her. 1t is debt-and now it
never be paid. But else shall have it" The
too, they hers; and they faded
much as she herself had faded. He found one rose
less dropping than the rest broke it off short, laid it
on the jewel box, and put them both, and jewel
box, together with Anna Jaffray's note in little
locked drawer of the safe that let into the wall
his writing desk.
HE had half made up his mind that he would not
go to the funeral service: nevertheless he went He
would at least her agan,-not his Belle but
the semblance of herand it had lain at his heart all
that night he had tossed his bed that try he
would he could not summon up her image before his
minds eye. He must have at least one memory of
her to carry through life.
Great heaps of white flowers lay about the casket
that the air of the heavy for the scent of
them. Brandow did not notice these, nor anything
else in the room, the twelve fifteen people who
were present, most of whom known to him: he
nothing but bouquet of red that lay the
casket, faded and dead, with bare and ragged
stem, where blossom had been broken off. He knew
it at glance and shut his eyes for moment feeling
the universe reel around him. Of course it mere
illusion, the trick of tired brain! How could it be
there when he knew that at that it lay tie
mantel in his own roomso When he opened his eyes
again it would be gone
But it was not: it real-rea as the casket itself
1t fascinated him. He could nothing else, think of
nothing but these faded red roses strangely of