Payette enterprise. (Payette, Canyon Co., Idaho) 1909-1935, 1915-12-09
WAS IT A SpEcTER?
ANONYMOUS.

He was waiting for her; he mac
been waiting an hour and half il
a dusty suburban lane. He loved her
and he was engaged to be married te
her, with the complete disapproval Of
every reasonable person who had
been consulted. And this half-clan
destine meeting was tonight to take
the place of the grudgingly sanctioned
weekly interyiew-because certain
rich uncle was visiting at her house
and her mother was not the woman to
acknowledge to a moneyed uncle a
match so deeply ineligible as hers
I with him.
! So he waited for her, and the chill
of an unusually severe evening en-
tered into his bones.
The policeman passed him with
but a surly response to his good
night" The bicyclists went by him
like gray ghosts with fog-horns; and
it was nearly ten o'clock and she
had not come
He shrugged his shoulders and
turned toward his lodgings. His road
led by her house-desirable commo-
dious, suburban-and he walked slow
ly as he neared it. She might, even
now, be coming out. But she was
not. There was no sign Of move
ment about the house, no sign Of
life, no lights even in the windows.
And her people were not early peo-
pie. He paused by the gate, wonder
ing. Then he noticed that the front
door was open-wide open-and the
street-lamps shone little way into the
dark hail.
He walked up the path and listened.
No sign of life. He passed into the
hall. There was no light anywhere.
Where was everybody, and why was
the front door open? Everyone was
out, evidently. But the unpleasant
sense that he was, perhaps, not the
first casual visitor to walk through
the open door impelled him to look
through the house before he went
away and closed it after him. So he
went upstairs, and at the door Of the
first bedroom he came to he struck
a wax match, as he had done in the
sitting rooms. Even as he did so he
felt that he was not alone, and he was
prepared to see something; for what
he saw he was not prepared. For
what he saw lay on the bed, in a
white, loose gown-and 1t was his
sweetheart, and her throat was cut
from ear to ear. He did not know
what happened then, but the police
man found him in fit, under the
lamp-post at the corner of the street.
He could not speak when they picked
him up, and he passed the night in
the police cells, because the policeman
had seen plenty Of drunken men be-
fore, but never one in a fit.
The next morning he was better,
though still white and shaky. But
the tale he told the magistrate was
convincing, and they sent couple of
constables with him to her house.
There was no crowd about 1t as he
had fancied there would be, and the
blinds were not down.
AS he stood, dazed, In front of the
door, it opened and she came out.
He held on to the door-post for sup
port.
She's all right, you see," said the
policeman who had found him under
the lamp; Il told you you was
drunk; but you would know best"
When he was alone with her, he
told her.
But, my dearest" she said, II dare
say the house was dark, for we were
all at the theater with my uncle,
and no doubt the door was open, for
the servants will run out il they're
left. But you could not have been
in that room, because locked 1t when
1 came away, and the key was in my
pocket. 1 dressed in a hurry, and
left my odds and ends lying about"
Il know he said; Il saw-why, /
even noticed the calendar on the
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. 81, At least,
1t couldn't be that, because this is
May. And yet it was. Your calen-
dar is at October 81, isn't it,"
No, of course 1t isn't she said
smiling rather anxiously. you must |
have had a dream, or a vision or
He did not believe in visions, but !
he never rested day or night till he |
got his sweetheart and her mother
away from that commodious house
and settled them in a quite distant
suburb. In the course of the remov-
II, he incidentally married her, and
he mother went on living with them
His nerves must have been q good
,it shaken, because ne was very
queer for long time, and was al
ways inquiring II anyone had taken
he desirable suburban house; and
when an old stock broker with
amily took It, he went the length of
alling on the old gentleman and i'm
,loring him, BY all that he held dear,
lot to live iii that fatal house.
why" said the old stock broker,
lot unnaturAlly.
And then no got 30 vague and con-
used, between trying to tell why and
rying not to tell why, that the stock
-