Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-12-23
AL0YAL LOVE. By EDNA LEE WATSON.

cisiOn. There was sheer in his tones, menace in his evil eyes. She met his fierce glance with unwavering mien, with diffidence and contempt that stung him to the quick-and she the bride of month :. ."I congratulate you on your powers of deceit" he almost hissed. Adrienne Mercer raised herself to her full height.
 If you have discovered what you might have known, what the world could have told you long ago, that I loved the man who gave me these tris fles before 1 met you, it is no revela- tion of deceit. know not what bale full power you held over my poor fa- ther, dead but a week, that he drove me to wed you, because you forced him to do so. never feigned to even re- spect you.''
 A model wife, truly!' grated Judge Rolfe Mercer harshly.
 "I am not that to you; never will be-" she returned clearly.
 He could have struck that fair face
 
 Vance Orton, had he stood before him.
 "Have a care!' he uttered through his set teeth. "I shall remember this fond lover of yours"
 "He never was that. No word save of friendship ever passed between us, yet glory in saying that he had my whole heart, and never knew"
 4o cluster of shriveled roses, photo- graph, some invitation notes, the dead record of the one bright passage in her girlhood life, in her writing desk, whence the probing hand of her hus- band had unearthed them.
 He came home day later, flushed with drink and triumph. .s.
 "When you read the evening paper" he pronounced in even, but malice freighted tones, land recognize the sudden downfall of your idol and sole pattern of perfect manhood, Vance Or. ton, you will perhaps comprehend that l. have not boasted vainly of my pow er." -'=. Adrienne read the account of the de- scent on gambling house while it's inmates were engaged in riotous fra cas. There was the name of the man she loved. The judge before whom he and others had been brought had sentenced three of them, including Or ton. to six months in the city bride we'll.
 Adrienne then comprehended the full, despicable meanness of the man she had welded. : Before. the week was out she had suInmarily left him. She had means of her own and sought a distant seclusion. Then began the downward descent of Rolfe Mercer, mercenary judge and crooked politi- clan. He was busted from his judi- cial position for accepting bribe. Lower and lower he sank, fortune and influence gone, until he became com mon drunkard and vagabond. {, :. Vance Orton, after bis unjust sem tence, left the city and began new life. in border town in Utah. He was a natural leader among men, and be- came such in the community. He was mayor, judge, and friend of everybody, and 'idolized by the rough miners, of the district for his fairness"
 One day a ragged, bloated, terrified wretch was brought before him, pro- tected from the vengeance of, half a dozen halfbreeds who sought to get at him as he was brought into the court room. At once Orton recognized him.
 One of the Indians was shouting out the cause of the arrest. Rolfe Mercer had become common thief and tramp, had visited the hut where his mother lived, had nearly ehoked her to death, forcing from her the few coins she the craven he was, as he recognized the man who had the power to retail ate in full for past injustice.
 Suddenly, however, the son of the Indian woman leapedsforward, naked blade in his hand. Before the officers could prevent him he had plunged the knife into the side of Mercer, had leaped through an open window and was gone. r,S x" q
 "Care for the man in every way you can," ordered Orton. His wife was a friend of my friends in the long ago." But Mercer was beyond the power of human aid. *. z, It was when he was dead that an of- hcer brought to Orton some papers found in his clothing. One of these was of peculiar interest to Orton. For the first time he knew, that husband and wife had been parted for years. The document found was a letter ad- dressed to lawyer in a distant city. It told him that the writer, Mercer, was destitute and ill. The unseen mis- sive pleaded with the lawyer to infiu- ence his client, his wife, to assist him in his extremity.
 "I am going East for few weeks," Orton told his secretary the day after Mercer had been decently buried. All those years the remembrance of Adri- enne had been vivid in his mind. He