The Washington times., 1919-07-27

w the most admired woman among
W the giIded youth of England, COM
NIT suicide?
Some startling revelations were made
$ at the inquest concerning the noted char
mer's latest vagaries in love, but those
who are familiar with her amazing career
viii recognize her end as only the logical
sequel of the life she had led
This voluptuous, redIipped enchantress
had exhausted every sensual joy of life.
She had enjoyed everything and there re-
NAMED nothing With middle age ap-
preaching, the gray hairs growing more
numerous in her wonderful hair, the lines
deepening in her lovely face, the re-
mainder of her life doomed before her as
a barren desert of misery. No escape for
the broken. disheartened sorceress ap-
peared possible except the grave.
To those who respect the ancient laws
of religion and morality the whole, tragic
story will appear perfectly summed up in
the inspired words of Saint Paul:
The Wages of Sin Is Death"
Mrs. Atherton's right name at the time
of her death was Mrs. Arthur Eliot, al
by the name under which she was noted
for some twenty years For the last three
months she had been the bride of Captain
Arthur Eliot, clever playwright, joint
author with Captain Bruce Bairnsfather
of that remarkably amusing comedy, "The
Better OLE
The inquest revealed that she had quar-
relied violently with her new husband and
parted from him within a week while on
their honeymoon. Apparently she was
tortured with insane jealousies, suspect
ing her husband of affairs with one woman
after another. She had lost her confidence
in her own once irresistible attractions.
The Earl Of March, son and heir Of the
Duke of Richmond and Gordon, an old
time friend of Mrs. Atherton and familiar
with her early history, testified as to the
pitiabIe state of mind in which he found
her. She had met him in Hyde Park and
poured the story Of her husbands sup
posed misdeeds into his ears.
Especfallv was she Jealous Of her hus-
hands relations with his stepdaughter,
Miss Nellie Cornell, daughter of his de-
ceased second wife, a very young girl, in
whom he naturally felt paternal inter-
est. But Mrs Eliot was equally concerned
about his alleged friendship with circus
rider named Katrine.
She made her friends and servants mis-
cradle with her outcries about her wrongs.
Night after night she locked herself alone
in her bedroom with a deadly weapon.
She kept two revolvers and shotgun in
her house.
Her husbands brother, who called on
her. testified that her fears had changed
her so that she was barely recognizable.
The end came in her luxurious apart
cEr
heartbroken beauty placed the shotgun
against her once lovely head and blew her
brains out. For this supreme occasion
she had dressed herself coquettishly in
diaphanous costume of chiffon edged with
gold.
Thus miserably persisted a woman who
for over twenty years had kept the
highest social world Of England in state
of turmoil, disrupting the homes of dukes
and earls, and even, it is said, disturbing
the serenity of the royal family.
She had helped to wreck the married life
of the young Duke Of Westminster. She
had been a leading figure among those
women who went to South Africa to nurse
the wounded soldiers and stayed to firt
with the officers. She caused the distin-
guished war surgeon, Sir Frederick Treves,
to speak of ''the plague of women"
u
Colonel Atherton, for her relations with
young Captain Yarde Butler. the heir to a
peerage.
She had been named in a divorce suit
by the pretty American, Mrs. John Alex
ander Stirling, for alternating her husbands
affections.
She had been offered a princely sum by
Cairo hotel; the worlds most luxurious
caravanserai, simply to stay there and use
her destinations in attracting guests
After all these and many other adven.
lures, she had found young and talented
husband related to famous, noble family,
and then, the honeymoon scarcely over
she had taken her own life. What drama
of tangled human lives lies here!
Mrs Atherton belonged by birth to one
of the most distinguished families of Eng
land. She was originally Miss Mabel