The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1920-02-27

! dying mother lay, and the sick woman
gripping her hand fast in her burning
ones, was repeating a name over anC
over. "Say it again, child" she was
whispering
She reiterated this demand over and
over again.
Say itn' she muttered. "Say it, anG
never forget. And carry it with thee
through life, saying it in moments OF
temptation, that thou mayest remem
Der thy mother and understand. Now
and night, and never forget!'
The frightened girl had sworn
catching the words from her mothers
lips. She had said the name morn and
night until it had become engraved
upon her memory forever. But it was
long before she understood its mean
ing.
Then she remembered her father
shaking her by the arms. "The name
thy mother told thee-speak it. Ma
rie!"
NO." answered the little girl OBJ
stinately.
He threatened her, but the child of
five years pressed her lips together
and would not utter a word.
Listen, Marie! If you tell me thou
shalt have everything in the world. A
new dress, and thou shalt sail with me
upon my ship, and will buy thee the
big doll that opens and shuts her eyes.
The name, Marie!"
Marie remained perfectly silent.
And for years she resisted her fathers
threats and promises and pleadings,
not understanding that it was mental
inhibition which she could not break.
The sight of her. dying mother had
| inflicted wound in the child's soul
that never healed. And every week at
first, every month later, the scene with
her father was renewed.
She never pretended to have forgot
ten, as she might well have done. AS
she grew older her fathers outbursts
| became less frequent. But the insane
rage which agitated him grew rather
than lessened as the years went by.
| Sixteen had passed; she was now
| twenty-one, and she looked back on
childhood that had been torture.
! Her estrangement from her father
was as complete as from the village
| life. AT first the scandal had been
against her, and later her aloOfness
had set the tongues of the ST. Boniface
women to wagging. Like mother like
daughter"-so runs the hard proverb
in every country. Marie Dupont grew
up friendless and utterly alone. The
girl had never had a friend, nor had
she ever even had a sweetheart until
six months before. ,.....,
Pierre in the course of his peregri-
nations along the coast, at that time
as assistant on a smuggling craft, had
come to know the solitary figure that
paced the beach. In those days the
girls heart, cut off from natural COM
munication with the young people of
st. Boniface, had turned, with the
vague yearning of youth, to dreams of
the world outside. The repressed
spirit seeks its adventures in devious
ways; if not in action, then in magma
ton. Marie Dupont longed for release
from her Imprisonment, and dreamed
of the prince who was some day to
come and take her away.
When Baptiste began to show an in
terest in her she hated him. She had
never thought Of him as a lover, and
hardly as man he was part of st.
Boniface, of the hateful life that en-
compassed her, clutched at her and
would not let her go free. She came
to invest Baptiste with the qualities of
all that she loathed.
Pierre scraped acquaintance with
her. He had the intuition of the base
man who must perforce win his vic
tins by guile. He listened to her con-
fidences, shyly given to one who, by
his wandering life and through the
tales that he told, seemed the exact
opposite of all those whom she had
known. He sent Nanette to see Marie,
choosing the time when Dupont was
away.
Nanette was not bad; like most of |
her kind she was below normal men,
tality. When her lover, who had
brought her to Ste. Marie, abandoned |
her, she worked in large and cheap !
lumbermen's summer clearinghouse |
Pierre promised her that the man !
would return to her if she obeyed him. |
She met Marie upon the beach, and |
insinuated herself into her confidence. !
At last she took her to Simeon'S dance |
hall.
The lights, the dancing and the
music were a revelation to her. On
the first night she cried from happi-
ness. Wholly ignorant of life, her in
protected her and sealed her
And Simeon's place
was better in the early summer
of that year than afterward, and some
Of the lumbermen would bring their
sweethearts there.
The girls innocence found an ally
in the lumbermen, who protected her,
and she was in fact, as safe there as
in her home. Pierre was angry at
first, but afterward he was glad, for
he saw her dancing In Simeon's place
and began to conceive an infatuation
for her. He renewed his advances,
telling her of Quebec, of the free life
of the world beyond. When her imag-
nation was enkindled and her cheeks
flushed and her eyes sparkled at the
picture, he asked her to accompany
Nanette with him on board his vessel,
come to Quebec. and marry him.
That was three days before, and It
was of this that the girl was think