Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-21

Chapter XVI
the hour of little Frank
- ~ les birth I have been his
1 mother" Miss Haldeman

<T2OM the hour of little Frank
motb birth Mi have H ResR ha
continued. She could see
that Nora was greatly interested in
her story. when her torture ceased,
my sister turned her wan face and
great sad eyes toward her newborn
baby, then looked away as if she had
not even seen him, sighed deeply and
closed her eyes.
Ben had come all the way from
California to be with us in our trou-
BILE. and he tried to help me in the
awful ordeal But there was some-
thing awful yet to come. Ben and
Will had always resembled each 9TH
er very much, and in the two years
that the younger brother had been
away the resemblance had become
startling.
at made us hesitate about allow
ing him to see Betty, but finally we
did two weeks after the baby was
born. DR.. Findlay sanctioned it
just to see if it would rouse her. 1t
did. Betty rose up in bed at the first
sight of Bens face, then held out her
arms.
WIFI
"Ben caught her in his arms as she
threw herself toward him. Dearest,
dearest! 1 knew you would come
back she sobbed, her head on his
breast.
well, that's how it was. Betty at
once became perfectly normal in all
other respects, but she could not be
persuaded that Ben was not her dead
husband or that frankie was her
child. 1t was awful.
Even if Betty had been in her
right mind and loved Ben for him
self, he could not have taken Wills
place and married her. He loved me.
| never realized how much he did
love me until that time, nor did l
really know until then that I loved
him in return.
Even now 1t tortures me to recall
that dreadful time. Things went on
that way for more than three months.
Betty regained her physical strength
very slowly and the doctor kept her
in bed, SO it gave us little time to
was no possible plan. Ben went in to
| see Betty every day. This was his
| part of the torture, for she expected
him to caress her just as Will would
have done. I took care of little
frankie, with the help of a hired
nurse.
Gwen this circumstance compli-
Gated matters. Seine men are born
| fathers, I think, just as some women
are born mothers. Ben was a born
father.
FINALLY one night, when Ben found
| me sitting with my poor little foster
baby in my lap, he just opened his
big strong arms and took us both in
by main force. I could not help it.
Finally, however, 1 got enough moral
strength together to pull away, and
with it came the courage to tell Ben
| what he must do-go away and stay.
He pleaded with me in a way that
shook my very soul, but l held on
somehow. He saw that 1 meant it
and that l could not be changed.
And finally he promised he would go.
"You see, / could not marry Ben
unless l did what the doctors at last
advised, and even urged-put Betty
away in a sanitarium. They held out
no hope that Betty would ever regain
her reason.
"The doctors even admitted that
for Betty to be separated from the
man she thought was her husband
and from me at the same time might
left. They only advised this step, l
knew, on my account, and I never
even considered it. I was nursing all
this time, for my money was badly
needed, so badly that 1 allowed Ben
to pay a few bills and help in some
every cent he had, which at that time
was not much, poor fellow, for he
had barely gotten his first start.
"Will left nothing but the, little
house We lived in, which still was
heavily mortgaged. Ben paid this
mortgage, borrowing on his ranch,
the only thing he owned in the world,
to do it. He did not tell me, knowing
| that would have protested, until the
| matter was concluded That is the
sort Of a man he was-the man
| loved.
! (TO BE CONTINUED