The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1921-05-12

And then the bubble broke. Merdle
committed suicide. The Dorrits'
money was gone. Arthur's firm was
ruined and Arthur himself was thrown
into prison-the same poor debtors
prison that had, for so long, been the
home of Little Dorrit.
The days dragged YEARLY on.
AT last Arthur, Respondent and
crushed, haggard from brooding and
stricken with fever, one day saw, as
in vision, kneeling before him the
figure of dear Little Dorrit. She had
FASTENED to make happier the lot of
the man who had helped her family
In the same gloomy surroundings and
whom she loved. She nursed him in
his sickness. She offered him all her
money to help him overcome his dis
tress. And then, as he refused the
money, he realized, for the first time
that she loved him-and that he, too,
loved her.
A feeling of peace comes over his
mind.
Inv NipuNo bCSlh w DiNuhs
And strange to say it is a rascally
adventurer, Rigaud, a murderous Jail
bird with dropping nose and ascending
Inustache, who opens the rift still fur
Their for the sunshine. He has discov-
cred Mrs. Clennam's secret having
stolen the strong box that Flintwinch
had struggled into Holland and in
which lay page Of the will of Ar
thurs uncle. page which Mrs. Glen
nam had concealed for years.
Rigaud visited the strange old lady.
Leaning over the sofa, poised on two
legs Of his chair and his left elbow,
coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, he
reveals to her his knowledge.
Then, torn by the explosion of her
passion, the old lady vehemently tells
her own story.
She had learned, after Mr.. Glen
MANS marriage to her Ga marriage
commanded by his overbearing uncle),
that her husband had loved and gone
through sort of ceremony with a
beautiful young singer whom Fred
eric Dorrit, a kind-hearted musician
(the uncle of Little Dorrit), was be-
friending and giving an education. She
had obtained the first clue from those
initials in her husbands watch which
she found years ago, signifying 'Do
Not Forget" She accused both her
husband and the woman, who put the
initials there.
Instantly Rigaud. seeking to black
mail the old lady, declared he had de-
posted with the niece, Little Amy
Dorrit, then at the prison with Ar
thur, a packet containing the sup
pressed section of the will with in
structions to open 1t at certain hour
unless reclaimed by him. What would
Mrs. Clennam pay him to reclaim it.?
To the establishment of all, the par
alytic old lady rises to her feet and
rushes from the house to the prison
seeks Little Dorrit; calls for the pack
ct, and then bids Amy read it, at the
same time begging her to forgive the
past.
Il forgive you freely" cried the gen.
erous girl.
"God bless your was the fervent
and broken response.
And then came the good news that
Arthur's firm had re-established itself
and that he would be able now to
leave the debtors prison.
SO they were married-but not be-
fore Little Dorrit had handed to Ar
thur a folded bit of legal paper ask
ing him not to open it but to burn it
in her presence.
as 1t a charmr he asked, smil-
ingly. "And does the charm want any
words to be said?" he added as he
held the paper over the flames.
"You can say (if you don't minO I
love your" answered Little Dorrit.
So he said it and the paper burned
away.
With it died the secret Of Arthur's
birth, never to be known to him;
with it, also, Little Dorrit had volun-
tarily destroyed the evidence Of her
own legacy.
And they were married with the sun
shining on them through the painted
figure of Our Savior on the window.
Then they went quietly down into
the roaring streets, inseparable and
blessed; and, as they passed along
in the sunshine and shade, the noisy
and the eager and the arrogant and
the froward and the vain fretted,
and chafed, and made their usual up
roar.
Copyright, 1919, by the Post Publishing
Co. (The Boston Post. Copyright in the
United Kingdom, the Dominions, its Col
onies and dependencies, under the copy
right act, by the Post Publishing Co.,
Boston. Mass, u. 8. A. All rights re-
served.