Evening star., 1921-08-07
PLAY
THE idea came to her one night
when she was unable to sleep.
1t came sharp as an arrow

when she was unable to sleep.
1t came sharp as an arrow
through the drumming tent OF
her wakefulness. She would kill Wal
ton Craswell.
1t was the only way out. 1t was
her one possible escape from that ac-
cumulated agony of hopelessness
which was slowly but surely driving
her mad. which at that very moment
was sabering the back of her head
with it's familiar sharp pain. She
would kill Walton Craswell. and that
would end the whole intolerable busi-
ness.
1t would end the thing at stroke.
the same as you end a crickets inces-
SAINT drone by smashing it's body. And
that. she knew, would give her a
chance to breathe again. For life had
grown like the room In which she lay
the musty room that smelled OF sod
den carpet perpetually sour with
water spilled from rickety wash
stand. it seemed to crowd too suffo-
catingly close about her. She was
only fighting for air, the air without
which she could not live. And in do
ing the thing, she could do it so cum
she would never even be suspected:
Fate, with its continuous rain OF
cruelties. had at least been kind in
this. 1t had left in her hand the ma
chinery for carrying out crime
which the world would accept as an
accident.
For it would be crime, Katherine
Kinsella reminded herself. as she lay
on her undulatory thin mattress as
rigid as she would some day lie in
her coffin. 1t would be a crime, no
matter how unselfsh her motives
and no matter how extenuating the
circumstances. Killing was killing,
and no one did such things lightly.
But there were times when such
things were imposed upon you. The
There were times when war made
you kill or be killed. times when the
enemy at your door had to go down.
or only too soon your whole house Of
life would shoulder in ruins.
And young Wallie Craswell was the
already within her door. an enemy
against whom, because of his very
closeness. she had regarded herself
as helpless. She had not been able
to fight him as life had taught her
to fight. Even her hatred for him was
shot through with a perverse pity
touched by envy. He was. in many
ways, little more than a boy. But
with the unconsidering quick cru
city of youth he had come trampling
through the one ,jealously guarded
inclosure in her dusty courtyard of
failure. And with that lost to her,
there was nothing left in life.
CHE warned herself that she must
~ think straight about it all, though
she had been harried Of late by the
fear of losing. her power to think
straight. That fear had begun to
haunt her, just as she had been
haunted for years by the fear of los
ing her memory. 1t had happened to
more than one old stock-actress. And
she was getting old.
Slowly and painfully. as she lay
beside her sleeping daughter. with
her thin hands crossed on her breast.
she began to review her past life.
With grim deliberateness she went
back over it, trying to muff1e her
stark wakefulness with it's mercifui
trailing wells. so that she saw, vet
thrown by a street lamp on the
broken plaster Of the ceiling above
her. Through the thin partition, of
that sordid temperance hotel on
sordid street of a sordid town she
could still hear the intemperate hi
1arity of the four road statesmen at
their eternal stud-poker in the next
room. But a note of remotenesS crept
into their noise, as it had done at
first when she got up about mignight
And close to her throbbingly wake
full body she could hear. monoton-
Gus as the wash of water on lake
shore. the deep and regular breathing
of her daughter. She heard that soft
and tranquil breathing with sort
nf ho
fabric of her relief at the thought
the girl was at least getting her rest.
But it intensified the older woman's
impression of isolation. 1t reminded.
between her and the warm body
which she might have reached out in
the dark and touched. For many
month now they had slept side by
side in the same bed. shrinking back
from even accidental contact. as i'm
table top of marble. And that had
rot a little to do with the slow
,hickening cloud of hopelessness
which threatened to choke her
For Katherine Kinsella. before all
things in life, had loved and brooded
over and treasured her only daughter
Anada- From the first day of her
birth she had brooded over that quiet
1y breathing body. had brooded over
it with the dull ferocity Of the lioness
brooding over her cub. had guarded it
and watched it grow and sought to
impart to it the wisdom which comes
only to the old lioness on whom life
has fixed it's scars. There was a time
when, without abashment, she had
been able to take that body in her
arms, when the love which turned to
a foolish ache in her heart had been
able to expend itself in simple and
satisfying services. But the impal-
pable yet ponderous defenses of girl
hood had grown up about the child.
Mysteriously the reserves of woman
hood had widened between them. And
the girl. while chained to her very
side, had escaped her. She had
escaped for the time being. But there
We're relinquishments which Kath-
crime Kinsella would not and could
not endure Rather than lose what
little remained of her life she would
kill Wallie Craswell.
She went back to the beginning of
that life again, as though in tracing
its course she might find the secret
of her failure as an actress and
mother. Her father, she recalled,
had failed in the same way, her
had always secretly hungered to play
"Othello." But instead Of starring in
Shakespeare he had become the lesser
light in the minstrel team of Raht
and Flynn. She had held that failure
against him, after she herself had ap-
peared in BLUE Jeans" and "The
County Judge at the age of seven.
pearance as an ingenue in THE Char
ity Ball. he had died of drunkenness,
that ambiguous deprivation had in no
way interfered with her professional
plans. From "The Charity Ball. she
passed on to small parts in "Frou-