Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1931-08-14
ROCKVILLE. MARYLAND FRIDAY MORNING. AUGUST IA 1881

had accomplished right and righteous
hess. And then gradually, and a little
horribly, 1t began to dawn upon her
during those festive weeks of linen
showers, bridge parties. evenings with
Ben over blue prints of their new
bungalow, that everything she was
tasting was dead sea fruit.
In the dead of night, Mary would
wake up with a sense of oppression
in her breast, with a dread of to-
morrow, with terror of what she was
doing.
Mary did not love Ben. She liked
him, she respected him. She even adj
mired him. The thought Of him as
her husband filled her with dread.
Sometimes it seemed to Mary that
to be free once more, to be free to
come and go at her secretariai work,
to be the girl once more unhampered
and unimpeded by the dread of mar
riage, was the one state of being that
mattered over and above anything that
had ever happened she regarded
those of her girl friends who were
still outside the pale of matrimony
and still unhampered by ties of en-
gagement with an envy that was as
Illogical as 1t was unlike her.
Mary had only one desire in life
now-tO be free. To be un-engaged.
To see her life stretch before her once
more filled with the old Ideal of some
day meeting the ultimate life CON-
panion.
To be un-engaged was out of the
question. Ben took her so for granted.
Her parents were in their seventh
heaven Of approval. His parents
made no effort to conceal their pride
The community smiled. Mary was
committed. Terror, rebellion, agony
panic rose within her, only to be hid
den by the calm, demure exterior she
showed to the world
The day Of her wedding approached
and 1t seemed to Mary that with 1t
there descended upon her a dread of
living that must ultimately annihilate
her. She knew that she must not go
through with this dishonest thing Of
marrying Benjamin Parke.
And yet, what way out? What way
out? The question beat about in
Mary's tortured brain like great, i'm
prisoned moth. What way out?
She turned the question over and
over in her hot, tired brain.
What could she do? How could she
find a way out? What did other girls
in the same predicament do? For
surely other girls had made her mis-
take; though they could marry man
and then, suddenly, or gradually, real
lied that lack of love would make
marriage intolerable.
But there was nothing to do She
couldn't do the only thing possible;
tell Benjamin that she didn't love him.
1t would seem such simple thing,
yet it was fraught with all sorts of
impossible complications. 1t would
mean bringing hurt unhappiness to
her parents and his parents. She her.
self would feel that she had failed--tO
her family, to his family-to Ben
jamin and to her own word There
seemed, to Mary, something dishon-
orable In breaking her engagement.
So what way out was there for
her?
The way out came in the form of a
brief note delivered to her one MORN
ing two weeks before her wedding
day. 1t read:
Dear Mary:
Since there is no way of telling you,
without hurting you, the cruel thing
which am about to say, shall say
1t In the shortest way possible. Alice
Mcmahon and were married at ten
o'clock this morning
(Signed) Ben"