The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-03-11
BY Inez Haynes Irwin

fectly sane or relatively sane pas
sages which consider significant.
Some ! give word for word as he
wrote them. Some I have edited a
trife, or even rewritten.
81 killed Ace Blaikie. He was
my friend-and / killed him. !
loved him as I have never loved
another man-and / killed him. We
were tied together by thousand
associations of war, peace, fighting
together, drinking together, travel
ing together, playing together-bat-
tie, sports, restaurants, dances. Yet
killed him.
s'I met Ace Blake for the first
time in 1914. Like him, the mo-
ment war was declared I sailed for
France. I volunteered to run an
ambulance for the French army.
I met him when I was clearing
the wounded for the Foreign Lee
gion. We became close friends al
most at once; we have been close
friends ever since. There was al
so a professional tie. I became his
lawyer. We have been much to-
gether ever since our first meeting"
SIN 1914 we both met at a hos
pital at Coucy-sur-Seine, young
girl-Eleanor Dacre. I did not know
her as Eleanor Dacre or even as
Eleanor. Everybody in the hospital
called her Sister Dora and both
Ace and I followed the habit. In
deed when last Friday afternoon !
heard her stepfather refer to her
as Eleanor, / realized that had
entirely forgotten what her real
name was.
"Sister Dora was the most beau
tiful woman I have ever seen in
my life. She was the best woman
have ever known in my life. !
fell in love with her the instant !
looked at her. From that moment,
no other woman has ever en-
tered my heart. She did not love
me. I realized very soon that she
would never love me. In all the
time / knew her, I never even
limited at my love. She may have
suspected it, but no word of hers
ever suggested to me that she did.
1t may be that she did not know.
for from the time she met him-I
learned last Friday-she was in
love with Ace Blake. I did not
guess that Ace Blake was in love
with her. Naturally, our Paris per-
missions did not always coincide,
so we did not often see her to-
gether. never suspected that,
when he was on permission, Ace
spent virtually all his time with
Sister Dora"
81 remember very we'll the last
time saw her. But that is a
precious memory and has no place
in this confession. The next thing
I knew of her was that she had
gone to southern France. She came
back to Paris, but left immediate
ly for Spain. I did not see her then.
/ never saw her again.
Suddenly got through friends
the news of her death in Spain.
''It is impossible for me to tell
in the haste in which I am writing.
and with the inadequate powers of
expression at my command what
her death did to me. For several
weeks, was not myself. Indeed,
may say that I have never been
the same man since. This / man.
aged to conceal from my friends.
If l had been free, I would have
gone at once into retirement. /
think / would have joined some
brotherhood or other; retired to
some remote monastery. But we
were in war and l was fighting in
it. However, / found one comfort
the Bible. l had promised my moth
er that I would always carry her
Bible with me. Now I began to
read it. I read it through. Since
then I have read it through many
times. At first it gave me only
comfort. My comfort came-not
from the New Testament-from the
Old Testament. Presently, but this
was several years after Dora's
death, I saw the Light"
Here followed a rather long, ram
bling and insanely illogical account
of his conversion. / do not quote
it, for it bears only indirectly on
Ace Blaikie's murder. I have read
Bruce Hexson's confession of faith
many times, but I always get lost
in the erraticism and dis-associa-
ton of his expression. In brief, I
gathered that once while reading
the Old Testament a great Light
he always begins it with a capital
suddenly burned in his mind. He
found that that Light was religion
a religion compact of ideas cleaned
from the Psalms, Job, Jeremiah,
and Isaiah.
''The Light changed my whole
life. ! became an entirely different
man. I eschewed all my former
pleasures-drinking, dancing, thea
ter-going, I might say, social diver
sion of every kind. First retired
from an active professional life,
then / retired from the world.
ST retired from the world and I
eschewed all my former enjoy-
ment. One thing I chung to-that
was my friendship with Ace
Blaikie. I loved Ace. I loved him
for himself. But I loved him for
another thing. He was lnextri-
cably connected in my mind with
Sister Dora. He was extremely
fascinating-what with his vitali-
ty, his virility, his zest for life and
his joy in it, his great generosity
and kindness. Of course I knew