New York dispatch. [volume], June 13, 1886, Image 1

About New York dispatch. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1863-1899

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PUBLISHED BY A. J. WIUJAMWB SONS.
VOL. XLI.-NO. 35.
Entered at the Post Office at New York,
N. Y., as Second Class Matter.
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Th© NEW YORK DISPATCH is a Journal of light, agree
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playFSjlTyers.
THAT AWFUL “ OFF YEAR.””
The Managerial Scarecrow—What it is
Made of—The Playwright’s “ Off
Year ’’—Why They are “ Off-Uns ”
—Strikes and Anarchists and
Barnum’s Big Show.
BY JOHN CARBOY.
Out of any collection of twenty managers you
may meet you will find that at least seventeen of
them will attribute the failures and losses they had
during the past season, to the fact that it has been
an “offyear.’*
Last season, the season before, and ever since
they have been in the business —their wrecking on
the road, and whatever troubles overcome their
enterprise—brought up the same old cause—“lts
an Off year my boy/’
" Didn’t expect much, you know—l knew it was
an off year. Not a combination on the road made
a dollar—lucky if they got back with their traps all
right. I tell you when you strike an Off year with
a show—you can’calculate you’re going to be floored
—and the better the walking the sooner you’ll get
home. Its worse than a cyclone in a barnyard.”
And every one of these seventeen religiously
believes that nothing but an *• Off year ” could
have prevented him from making “ barrels of
money.”
I remember meeting Bartley Campbell just after
bis return from his Western expedition with
THE SPECTACULAR “ CLIO. ”
“Well, how did ‘Olio’ make out?”
Poor Bartley threw his hat back and glared at me
In surprise.
" What ? • Clio ’ made nineteen thousand dollars
Blear. See ? And if this hadn’t been an off year, I’d
have made fifty thousand dollars on it. Wait till
next season. See? ”
Insane as he was, he did not forget to lug in that
wretched “ off year ” by the ears, as a scape-goat.
So far as he was concerned, it was an “off year ”—
for “ Clio” failed miserably. However, his receiver
and his creditors only can teii what a Swamp of
debt that “Clio” lured him into,
I fancy that two shell playa as “Clio” and “Pa
quita” would make a lunatic of almost any man
ager. It was an *• Off year ”in solemn earnest when
with dazed brain and weakened hand he recon
structed the former and wrote the latter work.
But to this “Off year” business—with these sev
enteen managers who represent, let us say, more
than one-half who, season after season, invade the
rustic realms and the minor
METROPOLISES OF THE COUNTRY.
I say metropolises. The citizens of any outside
city which can boast of a couple of beer mills, an
•' opera house,” an always half empty high-toned
hotel, a railroad depot and a big divorce case, inva
riably speak ot the place as a metropolis.
And you’ll never catch the citizen of the me
tropolis of Mudroost or Greasersnest nominating
their little six-by-nine kerosene-lighted “Temple of
the Drama”—a theatre. Not if he knows it. It is
an Opera House. And the local press refers with
pride, in well-worn long primer type, on its edi
torial page, to the fact that " our talented aud ener
getic manager proposes to add two new sets of
scenery hangings to the stage in readiness for next
season's opening, and will start for New York to
•ecure attractions and other necessaries to ensure
our metropolitan temple of the drama a brilliant
campaign. He informs us that he has already en
gaged, for positively only one week, the distin
guished and world-renowned comedian, Alvin Jos
lin Davis—at an enormous outlay—to inaugurate
the season.”
These managers, then, season after season, come
back upon us with the dust of the railway journey
upon their shoulders, and gathering in little groups
in the afternoon shadows of the Morton House, or
bracing up in the haunts in the vicinity of the
Bijou Opera House, will narrate to each other and
to you or me, or any chance interlocutor, the sor
rows of the special “ Off year.”
Well, what made it an "Off year?” What was
the matter with it ? A grand sweep of the cholera ?
Inundations everywhere ? Big fires in every city
and town you entered ? Camp meetings and re
vivals ? Did you strike into every town with your
dates on the same night with Barnum’s show ?
Political excitement ? John Sullivan on the ram
page ? Anyhow, what made the year so awfully off
with the show business, and with your share in it
particularly ?
AND THE ANSWER ?
To use the expressive, though not strictly refined
phrase—you will " get it right in the neck” from the
questioned managerial functionaries.
“No, nothing of the kind. It was the infernal
strikes all over the country—riots, murder—no
money, factories shut down—no business.”
“ Ah—the Knights of Labor knocked out your
nights of labor, eh?”
Then your wary managers knowing that they will
be on the road again next season with some sort of
a show—or perhaps with the same one under a new
name, will hedge in order not to be boycotted, and
come at you with, “No, sir, not the Knights of
Labor. No, sir, they’re a noble lot of down-trodden
men battling for their rights. No, sir. It's the
blasted blood-boltered Anarchists and Socialists
that raised sheol in the strike business and fright
ened everybody out of the streets o’ nights.”
And this is the nomadic combination manager’s
reason accounting for this accession to the long and
unbroken line of “Off years.”
And the manager's “Off year” shibboleth finds
echo in the minds of the acting members of the
profesh who invite their souls and loaf away the
Summer vacation recuperating for a whack at an
other “ Off year.”
They didn’t get their salaries—managers meant
well—but how could they know it was going to be
an Off year ? Bills all paid ?
“Well”—comes the answer—“ well, yes—with
difficulty ?”
Which was the reply long ago given by Fitz James
O’Brien to Frank Leslie when that distinguished
publisher asked tbe no less distinguished author
and poet, in one of their usual quarrels : “ Don’t
I pay you for what you write ?”
So it is that the Off year, like the ghost that never
walks, is always with these managers and their
trusting companies.
Here in the city, the manager who has unwit
tingly or through hie lack of judgment waded into
the sloctgb of failure very nearly up to the line of
bankruptcy in his season, will summon his spectre
of tbe "off year.”
"Hov# can there be any business for the theatres
anyhow ? Look at what we’ve had. The car tie
up; Lent; bad weather; Barnnm’s big show; the
Madieon Square Garden sluggers; general innocuous
desuetude, and—and”—if he can't think of any
thing else, he will add as the round and top of his
jplaint—"and the boodle aidermen excitement.”
Oh, this awful Off year that, like the irresponsi
ble but exceedingly bothersome ghost of Banquo,
will not down!
THIS TERRIBLE "OFF YEAR,”
which strands so many luckless managers and
their companies and wipes their plays into ob
livion, in order that a few plays, a few managers
and their companies, may prosper and grow fat
with success season in and season out, and never
know of the existence of such a terror as an " off
year.”
Now, there are Barrett, Booth, Tom Keene, Jeffer
son, Irving, Nat Goodwin, Mary Anderson, Marga
ret Mather, Modjeska, Clara Morris, Fanny Daven
port and half a score of other actors and actresses
in the starring line, who are never troubled by one
of these off years. They fill the round of their sea
son and close it with a large and well-earned bal
ance on the profit side of their account.
As for plays, Hoyt, with his "Rag Baby,” "Tin
Soldier,” and similar laughter-creating contriv
ances, has as yet encountered no off year to dry up
his ink and resources, rust his pen and wither his
ambition.
Elections, strikes, big shows, revivals, fires and
inundations have not cried halt to “ Fedora,” “The
Wages of Sin,” "The Black Hussar,” “One of Our
Girls,” "Siberia,” and half a dozen other produc
tions, have been repeated season after season on
the road, North, East, West and South, and still
hold their own in the record of success, and with
no hint from their managers or any of the players
that they ever heard of any such a demoralizing
ogre as an " Off year.”
Why?
And here comes the head and front—the explana
tion of this mystery—the O. Y.
There can be no such thing as an "Off year” to
that play, that actor or actress—or that manager
whose claims are in accord with popular favor.
There is no regular season in any town or city
where there is not a demand for dramatic enter
tainment; there is not a play-going community
anywhere gathered on tbe face of this land ot
liberty and lunch routes, that is not ready to wel
come and encourage plays and players that are de
serving.
And as an appetizer, these playgoers—here and
elsewhere, will sometimes endure without any
marked show of disgust—even the St. Vitus spasms
of an Alvin JosMn, or the weird and 'inexplicable
phantasies of a “Smiff,” or “ The Baron.”
Of course the "Off year” catches them in the
end. The mills of the O. Y. grind slow, but they
grind exceedingly fine.
This " Off year” is a fatality which never has yet
brought ruin and failure to anything in the theat
rical line except bad plays and bad actors.
AH years are off—for them. The fittest may not
always survive but they have remarkable staying
powers.
No, Messrs. Manager! and Messrs. Playwrights.
It is your bad judgment and your vanity which
brings you every season within the shadow and
troubles of an "Off year.” The best of meh make
mistakes; but tbe best of men, in whatever their
calling may be, are not those who seek to lay the
blame of their mistakes elsewhere than at their
own door.
As an old stage doorkeeper of the Bowery Theatre
once said to Studley, who was “ raising <3ain,”
about something that had gone awry: "You didn’t
use your clrcumspicion and judition right, Mr.
Studley; ef you had, thipge '4 have been as straight
as a brace.”
And so it isn’t, after all, this scapegoat, **the Off
year,” that is to blame. It’s the managerial dis
use of proper " clrcumspicion and judition.”
I haven’t heard Dan Frohman, J. M. Hill, A. M.
Palmer, the Aronson'?, Col. McOaull, Wallack, Horace
Wall or John Stetson metaphorically blaspheming
and kicking every season at "the Off year” scare
crow.
When a manager’s methods, a play, or a star is
not wanted—by the public, it is not the year—it is
the manager, the playwright, or the stellar aspirant
who is “off.”
And the sooner he becomes conscious of this, he
will find it greatly to his advantage to remain off
and go into some other business.
SHE VISITS THE COURT.
A Gospel Temperance Woman Graphically
Describes what She Saw and How
She was Treated in Justice
Naeher’s Court.
Her Trouble with Mrs. Feirinsrer and Her
Call Upon Lawyer Donnelly.
SHE WOULD WED A MINISTER ONLY
LIVING ALONE WITH HER CAT.
Mrs. Martindale, who is one of the most forcible
as well as voluble talkers in the Williamsburg Wo
men’s Gospel Temperance Union, which holds forth
in the building at the corner of Fourth and South
Third streets, is just now in a sea of trouble, aud
she has only her cats to console her.
Her trials and tribulations began two weeks or so
ago, whon she hired a furnished room in her house,
at No. 31 Wythe avenue, to Mrs. Julia Feiringer and
her husband. Julia, before she moved into the
room, was profuse in promises as to promptness in
the payment of her rent after the first week, but
she failed to keep them. She was a good talker, and
when Mrs. Martindale and herself measured tongues
they made things lively in the neighborhood.
When Julia was approached about money, she
generally told of her many distinguished acquaint
ances, and turned up her nose at the idea of her
landlady and her cats.
Mrs. Martindale boasted of as many prominent
friends in the Church and the Gospel Temperance
Union, and never tired of denouncing the little hell
(saloon) next door. Julia’s husband absented him
self after the first few days, and Julia went to the
Clymer street station-house time and again and in
quired if he had not been sent to jail.
Mrs. Martindale was unable to get her rent, and
to eject Julia would cost four dollars—a sum which
she deemed altogether too Urge td spend for that
purpose, so she decided upon executing a flank
movement. On Thursday Mrs. Feiringer was very
noisy, and the people of the whole neighborhood
collected in front of the house to witness her capers.
She called her landlady all kinds of names on which
she could lay her tongue, and even went so far as to
slander her by telling her that she did not practice
temperance so strictly as she preached it.
An officer arrested Julia and took har to the Cly
mer street station-house. She locked her room
door, however, before her arrest, and took the key
with her. Mrs. Martindale was in court bright and
early the following morning, and she tried unsuc
cessfully to obtain an audience with Mrs. Feirin
ger, in order to get the key of the room. She told
of her rebuffs in court at the station-house after her
return, substantially as follows :
"I belong to the Woman’s Gospel Temperance
Union, and I'm a member of the South Second
street Methodist Church, and all the members can
tell you, Sergeant, the kind of woman I am. There
isa hell hole next door to my house, and 1 tried my
best to get it out of there, but devils have the upper
hand in this country now, and the followers of tbe
Lord have no show; but things will change, mark
my word! or Brooklyn will, like Sodom, be de
stroyed. I went to the court about that wicked
virago, who calls herself Feiringer, Ringer, Finger,
or some such name. I was shocked when I saw the
place, and 1 was afraid to go up-stairs, for I am cer
tain the Lord will have it blown up or torn down
some day.”
" Why so, Mrs. Martindale ?” timidly asked the
sergeant.
" Why so ?” she echoed, in astonishment. "Have
you ever been there ? Yes; of course you have,
and yet you ask me why so. Don’t you know that
there is a great big hell, that people call a brewery,
underneathit? The doors of this hell were wide
open, and I saw policemen, with big shining but
tons, in there, drinking. I called one of them out
aud asked him what he was doing there, aud he re
plied, ’Skip the gutter. Granny.’ I then asked
him in my severest tones where Judge Naeher’s
court was, and be pointed to tbe ball door and said
it was up stairs. I told the policeman that the
Judge had better hold court down stairs in the
saloon and have done with it. And so he ought to.
I went up stairs aud was walking up to the Judge
to have a chat with him, when a shiny-buttoned
fellow like yourself, sergeant, would not let me in
side the iron railing. He asked what my business
was, and I told him it was none of his business;
that I wanted to have a chat with his boss. He just
pushed me back, and I would have boxed bis ears
for him but he got out of my way. The Judge
ordered the officer to arrest me for talking so aud
making an excitement, but I never do anything of
NEW YORK. SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 1886,
the kind. The officer wanted me to sit down on a
bench beside the filthy things there. I was going
to do nothing of the kind, and I just went down
stairs. I told an officer that I wanted to see Julia
to get my key from her, but I wouldn’t be let see
her.
“The officer said that she was committed for six
ty days, and stated that she bad given the key to
Judge Donnelly or Lawyer Donnelly, whose office
is next to a hell-hole on Broadway, and I went
straightway to see him. 'Now, old lady,’ said
Judge Donnelly, ‘I have no key belonging to any
person named Feiringer. You should have taken
the drop on the fly-cops around the court.’ I
scarcely knew what he meant, and I told him so.
' Why, madam.’ said he. just like a gentleman, ‘ I’d
no more defend such trash in court or have any
thing to do in any way with persona like this
Feiringer woman than I would think of going into
a gin-mill.* He’s a real good man, and if he’s not a
Judge he ought to be. for we want just Ruch men on
the bench. Now, sergeant, tell me how I’m going
to get the key ?”
"I can’t.”
"I just broke the lock a while ago and put Julia’s
trunk in the hallway, and her husband wants to
take it away, but I want fifty cents lor storage on
it.”
•• Get your husband to attend to the matter.”
"I’ve got no husband or nobody but my cat.
We live alone.”
“Yoh ought to get married.”
"All the old, bald and gray-headed fools make
asses of themselves now-a-days by marrying giddy
little girls. It’s disgusting to think of it. I would
piarry no man but a preacher, who devotes hie life
to the service of the Lord.”
The names of the pantors of several churches, cler
gymen who are widowers, were mentioned, but she
said she would not have any of them, as they were
not Methodists.
“There are two things in this world that I hate
and detest,” said Mrs. Martindale, as she was leav
ing the station-house, “ and they are free love and
free beer.”
She has not yet got her key.
DEATHITTfIpASEMEn.
The Tragedy at the Golden
Dove Inn.
John Blakeslee’s Mania for Spec
ulation and Its Ruinous
Consequences.
THE LONELY OLD MAN.
A TERRIBLE DEED DONE IN THE DARK.
THE PERFUME OF ALMONDS.
ine xo is .v ni, r: i’ at i:.
There never was before such Kild excitement
about “The Golden Dove ” hotel at Kesselbrunnen,
as on that bright June morning in 1858, when the
elderly English gentleman registered as Robert
Litchwell, was found dead in his bed, with just a
faint suspicion of almond perfume in the atmos
phere of his room. The other Englishman stopping
there at the time, Mr. John Reofrew, seemed, al
though but a casual acquaintance of the deceased,
to be much affected by the sudden death of his
countryman, and his fair daughter Adela was so
overcome by the shock of the sad occurrence that
she was thrown into a brain fever. When she re
covered sufficiently to be moved, her father—who
bad never left her, day or night, during her illness
—took her away, none knew whither. Before that
time, Robert Litchwell, whose death had been offi
dally declared due to heart disease, was quietly laid
away in the little village burying ground and, as
but a very small sum of money was found among
the dead man’s effects, Mr. Renfrew generously
paid the funeral expenses.
Five years later, an Englishman, past middle age,
was murdered and robbed in a low New Orleans
street, one dark night, and his body was identified
as that of one John Renfrew, who was largely inter
ested in blockade running in the earlier part of our
Civil War. He had gone to seek in their haunts
some rough characters whom he did business with
and some unknown person, either knowing that he
always carried a considerable sum of money with
him, or merely guessing that he might be a profit
able subject, had knifed and plundered him.
There were too many stirring events going on all
around just at that time for the death of one man
to attract much attention, and the public hardly
gave a second thought to it. It was, however, an
event of more vast importance than all tbe sur
rounding clash of arms in the nation’s battle for
life, to one poor woman—his daughter. She was a
fragile, timid, startlingly pale creature, who seemed
to have become
PREMATURELY OLD,
uot simply in the whitening of her hair and the
dimming of her eyes, but in the bending of her
slender form and the banishing from her heart and
brain of all trace of youth. Although she unques
tionably grieved lor her father, she at the same
time manifested a sense of relief, aud it was noticed
that when she was first told of bis fate, the excla
mation, " Expiation 1” burst from her lips before
she swooned. Her use of that word was never ex
plained until a few weeks before her death, which
occurred within a twelvemonth after that of her
father. Then, feeling herself about to lay down the
sad burden of a most unhappy life, she made a con
fidante of a good woman, the wife of the physician
who attended her in her last illness, and in so doing
besought the doctor s wife to see that, after she was
gone, the great fortune left by her father should all
be applied to righting, as far as possible, a terrible
wrong, the secret of which had long been locked in
her breast, *
Her father's great fortune was a delusion, but she
was never undeceived about it while she lived. The
fact was that his partners in the blockade running
ventures coolly appropriated, without a word of
explanation to anybody, all his interest in their
enterprise, and even managed to get possession of a
very large sum in gold that he had left for safe
keeping at Nassau. As for the money he had iu
this couotry, it was all in Confederate States bank
bills, that he had had to take, but which were even
then at an enormous discount, and, ere long, be
came absolutely valueless. So John Renfrew left
nothing adequate
TO MAKE AMENDS,
if indeed that phrase maybe used in connection
with so hideous a crime as his, that his daughter,
iu her last hours, unvailed.
The story thereof will doubtless be more intelligi
ble in a narrative form than in the disjointed and
tangled way she gave it. Thus straightened out
and supplemented by such knowledge as the doctor
was enabled to gain by correspondence with Eng
land, in an honest attempt to comply, as far as
possible, with the dying girl’s request to his wife,
it presents the following facts: '
To begin with, the family name of Adela and her
father was not Renfrew, but Blakeslee.
John Blakeslee was a solicitor in London, in 1857.
lie became possessed of a considerable fortune by
the death of his father three years before and, at the
date specified was in apparently fair practice. Un
fortunately he had always been infatuated with a
desire for financial speculation. There was gaming
blood in his veins. When a young man he gambled
and perhaps continued to do so in his maturer
years, but practised the vice with much care for
concealment. As his practice enabled him to do so,
he ventured into the hazardous sea of stock specula
tion. By the time he inherited his father’s estate,
he was deeply involved. With the £57,000 be
queathed to him, he paid off his debts and then
plunged into new speculations, more wildly than
ever before, to make up what he had lost. Bubble
mining companies and delusive American railway
shares possessed an irresistible fascination for him.
When our great
FINANCIAL CRASH
took place, in 1857, he was loaded down with
securities that seemed to drop in value, as lead
falls to the earth. He did not realize, until too
late, what a destructive tornado was blowing away
fictitious values like chaff before the wind. In the
effort to protect his investments, hoping constantly
for the rise that never came, he not only sunk every
dollar that he possessed that was his own, but
poured into the same bottomless pit the little pro
perty that his motherless daughter Adela Inherited
from her maternal grandmother, and even betrayed
his sacred trust as holder of moneys and securities
belonging to clients. All was in vain. He did not
even once attain a single smile from cold and cruel
fortune.
Suddenly he awoke from the nightmare of anx
iety in which he had lived for months, to find him
self confronted by a real horror that was even more
terrible than all before. He realized that he had
lost not only every penny he owned, but his hon
or, and even h» personal liberty, if he did not van
ish very suddenly. He vanished.
A few days before he took to flight he sent Adela
to Cannes, under the pretext of caring for her
health. She was, indeed, far from strong, To get
the means to follow her. he actually had to sell, to
a notorious receiver of stolen goods, some silver
ware intrusted to his care. Then, in disguise, he
one night left Loudon forever, bitterly saying to
himself that he was now
“A HOMELESS, FUGITIVE THIEF.”
And he was right. That is just what he had be
come.
Starless anil fahpuhnt.
At first he went to Calais, to await there informa
tion as to what his victims meant to do. They
meant to do the worst for him that was in their
power, if they could get hold of him. No compro
mise was possible. England was closed to hjm for
ever. The press rang with denunciations of
THAT SCOUNDREL BLAKESLEE.
Why should Blakeslee continue to live to be a
constant target for even verbal firing ? So one
morning a hat. a cane and a coat with some docu
ments in the pocketß, all identified as Blakeslee s,
wore found on the pier, and their owner being seen
no more, it was conjectured that he had carried his
troubles into the water and stayed there with them.
Tea days later John Renfrew, a very different
looking man irom Blakeslee, turued up at Cannes
where he had a little difficulty at first in making
Adela Blakeslee believe that he was her father, so
complete was his dißguise.
From there tbe Renfrews, father and daughter,
went to Geneva. From the hour of her assump
tion of tbe new name Adele was a changed being.
She never smiled, always seemed in dread, and her
eyes took a hunted look. Still, sho never was al
lowed to know how deep was the dishonor in which
her old name was buried. Her father said uo more
than that he had failed in business, that he was a
ruined and injured man, and that cruel creditors,
if they caught him, would put him in jail forever,
because he owed them money that he could not
pay. Hence the name ot Blakeslee weuld have to
be abandoned, and they would never return to
England.
Possibly those last four words did most to crush
her heart and blight her life, for there was a certain
young engineer there who was very dear to her,
and she knew that under a false name she could
never look him in the face again; that that false
name, and no other, would be hers until she died.
From Geneva John Renfrew took bis daughter to
a small German spa, called Kesselbrunner, where
they put up at the "Golden Dove” inn, kept by
Herr Hans Bergdahl. It was not at all an expensive
place, and its waters were really of a curative
value, at least in the minds of some quiet, elderly
persons who sought health aud not a mere change
of scene for disaipaiiou when they went to the
springs.
At the time the Renfrew* l went there but one
other English person was iu the place. That was
ROBERT LICHWELL,
a shy. suspicious, slender, pale gentleman, mani
festly in ill health. He seemed near sixty years of
age, yet the impression one got in looking at him
was that trouble had done more than time to age
him. From the first sight that he aud Adola had
of each other, they seemed to have a mutual sym
pathy, as of two weary-grief-stricken souls that
could each feel without knowing the other’s woes.
For a few days John Renirew paid littie attention
to his countryman. He had enough else to occupy
his mind. He did not have far to look to see the end
of his immediate resources, and beyond them his fi
nancial future looked very black. When he fled from
London he carried with him some private papers
belonging to an estate, upon which he could have
raised nothing from anybody but the heirs, or their
legal guardians, and from them only as blackmail.
These he was now trying to negotiate, through a
lawyer in Berlin who did much business in such
delicate matters for the criminal classes. But the
negotiations dragged along slowly, while his needs
galloped and he was growing desperate.
At this juncture, something that his daughter
said innocently one day to him gave his thoughts a
new direction.
“I cannot help feeling,” she said, "an infinite
deal of pity for that unhappy Mr. Litchwell. His
fate seems to me to have been even harder than
ours. We have been very unfortunate, it is true,
but the consciousness of rectitude in our own hearts,
and the knowledge that our calamities have sprung
solely from business reverses that fell, as the rain
falls, upon all within a certain radius, and not from
base betrayal by those whom we loved aud Crusted,
has given us strength to endure and kept to us the
saving grace of faith in dur fellow-creatures. Foor
Mr. Litchwell has little, if any, of such faith.
Friends whom he trusted robbed him; the wife he
loved betrayed him; the brother, upon whom he
had lavished affection, sought to kill him. to inherit
his wealth. Now, he trusts nobody and nothing.
J do believe that he carries about with him
"ALL HIS WEALTH,
•* and that there is not one soul alive that he claims
or admits relat onship with or interest in. What a
sad and lonely life his must be I ’
From that hour Mr. Renfrew began to take a
deeper interest in his neighbor. Without forcing
his acquaintanceship he demonstrated so much
kindly and friendly feeling that it inevitably drew
some reciprocation, from that shy, suspicious old
man. Adela was pleased to see it, for it showed the
goodness of her father’s heart.
It was not long before John Renfrew had made
himself thoroughly conversant with every minute
detail of Mr. Litchwell’s life so lar as it was possi
ble for anybody to penetrate it. He bad even satis
fied himself, not however from the old man's confi
dences.but by observation, that Adela’s supposition
as to his carrying his wealth with him was proba
bly correct. He had even located it, through no
ticing a slight nervous movement of the trembling
hands toward the breast, that seemed involuntary
with the old man, when money was spoken of,
Suddenly Mr. Renfrew was called away to Berlin
“on business,” and before taking his departure, he
formally asked Mr. Litchwell to look after Adela
while he was gone, an indication of confidence that
seemed to gratify the lonely man.
In a few days Mr. Renfrew returned and the rela
tions between the father aud daughter and their
neighbor seemed more pleasantly intimate than
before.
For four nights after his return John Renfrew
watched with impatience the slow waning of the
moon. On the fifth night there was no moon visi
ble. All the heavens seemed black. In the streets
of Kesselbrunner the widely scattered lamps did
nothing, almost, to dispel tbe general gloom. A
delightfully cool wind, probably presaging a thun
derstorm, blew up from the valley. It was a night
that, coming as it did after a long hot day, tempt
ed every one to sound sleep. John Renfrew how
ever was wide awake, and at midnight was busy
preparing for the execution of
A TERRIBLE DEED
that he had deliberately planned and bided his time
for. Having carefully closed his windows so that
no light from them should be noticed without, he
drew from a traveling valise a suit of black, skin
tight underclothing, a long, silken ladder, a keen
pointed knife and a small vial. Removing all bis
clothing, he donned the black suit of tights. One
end of his long silk ladder he fastened to his bed
stead, which stood with its head against the wall
beside the window. The knife and vial he put up
on a stand by the window. Then be extinguished
his light, drew the blind back and opened tbe win
dow noiselessly. All without was pitchy darkness
and uot a sound was to bo heard but the sighing ot
the wind and the rustling of foliage. From the
window he dropped the free end of his ladder.
Thrusting the vial in the breast of his black shirt
aud taking the knife between his teeth he glided
out of the window and slowly descended the lad
der. Even had there been a little light it would
have been almost impossible for a passer-by to have
seen him; but there was no light, there wero no
passers-by—for Kesselbrunner harbored no keopers
of late hours—and he felt secure.
At the window beneath his own he baited, held
his breath and listened. A soft, regular breathing
near the open window could be heard. A very
small night-light burning in the room enabled him
to see dimly, but with sufficient clearness, the fig
ure of the sleeper within an arm’s length of him.
Equally without hesitation and without haste John
Renfrew drew from his breast tbe small vial, un
cofked it, steadied himself by his right hand, ex
tended his left hand, holding the vial over the
face of the sleeping man and poured a few
drops of some liquid between the parted lips of
the unconscious sleeper. The soft breathing
ceased at once. Robert Litchwell was dead. A faint
perfume, as of bitter almonds floated upon the air.
John Renfrew climbed into the room, and for an
instant stood hesitating by the bedside
RELUCTANT TO TOUCH THE CORPSE
that was his work. Then he overcame the mo
mentary weakness and thrust his hand among the
clothing over the dead man’s breast. It came in
contact with something bulky, in a carefully but
toned pocket of an under-shirt. Quickly drawing
forth what he had found and carrying it close to
the little night-light, he saw that he held a thick
wallet stuffed with bank-bills, all of large amounts.
What they were, ho did not stop to investigate. Re
arranging tbe clothing that he had disturbed, hav
ing previously stuffed tbe wallet, along
vial in his own breast, the assassin again swung
himself out on the ladder, and climbed up noise
lessly to his room. As his eyes reached the level of
his window he was startled at seeing a light inside
his apartment. It came from a candle in the hand
of his daughter Adela. She had been awakened
from sleep by an oppressing sense of horror, aud
fancied that her father had called her. Quickly
lighting her candle she tapped at the connecting
door between his appartment and hers; receiving
no answer was more and more alarmed; turned the
key, which was on her side, and passed through.
The room was empty. While she looked around
her in dazed surprise, she became conscious of her
father's eyes glaring into hers, from outside the
window, just above its sill.
Then she knew no more. When she recovered
consciousness she was in bed, in her own room, in
the broad light of day. When she put her hand,
that was strangely weak, up to her head, she found
that all her long silky hair had been clipped off'
short, and they told her that she had been sick for
days with a brain lever, through which her father
had nursed her with the tenderest assiduity. And
during that time their neighbor, poor Mr. Litch
well, had been ionnd dead in his bed in the room
below, and had been buried. When, she asked her
self, had her brain fever commenced ? Had she
really seen her father’s face, with a knife between
his teeth. Or had she only dreamed it ? There came
a time, long after, when he confessed to her that it
was not a dream. That was when, in the New
World, when he was again a rich and prosperous
man. she had ventured —impelled by the memory
of a never-forgotten love—to urge him to go back to
England, pay off his old debts and re-take the sta
tion in life they once had. Then, to silence her
forever, he told her. with cruel clearness, that worse
than debt stood between them and the John Blake
slee that once had been; told her what he h id done
to give John Renfrew a start in the world again,
and, by the horror that his avowals awoke, sealed
her lips, at least while he lived.
FOUND DROWNED.
The Dread Mystery of the Cha
teau Leontine.
Who Murdered the Beautiful
Marquise Heloise ?
A French Detective’s Skill Utterly
Baffled.
The Startling Story Told to the
Bereaved Husband.
A WOMAN’S MAD REVENGE.
In the outskirts of the town of Besancon, France,
embowered in stately trees and reached by neatly
graveled paths and carriageways, stands the Cha
teau Leontine. It is deserted now. The windows
and doors are closed. The harsh cry of the lonely
peacocks fall discordantly upon the ear, and were it
not that the butterflys skim so wearily over the
waters of the artificial pond, that can be seen in the
distance, and that the grass is kept trimmed and
paths neatly tended, the whole aspect would be that
of a dreary and lonely place.
Ten years ago the Marquis Gregoire Leontine left
the chateau, saying he would never return, but also
left behind him strict orders that the grounds
should never be allowed to go to ruin. The cause
of this resolve was a tragedy which, for a long
while, baffled the skill of the most astute Parisian
detectives, and was only discovered by a confes
sion. Three years before that time the Marquis
Leontine had brought to the castle his newly wed
ded bride, Heloise. She was an Alsatian, a blonde
of blondes, with long, sunny hair that rippled in
tumultuous waves over her fair white shoulders
and bust. Her lips were full and ruddy, her nose
aquiline and her great lustrous blue eyes had in
them an alternate expression of laughing merriment
and languishing eroticism that at once captured
the susceptible young Marquis Leontine, and,
although she was comparatively poor, he laid hot
siege to her heart and won it after an ardent court
ship. The wedding took place in Alsace, and, alter
a brief wedding tour, tbe young couple came to the
chateau at Besancon. There were grand times at
that home-coming, and for a month or more the
happy bride and groom were the centre of attrac
tion. Each day claimed their attendance at some
fete of the happy bride and groom, and the stately
beauty of Heloise was the talk of all tbe country
roundabout.
THE MARQUIS WAS THE HAPPIEST OF MEN,
and his wife the most contented of women—for a
woman is always contented when she is tbe centre
of admiration.
Her devotion to her husband was marked on all
occasions, and one mark of it was, that at all times
she wore around her neck one of the choicest of the
gifts he had bestowed upon her before their mar
riage. This was a large gold locket, set with costly
stones, in the centre of which was her monogram
set in diamonds and surmounted by a coronet of
opals. It was held by a massive gold chain, and as
it rested upon her heaving bosom, the gems flashed
and sparkled with each palpitation. More precious
to her, however, was the medallion portrait of the
marquis, which was under the cover of one side of
the locket and a lock of his black hair under the
other.
A year had passed, and there came to visit at the
chateau Henri Merville, a cousin of Heloise, and his
wife, Beatrice. Henri, although not a handsome
man—for his red hair and gray eyes prevented all
idea of good looks—possessed many charms of man
ner, and proved an agreeable acquisition to the so
ciety at the chateau. His wife was somewhat of a
nonentity. She was pretty, after a fashion, devoted
to her husband, and very jealous of him.
Henri and Heloise had known each other from
childhood, and she would hardly have been expect
ed to be jealous of her, but sometimes there came a
baleful look into her dark eyes as she saw the two
walking together in the shrubbery and watched
how friendly and confidential, even tender, their
intercourse seemed to be.
Six mouths had passed and the Mervilles were yet
visitors at the chateau. One day the marquis had
important business to transact in Paris, and asked
Merville to accompany him. adding that they would
dine at the club, return to Besancon by a late
train, and have tbe carriage meet them at the de
pot. The programme was carried out, and shortly
alter eleven o’clock at night the two men drove up
to the door of the chateau iu excellent spirits.
Mme. Merville stood in the open doorway await
ing them.
HER FACE WAS ASHEN PALE,
her manner nervous and excited. She advanced
hastily to Leontine and asked huskily:
“ Have you seen Heloise?”
“ Seen Heloise 1” exclaimed the marquis, in sur
prise. “ Why, Henri and I have just come up from
Paris. How in the name of gooduess could I see
her?”
“Be calm, Gregoire—you will require all your
courage. Heloise has gone.”
•• Gone 1 Gone where ? This is some joke, I sup
pose. Perhaps she has gone to visit some of the
neighbors.”
“ Perhaps so; but listen. She and I took a stroll
in the shrubbery this morning. I left her at noon
lo return to the chateau. Since then nothing has
been seen or her.”
*• My God I” cried the marquis, now thoroughly
alarmed and agitated—“ what does this mean ? ’
Then, without uttering another word, he seized a
caudle from the hand of one of the attendants and
rushed to his wile’s boudoir. Everything was
quiet; nothing had been disturbed. There was no
letter, not a scrap of p iper, not a word to him to
tell him of her flight—if such it had been. Hastily
descending the stairs, he immediately summoned
all the servants. Had madame left any message ?
No. She had been seen walking in the shrubbery
with Mme. Merville in thefmorning, but since then
nothing had been seen or heard of her. Had in
quiries been made iu the neighborhood? No; Mme.
Merville had thought perhaps Madame the Mar
quise had taken a train to Paris to surprise mon
sieur agreeably.
“FoolsI” shouted the marquis, in a voice hoarse
with anxiety and agitation. “ Order out every
horee in the stable; mount, all of you. Come,
Merville, you must help me in this search. I can
not understand this matter at all. Something must
be wrong. But what—my God what ?” and the
now frantic husband dragged his wife’s cousin to
the stable. In a moment they were mounted on
two of the fleetest steeds and ten of the most relia
ble servants were mounted almost equally well.
The country for miles around was scoured, but
without avail.
NO ONE HAD SEEN THE BEAUTIFUL MARQUISE
LEONTINE
during either the day or night. The dull gray of
early morning had settled over the landscape when
the men returned from their weary search. Fagged
almost to death, Gregoire flung himself into a chair
in the library and ate his heart out trying to con
ceive or imagine some cause for this disappear
ance. Surely, he had done nothing to make her
false to him. He had studied her every wish, grati
fied every desire. No, it could not be that; there
must be some treachery. Suddenly he looked up at
Merville, who sat opposite to him, the picture of
absolute despair. Rising, he walked across the
room to his companion and said sternly:
" Merville, you have been a guest under my
roof. I have noticed your close attention to my
wife, but have passed it over because I believed her
too pure to do anything that would injure my
honor. Answer me, as man to man, can you give
any reason for, any clew to this terrible mystery ?”
For a moment, Merville seemed to cower under
his fierce gaze, but then, recovering himself, an
swered bravely enough:
“ Marquis Leontine, I answer you as a man, no !
I confess that I loved Heloise dearly—as a cousin.
We had been together since childhood. But, if you
would insinuate that there was anything wrong
between us I answer you no, no, no 1”
“ Pardon me, Merville, I w r as mad to think it,”
and with a groan the marquis sunk back into his
chair.
As soon as the sun had risen, a rigid search of
the grounds was made,
NOT A TRACE OF THE MISSING HELOISE
could be found, until on the shore of the little
artificial lake, at a point where the water was
deepest, one of the maids found a book, the one
that madame had been reading that morning, a
volume of the poems of de Thurset. Gregoire
seized it and covered it with kisses. It seemed to
him some part of the personality of his beloved.
But still no trace of the missing lady. By noon
time every inch of ground had been explored, but
without success. At last Merville suggested that a
detective should be sent for. At first the marquis
was loth to do this, as he was unwilling to make
public what he feared would prove his shame.
Merville reasoned, argued with him and, finally, he
consented.
OFFICE, NO. 11 FRANKFORT BT.
A telegram was dispatched to tbe Prefect of Police
at Paris, who chanced to be a friend of the marquis,
and at nightfall a quiet, businesslike-looking man
presented himself at the chateau. He bore a letter
from the Prefect, recommending him as one of his
shrewdest officers, worthy of all confidence. Per
haps it would be well to let the detective tell his
story in the report submitted by him a week subse
quently :
THE DETECTIVE’S STORY.
” M. le Prefect: In the matter of the disappear
ance of Mme. Heloise. Marquise Leontine. I would
report that immediately upon my arrival at the
chateau I proceeded to question the marquis, who
appeared to be prostrated with grief. He told me
that be and madame had lived upon the most
friendly terms, and he could assign no reason for
her departure. He informed me that the grounds
had been searched, and tbe only trace was a book
which madame had been known to have been read
ing on the morning of her disappearance. This
book had been found on the shore of an artificial
lake on the grounds of the chateau. Of course, lat
once concluded that this lake contained the clew to
the mystery, but kept my suspicions to myself.
By this time it had grown late into tbe night, and
I postponed my investigations until the morning.
Before the rest of the household had arisen, I awak
ened the gardener and told him to procure me
some strong fish-hooks and lines. He did so, won
deringly, and then I bade him lead me to the arti
ficial lake, to the spot where madame’s book had
been found. Reaching there, I examined the ground
closely, and noticed slight evidences of a struggle.
A boat was moored near by, and getting into this,
with the gardener, we rowed to a position opposite
the spot I had examined. The water at this point
was nearly ten feet deep. Together we threw over
our lines rnd rowed about. We had been doing
this for some fifteen minutes when I felt my hook
catch in something at the bottom of the lake. I in
structed the gardener to throw his line over by the
side of mine. He obeyed. His hook also caught.
Slowly we pulled, and in a few moments brought to
the surface the body of a beautiful woman. The
gardener threw up his hands and cried :
•• •My God 1 It is madame 1’
** With difficulty I pulled the body into the boat,
and rowed toward the shore. I laid my burden
upon the grass, and was stooping over it to discover
if there were any marks of violence, when I heard a
deep groan aud a heavy body fall at my side. It
was the marquis, who had just arrived upon the
scene. My examination revealed marks of fingers
arouud the dead woman’s throat and a laceration at
tbe back of tbe neck, as though a chain had been
torn from it. Bearing the body to the chateau, lat
once summoned a commissary, and stated to him
all the facts I knew in the case—the evidence
of a struggle on the shore, and the suspicious
marks upon the throat and neck. When the
marquis became calmer we questioned him as
to whether his wife had been in the habit of
wearing a chain or any other neck ornament. He
started violently, and answered that his wife had
invariably worn a valuable locket, enshrined in
jewels, and containing a portrait of himself on one
side and a lock of his hair on the other. Search
was made throughout the house, but the locket
could nowhere be found. Again I searched the spot
by the lake shore, aud at the end of an hour found
the locket in the grass some distance off. Only the
front portion of it, however, remained—that con
taining tbe portrait of the marquis—the back hav
ing been wrenched from its hinges. I could find no
traces of the lock of hair, I have pursued my in
vestigations for a week, but can find no solution of
the mystery. There is a Mr. Henri Merville here, a
cousin of the deceased, with whom she was said to
be very intimate, but as he was in Paris with the
marquis on the day of the murder, if murder it
was, no suspicion can be attached to him. His
wife, a pleasant woman but somewhat common
place, has been confined to her bed with illness
since the finding of the body. The servants are aTI
above suspicion, and I can ond no clew to the
revelation of the mystery. Francois Lalages.”
This was the detective’s report, and he returned
to Paris, having accomplished virtually nothing.
In the meantime Heloise had been buried with
all the honors befitting her rank and station, aud
tbe marquis was the victim of uncontrollable
grief. The Mervilles still lingered at the chateau,
as madame was so ill that she could not leave her
couch. At the end of two weeks she was no better,
and one day the marquis received this note from
the sick room;
"M. le Marquis: I have something important
to communicate. Come to me instantly.
“ Beatrice Merville.”
Listlessly Marquis Leontine went to the sick
chamber and entered. A terrible change had come
over her. Her face had the pallor of death, aud
there were black rings around her deeply sunken
eyes. The marquis was inexpressibly shocked.
She beckoned him to a seat near her couch, and,
speaking in a weak, tremulous voice, scarcely above
a whisper, said:
A STARTLING CONFESSION.
“ Gregoire, I have not half an hour to live. Be
fore you entered this room I took poison.” Ho
started as though to summon assistance. "Nay,
do not stir,” she moaned, "before I have finished
you will wish that I had died long ago. Gregoire,
it was I who murdered Heloise !”
The marquis started up with a look of horror on
his face.
"No, no; it is impossible. What had she ever
done to you ? This is but the delirium of fever.”
"It is God’s truth, from the lips of a dying
woman I Listen. For mouths I had watched her
and Henri together, I had overheard their inter
change of views, I had seen him kiss her, and one
day when you were away from home—Oh, God !
must I confess it?—l had witnessed their crimi
nality. From that day I thought, dreamed only of
revenge. The day that you and my dastard hus
band went to Paris gave me the opportunity. I
lured Heloise to the lake where I knew we would be
free from observation. I taxed her with her guilt.
She denied it. I dragged the locket from her neck.
Tore it open. There, where you fondly thought
your lock of hair rested was the portrait of Henri
Merville. Your wife, my husbands paramour!
Rage possessed me. I seized her by the throat—
that white throat that had lured my husband from
his wife-revenge gave me the power of a demon.
With these two hands I strangled her until she
ceased to breathe, and then 1 flung her false body
Into the water. Would you have proof ? See
here!”
As she spoke, she drew from under her pillow
the missing under-cover of the locket. There,
painted with cunning delicacy was the portrait of
Henri Merville ! The marquis gazed at it wildly,
then, with a shriek of rage and anguish, fell quiver
ing to the floor. When the servants entered they
found Mme. Merville dead and the marquis in a
dead swoon.
“And what did the marquis do?” asked one of
tbe loungers who bad been listening to the story in
a little haunt in the French quarter near South
Fifth avenue, as it was told by an old, gray-haired
Frenchman.
*■ Killed Merville in a duel that afternoon and
then left the country.”
“But bow did you come to know all this ?”
" Well, you see, I am Francois Lalages, and my
stupidity in this case caused me to be dismissed
from the force.
SAM LOVELL AGAIN.
IS HE OR IS HE NOT IN A VERY
BAD BOX?
Sam J. Lovell, the private detective, has again
brought himself within the law’s meshes, but with
his usual good luck he may avoid doing the State
a second term in State Prison. The charge is now
conspiring by getting up false evidence to prevent
a divorce being obtained by Charles A.Sear, of Buf
falo, who instituted a suit for divorce against his
wife. Lovell obtained Mary Thatcher, one of his
" girls,” to swear she roomed with Mr. Sear in a
hotel, and thus they would have offset Mr. Sear’s
suit, if the affidavit had been true.
In this case Mr. Sear implicates a lawyer named
Charles W. Bolles, and the woman Mary Thatcher.
The court has held the conspirators in the very
light bail of $1,500 to answer.
But it is not necessary to try Lovell, the detect
ive, on this case. There is an old indictment against
him in the District Attorney’s office for a very ag
gravated offence of felonious assault on a woman.
At that time he was “ carver” at the table of
a house of refinement. A gentleman came to see
his “lady friend.” They brought in Jersey cider
and charged him champagne prices for every
bottle opened. They ran up a wine bill on
cider for about a hundred dollars, and the girl
thinking it was going too far on her " gentleman
friend,” took him from the table to her room. With
the madam of the house he pounded the woman in
to a pitiable condition and for weeks she couldn’t
appear in the street. When the case was called for
trial it was very warm weather, and it was post
poned on the ground that it being a bail case, it had
better go over and clear the city prison of the un
fortunates that were sweltering there.
The case went over.
Nothing has been heard of it since.
Ns sympathy should be extended to this "private
detective” Lovell. He sent once for a reporter,
and when he got him in his room he put the pistol
to his head and threatened to shoot. The reporter
put his hands in his pockets and told him to fire.
The coward knew that if he shot it would easily be
demonstrated on a trial to be deliberate murder,
and put his pistol up.
Whether the District Attorney will promptly fol
low up this case, or shelve it, as in the other case,
remains to be seen.
What’s In a, Name?
GO ASK EDWARD AUGUSTUS SCHLIESPERGELL.
No wonder Mr. Joseph E. Schliespergell wanted
to withdraw the complaint. Tbe name was enough
to frighten any one from attempting to write it
He was awfully anxious that the "boys’’ should
not report bis case, and they wouldn’t have touched
it but for tbe remarkably outlandish name. He
wanted to withdraw the charge he had made against
Charles Schneider. The young man’s mother had
promised to make good his loss. The case was
allowed to be withdrawn.
PRICE FIVE CENTS-
A HAPPY AWAKENING,
What if, while I Bit here alone,
A voice I have not heard for years
Should greet me in the low, sweet tone
That once was music to my ears.
And I should start from memory’s sway.
And, turning, find you sitting there
Unchanged as though ’twere yesterday
Your feet went tripping down the stair.
Or if, upon some Summer day,
'Mid song of birds and hum of bees,
I should go down the woodland way
To our old tryst beneath the trees;
And, starting back in glad surprise,
I should behold you waiting there.
The old light shining in your eyes—
The sunlight tangled in your hair.
In vain I shall not see the glow
Of wine-brown eyes or catch the smile
Of ruby lips; but yet I know
That you are near me all the while.
For I so loved you in that range
Of sunny years that my poor heart
Would bleed afresh and count it strange
To think God held us far apart.
And so, when evening shadows creep
And night falls softly o’er the lea,
You touch my eyelids and I sleep,
And, sleeping, dream of heaven and thee.
And when some Summer morn shall break
That finds me chilled by death’s cold dew,
You need but kiss me—l shall wake.
And, waking, be in heaven with you.
BORIS'S mTI NE.
A Story of London Society.
CHAPTER 11.
"I LOVE HIM BETTER EVEBY DAY.”
Nine weeks had passed since Doris Edg
combe listened to the reproaches and warnings
of the young actress, Hilda Warren, and sha
had now settled down to matrimony in her own
riverside house, Fairleigh, on the banks of the
Thames.
The honeymoon was nearly over, and her
husband was away from her for the first tims
since their marriage. Old Mrs. Edgcombe, to
whom she had written two days before, an.
nouncing that she would bo alone on this day,
had taken the opportunity to come down and!
find out how the young couple were getting on,
ready with sage advice to her grandaughter aa
to the proper management of a husband, with
keenly critical eyes for shortcomings in tha
newly-established household. Doris had driven
her pretty ponies in her own little carriage ta
to meet her grandmother, and the latter notei
at once that the young wife looked well, hand
some, and happy. A drive ot only a few min
utes brought them to Fairleigh.
It was a two-story white house, jutting on,
here and there with rooms added wherever
they were wanted, until the original scheme o|
architecture had been entirely lost sight of, and
presenting plenty of variety in the way of roof,
slates and tiles ot different shapes covering the
outbuildings, which were of various bights
and overgrown, some with ivy, some with fruit
less fruit-trees; while the front and left side of
the house, which had been left as originally
built, were sweet with thickly-growing small
red roses and with heavy clusters of clematis
and graceful trails of jasmine.
The two ladies passed under the portico,'
where Doris’s pug received them with the lan
guidly condescending recognition of well-fed,
petted old age, through the low, wide, carpeted
hall, and between heavy curtains to the draw
ing-room, a square cool room where the July
afternoon sun never penetrated.
Doris had indulged in no freaks of originality
here; it was a pleasant room, furnished in tha
modern manner, without bright colors or gild
ing, with plenty of books and papers lying
about, and a faint smell of tobacco telling a tala
of easy-going good-nature on the part of tha
mistress of the house, which was to the elder
lady as the distant sound of battle is supposed!
to be to the charger.
“ Why, my dear Doris ’’—with a gentle in
credulous little sniff—“ surely you do not al
low your husband to smoke in the drawing
room ?”
“ Oh, yes, David smokes everywhere, grand
mamma 1 Men do now, you know. And, even
if they did not, I should have to relax all rules
in favor of cigars; he is never happy unless ha
is smoking.”
Nothing less than the discovery that her
grandson-in- law had another wile or two in tha
background could have lowered him in her
eyes as this admission did; she pursed up her
lips, but said no more, like a wise lady, and,
without more comment, allowed Doris to lead
her to a seat by the door which opened on to
the lawn. She had come armed with words of
warning, with a little comfort and counsel too,
should they be needed by this wife whose hus
band had left her for three whole days befora
the end of the honeymoon. But Doris was aa
smiling as the morn, was passing her tempora
ry widowhood in perfect peace, and was look
ing lovely and radiant as she had never looked
in her girlhood.
The elder lady’s doubts and feaas were for
the moment set at rest; and, when tea was
brought in, and the young wife had brought her
fruit gathered by her own hands, and was sit
ting on a footstool at her feet in a caressing at
titude not usual with Doris, Mrs. Edgcomba
said kindly:
“You seem very happy, my dear.”
“ 1 am as happy as the day is long, just aa
they say in children’s story-books, grand
mmama. I have nothing to wish for.”
“ What takes David away from you ?”
“Oh, an old friend of his, whom he hasn’t
seen for years, is in Paris for a few days, just
before starting for America 1 David said he
wished he could see him, and I asked him why
he didn’t go. So he went. He will be back to
morrow.”
“ It seems a very trifling cause to take a hus
band away from his newly-married wife.”
“Do you think so—to see a friend he may not
have another chance of meeting for years ? It
was I who suggested his going.”
“ Then, why didn’t he take you with him ?”
“ I never offered to go. It is too hot for
traveling, and I hate Paris in July.”
“ But surely your husband’s society is an at
traction great enough to compensate even for a
little heat?”
“ Yes, of course it would be if I couldn’t sea
him at any other time. But, as it was, I thought
I should like better the piquancy of a parting
and the delight of welcoming him back. And,
for a short stay and a rapid journey like that, I
think it must be pleasanter for a man to h»
alone ; a woman is only in the way.”
“ Your husband told you you would be in hit
way ?” cried Mrs. Edgcombe, in horr r.
" No, no, grandmmama, of course he didn’t
laughed Dorie. “ And he never will have to
tell me anything of that sort, even when we are
old married people and have got tired ot each
other, because I think I shall always have the
sense to find it out for myself. We have begun
our married life on common-sense principles.