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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1888)
(A THE WEST SHORE. - Wd! t I" InVf, a ol buoyancy of ipinta clcr, iLrcmjrLont the day, ul lightened my m 1 frilly I, my bat and itartod forborne. Amy ft td.l th" wIlki however, a nauu m H familiarly IhrooRh ny arm, and a voice U.fcl Mwd M who from the pant, sounded in my cur: ' Iy Mav.ii. by all thaU jolly it said, and I turl t dap thf band of an old-time chum-as ill I Mad m fw-r If-1 the ran of Satan. He bad ln alHM-r.1 from the city for month, and this was tny f;M w tin with him lince my marriage. I was tW U (kv him. He Lud ranch to toll me, and al tn'i U 1w I Iwv bat I m doing I waa standing I oi l a Ur with him, making a perjured, lying nm.iHj lfl of fajM-lf by wallowing, in a glass of l.m&dy, all my vom to the woman who had trusted inf. u why dil I do it? Not because I needed, or Hfn d-MrI, the brandy, that is certain; and not !c.uwrny re fusal to drink would have caused Ilarry I'.rny wn tr or hf-art pang. Make, I am something f an Awti and do not Micro in much of any thing Ihftt lii Uyond the tangible of this world, but whn I try to think bat it in that leads a man on at urh liniment, I'm almost U-mplM to pin my faith to the oM-fMhioiiol, orthodox devil. " Well, to thorn my itory and avoid easily im d Uila, I till only My that I did not go homo tUl tuning. Where I did go matters now but little. Kuftr it t. My I followed Harry's lead with reckless aUndon. The oidy nent of that night that I dis tinctly remeiiiK i one that wm branded upon my Uart in I ttm of fire. Some time in the small hours of morning I iUWtM out of well known disrepu table j,! KU tam inyiu-lf landing face to face with ny mfe, " IU lerame to l-Mhere, in that locality, all a!,ne, it d, of tvX will remain one of the inscru Ub)Mt n,. ,,I11ef(1rev,r. I never had a chance tMk b, r, for frr.nnh.t hor to this I have never oj-aUf - Oh, (;,l! how I have striven , f ' lUU fMit looked in that awful tn.nrt j!ut ! ni , . , it i ,l Dnv m plain y as thH-h only rnonn-nU, v.Uk, ,.f v.... u.V Otlrfor. .x. . . . ' '" "raS8(L fu dered about the cold streets until she had fallen, ex hausted, in the darkness, where she lay until found by an officer in the gray dawn, who sent her to a hos pital. I went to the door of the hospital to inquire about ber, but did not dare ask to see her. They told me she was in the raying delirium of brain fever, and that, on account of exposure, trouble, and her delicate state of health, there was scarcely a shadow of hope for her. " For five long weeks I was in a state of mind closely bordering on insanity, and haunted the hos pital day and night. If I ate or slept during all that time, I have no recollection of it; and so weakened and worn was I with my vigil of remorse, that when, at last, they told me one morning that the crisis was passed and she might recover, I fell in a swoon, which lasted for hours. When consciousness had fully re turned, I crept away to my deserted home, where I waited, day by day, for her final recovery. My one hope was that she would send for me, or, at least, send me some message that miqht hold out a hope for the future. But that hope died a sudden death, when, by chance, I one day met one of the hospital attendants, and learned that her mother had taken her home to C , her native village, twenty miles distant. I wrote ber a letter then, or rather a prayer, wrung from the depths of my miserable heart, and took it to C myself, where I hired a messenger to carry it to her, instructing him to wait for a reply. He brought me this: Mason paused here, and handed me an open let ter, which I read. It was brief, terribly brief, and, it seemed to me, manlike in its merciless firmness. It ran thus: KoY:-There is but one thing in the world that I ask at your hands now, and that I command rather than ask. It is that you go away at once, and put as many thousand miles be wmi yourself and me as the breadth of the continent will al . ou have destroyed your own child, you have murdered u truest heart that ever throbbed with love, and you ask, no , the privilege of gazing upon your work. If you ever real w your wish, It will be when I lie cold and defenseless in Edith Mason. I banded back the letter in silence, and neither of m "poke for some moments. His head was bowed, KJ in 8ad and bitter thought At " Well, Blake, all this took place more than four h?f?f a 8mCe theu 1 have be a wanderer on the face of the earth. Wh. ti i , " UQk oi remorse i nave endured, no human hnrn 7 , rW t i i b u ever now. rrom iue rllriutonosemcethat rea ?s i we J. on the r-Iy . ,.:. ,, tli(.r; w.lh lUt' i,,,;; a7' fi- tuiw u UT kH it i w l sent I can i T C1 18 DUl ono service inai I &liUX , till "r death can free her in her ut ble. A hundrjvl t i , m .