Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 230, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1915 — Folk We Touch In Passing [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Folk We Touch In Passing

By Julia Chandler Manz

THE PRICE When The Wife found out about The Other Woman, The Man made no attempt at denial. “Love,” he told her, “does not come at our volition. I cannot help it. I did not seek this thing that has come to me and I cahnot lay it aside.” Whereupon The Wife voiced the misery of her heart; made gn efTort to revive the affection which she was sure had been hers in an earlier year, and at last, seeing that her appeal was in vain, she spoke of honor. “Honor!" exclaimed The Man in a wondering tone. “I do not know where honor should begin or leave off, my dear. You see, our iparriage was all a mistake. From playmates in childhood we drifted into comradeship in youth, and finally went on, just drifting pleasantly along to the altar. All of which might have been well enough had I never awakened. But I have awakened. I know the difference now between love and a pleasant affection, and to my mind our union has become but a desecration of marriage." “What are you going to do?” questioned The Wife, in .that quiet way she has when the knife in her heart is turning slowly. “There is but one thing TO DO,” answered The Man. “And that?” she asked. “Why,” he said, “we must end this farce which you and I call marriage.” And as he spoke a peal of childish laughter rang through the house, sending a spasm of pain across The Wife’s

features —sheering the words The Man had spoken as she could never have done. * Love for The Other Woman coursed through The Man’s veins like a mad thing. There were moments when he was alone that he was haunted by the laughter of the Boy Person in his home, but when he was with the object of his heart’s desire he quit* lost it from his consciousness. Time came when The Wife seldom saw The Man, and finally she made up her mind that she would go to see The Other Woman, taking the Boy Person with her. The Other Woman’s candor might have disarmed The Wife had it not been for the Boy Person’s presence in the room, for the woman loved told the woman unloved that she knew her errand; knew the terrible hurt she had brought her; declared her own suffering through it, frilt ended with the same assurance that The Man had giver.—the frank assertion that the thing which possessed her was bigger than her will and that she had no power to dispel the force of love. “But whht are you going to do?” asked The Wife again. '‘We are going away,” came the frank reply. Whereupon The Wife assured The Other Woman that she could not hope to build happiness on another’s misery; that she could not hope to forget the small Boy Person whose laughter was even then lßce music in her ear; that the love she cherished for The Man would eventually prove a

curse to them both, and when her auditor answered her nothing The Wife told her that when she went away with The Man it would be to live an ostracized life of shame all her days. “For,” said The Wife, ‘1 will never divorce him.”

Despite the fact that The Wife kept her word, and that society frowned its - disapproval on the action of The Man tnd The Other Woman, their love was sufficient unto them, and little by little The Other Woman forgot the curse which The Wife had promised should follow her to the end of her days, and when a little girl came to her home she determined to put it out of her mind forever. And time came when the folk in the distant city to which The Man had taken The Other Woman to live were more charitably disposed toward them, and some there were who even felt that The Wife was hard and vindictive, and extended their sympathy in courteous action to The Man and The Other Woman. But once in a while the words of The Wife knocked sharply at The Other Woman’s conscience, and then she was afraid, and once in awhile The Little Maid made her think of the Boy Person and his wondrous laughter, whereupon she was still more afraid. But always The Man cherished her, and with his tenderness dispelled the shadows of the past.

The \ years slipped gently by, and The Little Maid became a woman

grown. The Other Woman often won* dered if her daughter knew the truth, but the girl gave no sign, and so The Other Woman trusted to fate and was silent. And the little household was a vej-y happy one. Then, on a day, The Little Maid was missing. The Man and The Other Woman had never dreamed that harm could befall the quiet, gentle presence in their home. Fdr a little while they knew not where to seek her, and when at last they learned that she had gone away with a married man who was reputed the most disreputable roue of the town, they followed quick- ' ly to bring her home. But when The Other Woman found The Little Maid in her shame" the girl met her agonized appeal quite coolly. “Love does not come at our volition. I cannot help it. I did not seek this thing that has come to me and I had no power to avoid it YOU should understand.” The girl spoke the words "her father had said to the mother of the small Boy Person; the words The Other Woman had told The Wife and the sentence with which she concluded her statement was illuminating to The Other Woman, who stood watching the beautiful daughter to whom she had given life —and her inheritance — and as she watched the veil was lifted from her eyes aud she saw that the thing which The Wife had told her in that far gone yesteryear was the inevitable truth, and that the present was the price which The Wife h*4i promised she should par.

“Love," He Told Her, "Does Not Come at Our Volition."