Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1915 — PEG O' MY HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEG O' MY HEART

By J. Hartley Manners

A Comedy of Youth Founded by Mr. Manners on His Great Play of the Same Title—lllustrations From Photographs of the Play

SYNOPSIS. Frank O’Connell, young Irish patriot, 13 shot and wounded by British soldiers while making a home rule speech. He 13 aided bV Angela Kingsnorth, an English society girl, who defends him. Angela takes O'Connell to her brother’s , home and helps, to nurse him. He recovers, and he and the girl become fast friends. O’Connell when well is sent to jail for • disturbing the peace. He finally writes ’ Angela that he.has. finished his sentence. CHAPTER V. O’Connell Visits Angela. Nathaniel kingsnorth stayed only long enough in Ireland to permit of Angela’s recovery. He went into the sickroom only once. When Angela saw him she turned her back on him and refused to speak to him. For a moment a hush of pity’ for his young sister gave him a pang at his heart. She looked so frail and worn, so desperately ill. After all. she was his sister, and, again, had she not been punished? He was willing to forget the foolhardy things she had done and the bitter things she had said. Let bygones be bygones. He realized that he had neglected her.' He would do so no longer. Far from it. When they returned to London all that would be remedied. He would take care of her in every possible way. He felt a genuine thrill course through him as he thought of his generosity. To all of this Angela made no answer. Stung by her silence, he left the room and sent for his other sister. When Monica came he told her that whenever Xngela wished to recognize his i magnanimity she could send for him. She would not find him unforgiving. To this Angela sent no reply. When the fever had passed and she was stronger arrangements were made for the journey to London. As Angela walked unsteadily to the carriage, leaning on the arm of the nurse. Nathaniel came forward to assist her. She passed him without a word. Nor did she speak to him once nor answer any remark of his during the long journey on the train. When they reached London she refused to go to the Kingsnorth house, where her brother lived, but went at once to a distant cousin of her mother's, Mrs. Wrexford, and made her home with her, as she had often done before. She refused to hold any further communication with her brother, despite the ministrations of her sister, Monica, and Mrs. Wrexford. Mrs. Wrexford was a gentle little white capped widow, whose only happiness in life seemed to.be in worrying over others' misfortunes. She was on the board of various charitable organizations and was a busy helper in the field of mercy. She worshiped Angela, as she had her mother before her. That something serious had occurred between Angela and her brother Mrs. Wrexford realized, but she j could find out nothing by questioning Angela. Every time she asked her anything relative to her attitude Angela was silent. | One day she begged Mrs. Wrexford never to speak of her brother again. Mrs. Wrexford respected her wishes and watched her and nursed her through her convalescence with a ten-; der solicitude. When O’Connell's letter came Angela showed it to Mrs. W’rexford, together ■with her reply. “Do you mind if I see him here?” Angela asked. “What kind of man is he?” “The kind that heroes are made of.” “He writes so strangely—may one say unreservedly? Is he a gentleman?” “In the real meaning of the wordyes.” . . i “Of good family?” “Not as we estimate goodness. His family were just simple peasants.” “Do you think it wise to see him?” > “I don’t consider the wisdom. I only listen to my heart.” “Ton—you love him?” “So much of love as I can give is his.” “Oh, my dear!” cried Mrs. Wrexford,' thoroughly alarmed. “Don’t be afraid,” said Angela quiet-, ly. “Our ways lie wide apart He is working for the biggest thing in life. His work is his life. I am nothing.” “But don’t you think it would be indiscreet, dear, to have such a man come here?” “Why indiscreet?” “A man who has been in prison!”, and Mrs Wrexford shuddered> at the thought. She had seen and helped so many poor victims of the cruel laws, and the memory of their drawn faces and evil eyes and coarse speech flashed across her mind. She could not reconcile one coming into her little home. Angela answered her: "Yes, he has been in prison, but the shame was for his persecutors, not for him. Still, if you would rather 1 saw him, somewhere, else”—

“Oh, no. my dear child. If you wjsh it”— “I do. I just want to see him again, as he writes he does me. 1 want to hear him speak again. 1 want to wish him godspeed on his journey.” “Very well, Angela,” said the old lady. “As you wish.” A week afterward O’Connell arrived in London. They met in Mrs. Wrexford’s little drawing room in Mayfair. They looked at each other for some moments without speaking. Both not ed the fresh lines of suffering in each other’s face. They had been through the long .valley of the shadow of sorrow since they had last met. But O'Connell thought as he looked at her that all the suffering he had gone through passed from him as some hideous dream, it was worth it—these months of torture —just to be looking at her now; worth the long black nights, the labors in the heat of the day with life’s outcasts around him, the taunts of his jailers; worth all the infamy of it just to stand there looking at her. She had taken his life in her two little hands. He had bathed his soul all these months in the thought of her. He had prayed night and day that he might see her standing near him just as she was then, see the droop of her eye and the silk of her hair and feel the touch of her hand and hear the exquisite tenderness of her voice. He stood mute before her. She held out her hand and said simply: “Thank you for coming.” “It was good of you to let me,” he answered hoarsely. “They have not broken your spirit or your courage?” “No.” he replied tensely; “they are the stronger.” "1 thought they would be,” she said proudly. All the while he was looking at the pale face and the thin transparency of her hands. “But you have suffered too. You have been ill. Were you iu—danger?'* His voice had a catch of fear in it as he asked the, to him, terrible question. "No. It was just a fever. It is past. I am a little weak—a little tired. That will pass too.”

“If anything had happened to you—or ever should happen!” He buried his face in his hands and moaned: “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” His body shook with the sobs he tried vainly to check. Angela put her hand gently on his shoulder. “Don't do that,” she whispered. He controlled himself with an effort. “It will be over in a moment. Just a moment. lam sorry.” He suddenly knelt at her feet, his head bowed in reverence. “God help me!” he cried faintly. “I love you, I love you!” I She looked down at him, her face transfigured. i He loved her! The beat of her heart spoke It, “He i loves you!” The throbbing of her brain shouted it, “He loves you!” The cry of her soul whispered it, “He loves you!”

She stretched out her hands to him: i “My love is yours, just as yours is mine. Let us join our lives and give them to the suffering and the oppressed.” He looked up at her in wonder. "I daren't. Think what 1 am!” “You are the best that is in me. We are mates.” “A peasant! A beggar!” “You are the noblest of the noble,” “A convict.” “Our Saviour was crucified so that 1 his people should be redeemed. You have given the pain of your body so that your people may be free.” i “It wouldn’t be fair to you,” he pleaded. I “If you leave me it will be unfair to us both.” “Oh, my dear one! My dear one!” He folded her in his arms. “I'll give the best of my days to i guard you and protect you and bring ' you happiness.” “I am happy now,” and her voice died to a whisper. I Three days afterward Nathaniel 1 Kingsnorth returned late at night from a political banquet. < It bad been a great evening. At last IT’ seemed that life was about to give . him what he most wished for. His dearest ambitions were, apparently, about to be realized. He had been called on as a stanch Conservative to add his quota to the already wonderful array of brilliant perorations of seasoned statesmen and admirable speakers. Kingsnorth had excelled himself. Never had he spoken so powerfully. Being one of the only men at the banquet who bad enjoyed even a brief glimpse of Ireland, be made the solution of the Irish question the mala tonic, of his sneech.

Speaking lucidly and earnest!/,' he placed before them his panacea for

Irish ills. His hearers were enthralled. When he sat down the cheering.was prolonged.

When he left the gathering he was in a condition of ecstasy. Lying back amid the cushions during bis long drive home, he closed his eyes and pictured the future. His imagination ran riot. It took wings and flew from height to height. He saw himself the leader of a party-“the Kingsnorth party!"—controlling his followers with a hand of iron and driving them to vote according to his judgment and his decree.

By the time he had reached home he had entered the cabinet and was being spoken of as the probable prime minister.

He poured out a liquor and stood sipping It as he turned over the letters brought by the night's post. One arrested him. It had been delivered by hand and was marked “Most Urgent” As he read the letter every vestige of color left his z face. (TO BE CONTINUED,) '

“Then arose a picture of her sister Monica.”