Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1915 — PEG O'MY HEART [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEG O'MY HEART

By J. Hartley Manners

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

SYNOPSIS. Frank O’Connell, young Irish patriot, la shot and wounded by British soldier* while making a home rule speech. H« Is aided by Angela Klngsnorth. 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. O’Connell and Angela wed. She has espoused the Irish cause. Her brother, a member of parliament, is very angry. The happy couple come to America to live. A daughter is bom to them. Angela’s brother refuses to help the couple in any way. Angela dies. O’Connell names his daughter Margaret and calls her “Peg.” O’Connell receives a most important letter from England, which perplexes him. O’Connell allows Peg to visit England at her uncle’s request. The elder Kingsnorth’s heart had finally softened toward his dead sister’s little girt Peg goes to the home of the Chichester family in England at the direction of Mr. Hawkes, Kingsnorth's attorney, as Kingsnorth suddenly dies. She first meets fithel Chichester and Brent, a mqrried man in love with Ethel. She interrupts them by accident in a secret meeting.

“How curious!”

“You mean you would?” “Probably.” “I’m sure of it.” He tried to take her hand. She drew it away and settled herself comfortably to listen again: “Tell me more about your wife.” “The slightest attention shown to any other woman meant a ridiculous, a humiliating scene.” “Humiliating?” “Aren’t doubt and suspicion humiliating?” “They would be a compliment in some cases." “How?” ‘•They would put a fictitious value on some men.” “You couldn’t humiliate in that way,” he ventured slowly. “No. I don’t think I could. If a man showed a preference for any other woman she would be quite welcome to him.” “No man could!” said Brent insinuatingly. She looked at him coldly a moment “Let me see—where were you? Just married, weren’t you? Go on.” “Then came the baby.” He said that with a significant meaning and paused to see the effect on Ethel. If it had any Ethel effectually concealed it Her only comment was; “Ah!” Brent went on: “One would think that would change things. But no. Neither of us wanted her. Neither of us loves her Chil dren should come of love, not hate. And she is a child of hate." He paused, looking intently at Ethel. She looked understanding!y at him, then dropped her eyes:

CHAPTER XII. Ethel and Brent. ETHEL dropped her gaze from his face and said, with the suspicion of a smile playing around her lips: "If you had the right to make love to me straightforwardly—you wouldn’t do it.” He looked at her in amazement. “What do you mean?” he gasped. “It’s only because you haven’t the right that you do it—by suggestion.” Ethel pursued. “How can you say that?” And he put all the heart he was capable of into the question. “You don’t deny it,” she said quietly. He breathed hard and then said bitterly-: “What a contemptible opinion you must have of me!” “Then we’re quits, aren’t we?” “How?” lie asked. “Haven’t you one of me?” “Of you? Why, Ethel”— “Surely every married man must have a contemptible opinion of the woman he covertly makes love to. If he hadn’t he couldn’t do It, could he?” Once again she leveled her coFd. impassive eyes on Brent’s flushed face. “I don’t follow you,” was all Brent said. “Haven’t you had time to think of an answer?” “1 don’t know what you’re driving at,” he added. Ethel smiled her most enigmatical smile.

Brent went on as if following up an advantage: “She sits in her little chair, her small, wrinkled, old. disillusioned face turned to us. with the eyes watching us accusingly. She submits to caresses as though they were distasteful, as if she knew they were lies.' At times she pushes the nearing face away with her little baby fingers ” He stopped, watching her eagerly. Iler eyes went down. “I shouldn’t tell you this. It’s terrible. I see it in your face. What are you thinking?” “I’m sorry,” replied Ethel simply. “For me?” “For your wife.” “My wife?” he repeated, aghast “Yes,” said Ethel. “Aren't you? No? Are you just sorry for yourself?” Brent turned impatiently away. So this laying open the wound in his life was nothing to Ethel. Instead of pity for him, all it engendered in her was sorrow for his wife. How little women understood him! There was a pathetic catch in his voice as he turned to Ethel and said reproachfully: “You think me purely selfish?” “Naturally,” she answered quickly. “I am. Why not be truthful about ourselves sometimes? Eh?” “We quarreled last night—about you!” he said desperately. “Really?” “Gossip has linked us together. My wife has heard it and put the worst construction on It” “Well?” “We said things to each other last night that can never be forgiven or forgotten. I left the house and walked the streets—hours! I looked my whole life back and through as though it were some stranger’s.” He turned ab-

“No? 1 think you do.” She waited a moment Brent said nothing. This was a new mood of Ethel’s. It baffled him. Presently she relieved the silence by asking him: “What happened last night?” He hesitated. Then he answered: “I’d rather not say. I’d sound like a cad blaming a woman.” “Never mind how it sounds. Tell it It must have been amusing.” “Amusing!” He bent over her again. “Oh, the more I look at you and listen to you the more I realize I should never have married.” “Why did you?” came the cool question. Brent answered with all the power at his command. Here was the moment to lay his heart bare that Ethel might see. “Have you ever seen a young hare, fresh from its kind, run headlong into a snare? Have you ever seen a young man free of the trammels of college dash into a net? I did! I wasn’t trap wise.” He paced the room restlessly, all the self pity rising in him. He went on: “Heavens, what nurslings we are when we first feel our feet! We’re like children just loose from the leading strings. Anything that glitters catches us. Every trap that is set for our unwary feet we drop into. I did—dropped in, caught hand and foot, mind and soul.” “Soul?” queried Ethel, with a note of doubt “Yes,” he answered. "Don’t you mean body?” she suggested. “Body, mind and soul!” he said, with an air of finality. ♦‘Well, body anyway,” summed up EtheL “And for what?” he went on. “For what? Love! Companionship! That is what we build on in marriage. And what did I realize? Hate and wrangling; wrangling, just as the common herd, with no advantages, wrangle and make it a part of their lives, the zest to their union. It’s been my curse.” “Why wrangling?” drawled Ethel. “She didn’t understand.” “You?’ asked Ethel, in surprise. “My thoughts L my actions!”

ruptly away to the windows and stayed a moment, looking down the drive.

Ethel said nothing. He came back to her in a few moments. “1 tell you we ought to bei taught—we ought to be taught, when wo are young, what marriage really means, just as w e are taught not to steal, nor lie, nor sin. In marriage we do all three—when rveTe ill mated. We steal affection from some one else, we lie in our lives, and we sin in our relationship.” Ethel asked him very quietly: “Do you mean that you are a sinner, a thief and a liar?” Brent looked at her in horror. “Oh, take some of the blame!” said Ethel. “Don't put it all on the woman." "You’ve never spoken to me like this before.” 1 “I’ve often wanted to,” replied Ethel; then she asked him, “What do you intend doing?” “Separate." be answered eagerly. “You don’t doctor a poisoned limb when your life depends on It; you cut it off When two lives generate a deadly poison, face the problem as a surgeon would—amputate.” “And after the operation what then?" asked Ethel. "That is why I am here facing you. Do you understand what I mean?” "Oh, dear, yes—perfectly! I have been waiting for you to get to the point.” “Ethel!” and he impulsively stretched out his arms, embracing her. She drew back slightly, just out of his reach. “Walt” She looked up at him quizzically. “Suppose we generate poison? What would you do—amputate me?” “You are different from all other women.” “Didn’t you tell your wife that when you asked her to marry you?” He turned away impatiently. “Don’t say those things, Ethel; they hurt.” “Dm afraid, Christian, I’m too frank. Ami not?” “You stand alone, Ethel. ■ You seem to look Into the hearts of people and know why and how they beat" “1 do—sometimes. It’s an awkward faculty.” He looked at her glowingly. "How marvelously different two women can be! You—my wife!” Ethel shook her head and smiled tier calm, dead smile: “We’re not really very different, Christian. Only some natures like change. Yours does. And the new have all the virtues. Why. I might not last as long as your wife did." “Don’t say that. We have a com mon bond—understanding.” “Think so?” “I understand you.” "1 wonder.” "You do me." “Yes—that is just the difficulty.” “I tell you I am at the crossroads, The finger board points the way to me distinctly.”

“Does It?” “It does.” He leaned across to her “Would you risk it?” “What?” she asked. “I’ll hide nothing. I’ll put it ali before you—the snubs of your friends; the whisper of a scandal that would grow into a roar; afraid to open a newspaper, fearing what might be printed in It; life at first in some little continental village, dreading the passers through, keeping out of sight lest they should recognize one. No. It wouldn’t be fair to you.” Ethel thought a moment, then answered slowly; “No, Chris, I don’t think it would." “You see I am a cad—just a selfish cad!” “Aren't you?” and she smiled up at him. “I’ll never speak of this again. 1 would have spoken now—only—l’m distracted—completely distracted. Will you forgive me for speaking as I did?” “Certainly,” said Ethel “I’m not offended. On the contrary. Anyway. I’ll think It over and let you know." “You will, really?” he asked greedily, grasping at the straw of a hope. “You will really think It over?” “I will, really.” “And when she sets me free,” he went on, “we could, we could”— He suddenly .stopped. She looked coolly at him as he hesi tated and said, “It is a difficult little word at times, isn’t it?" “Would you marry me?’ he asked, with a supreme effort “I never cross my bridges until 1 come to them,” said Ethel languidly. “And we’re such a long way from that one, aren’t we?” “Then I am to wait?” “Yes; dflf,” she replied. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

He Impulsively Stretched Out His Arms, Embracing Her.