People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1894 — THE TROUBLESOME LADY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE TROUBLESOME LADY.

BY PATIENCE STAPLETON.

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CHAPTER Vlll.— Continued. “To find Miss Patten, of course.” “On, goodness! I wish we could!” iflggled Mrs. Minny. “What?” cried Oliver. “It’s her turn, Mr. Oliver. She has mn away.” “Not with you? You are not alone?” “Why, of course. Who was there? I think it is mean of you £o look cross, when I came to keep your name out of my troubles, because the doctor wrote it would ruin all your political prospects. You helped me once, and lam coming back to a man I—l hate —yes, I do —and am afraid of. so no one will say a word about you.” She looked at him with triumphant virtue so satisfied and sweet he hung his head, the words of reproach dying on his lips. “Well, there’s the baby and nursegirl,” he said, hopefully. “Why. no,” she laughed. “Didn't I tell you? Aunt Hannah stole the baby, She ran away herself this time. Oh, do hire one of those cunning cabs, and we’ll go for a drive, and I’ll tell you all abou,t it.” “The hansoms would be too cold, Mrs. Minny. We will take this carriage,” be said, calling one; and slie, very well pleased, got in with the dog while ho deposited her luggage on the front seat. “You see,” she said, leaning back on the cushioned seat as the carriage left the noisy stone pavement and talking was possible. “Aunt Hannah got it Into her head that I did not love Francois the baby enough. He really did seem to fuss the moment l ‘ook him; and Aunt Hannah knows so many rules for bringing up children that I was nowhere with my own child. Old maids do, you know. Then he got to look more like Hen —M. de Restaud —every day; and that was a trial. Aunt Hannah said he was just fretty, iut 1 thought him de Restaudy. I suppose I am awfully wicked, but I was glad Aunt Hannah wanted him. Then •;here was—” Mrs. Minny hesitated and looked away; a faint blush colored Aer round cheek—“a red-headed young nan who took me riding—horseback riding. lam sure there is no harm in that. A homely young man,” she idded, seeing the shadow on Oliver’s /ace, “not nice at aU; but one must nave some friends. And then one

morning when she was making the bed Aunt Hannah found your letter under the pillow—your first one, not the ugly one telling me it was my duty to come back to my husband. Funny business letters those, not like you or that lovely ride we had. I was desperate xt having to come back; so maybe I was mean to Aunt Hannah. One day she and the baby and its clothes disappeared, and she left a note telling me that I was not to search for her, for the was going to put Frankie—that’s what she calls him —in safe keeping.” “I am sure there was no harm in that letter,” he said, stiffly. “Oh. she wouldn’t read it; 1 couldn’t ,/et her to; and, just to tease because *he said my behavior was scandalous, x kissed the letter and hid it away.” “’Well, this Is a nice affair,” said Oliver, smiling a little because Mrs. Minny was so gayly happy. “I don’t ®ee what ew aro going to do. I thought your aunt would bo with you, so I hurried on to prevent your coming. It wonld not be safe. Your—Mr. de Bestaud has grown worse—l think Is losing his mind. I came to send you to France, to the old general, where probably MUs Patten has gone. Now too are elona Da Bestaud has » spy

following an I am sure; be had In Denver, and—” Oliver could not say bis worst suspicions. “It will be brought out in the court, this nice little ride and everything,” chirped Mrs. Hinny, “like the chops and tomato sauce in Dickens, and everybody will think me dreadful.” “You are very thoughtless,” he said, coldly. “Now, please don’t be cross,” her pretty mouth quivered and her eves filled, “just as we were having such a lovely time. I can't help being jolly because I don’t have to go back to him. You know I thought how sorry you'd be when I died of a broken heart and his meanness and you'd come to see me in my coffin. The Troublesome little lady would be troublesome no more, ,but still and quiet as you'd like her to Be, and old and sorrowful, for one day of my old life with him would take all the youngness out of me. Perhaps your conscience would hurt you a little because you had driven me back for I would not have come but for you. Tho thought that your kindness to me would injure your good name made mo miserable. Dr. John wrote how your political prospects would be ruined—political prospects is right, is it not?— and you couldn’t be governor or anything.” “Minny, say no more,” cried Oliver, his voice trembling, “my dear little girl. It breaks my heart. Dr. John was cruel to write such nonsense; he was too eager to serve me. I don’t want office; and I would face the slander of the world to spare you a mordent's pain.” She trembled so at his words he stopped in the midst of a sentence, reproaching himself for his lack of self control. They were silent a few moments; then she said, with her old §mile:

“Now we've made up—haven't we? —and you are just as nice as yon were that night, so please may my dog run a little on the snow?” “Of course,” he said-, and set free the small animal, who darted after birds, barking joyously. Among the discomforts of having an erratic mistress were long confinement in cold dark cars and surreptitious journeyings under shawls and in baskets; so in these latter days of sudden journeys and imprisonment Skye had grown to prize his hours of freedom. Perhaps in his heart, though, he willingly endured nights in the baggage-car for the joy of being rid of that red-faced, blackeyed something who slept so ihucli and whom he must never waken with a happy bark or jump. How many times on account of that red-faced thing who cried had his darling’s aunt scouted him out of doors with a broom, saying: “Scat, you dog! there, you’ve waked the baby again.” Now his dear mistress was like her old self, and he, Skye, though he never would tell, had seen Miss Hannah and that baby slinking away from tho house in Maine like criminals, and he had never noticed their departure by one small bark, for fear they might return. “I am very hungry,” said Mrs. Minny as the carriage turned back to the city, “and, as my dog is hungry too, it would be a good idea for you to take us to a private room in some restaurant, where we can feed Skye on tile carpet when the waiter is out.” There was nothing to do, of course, but to accede to this demand; the very fact that she was hungry appealed to Oliver’s generous heart. He thought, however, as they went up the stairs to a cozy private supper-room, this would sound unpleasantly to a jury. He could even fancy the attorney for the prosecution’s question: “Did you, Mr. Oliver, think this proceeding a proper one? Does society consider it discreet for an unmarried man to take a young married lady to such a place in the absence of her husband?” eta Still, Mrs. Minny enjoyed everything so much, Oliver forgot bis fears, and was merry enough in his way. The dog, gorged with food, showed off his most amusing tricks, which Mrs. Minny admitted he never would do before when strangers were present. “I think he is really getting fond of you,” she said, tenderly. Oliver, aware of the silliness of it, but pleased at that trustful glance, said he hoped so. He left Mrs. Minny at a hotel, registering her name and ordering a good room for her, then with almost a sense of relief walked to another hotel, a long distance away. He hoped the spy might be following; once or twice he looked behind, but there seemed no one. At his hotel a telegram awaited him. It was from a clerk in his office: “Dr. Achorn telegraphed from Pueblo to you in Denver, ’Henri de Restaud died this morning at tho Insane asylum. Funeral in Denver.’ I telegraphed him you were in Chicago.” A second telegram was brought Oliver just as he was going to bed; it was from Dr. John: “Tell Mrs do Restaud. They need not come on—too late for funeral. Was unconscious, left no message. Glad you aro with them. “John Achorn." Death had released the suit for divorce; it would never be brought, and the vengeance of a crazed brain was over. With a quick beat of his heart Oliver realized Mrs. Minny was free at last; perhaps she could learn to care for him some day—with a swift repulsion as he thought of the dead far across the plains. Yet for once death had been kind to the living, and who was there to mourn Henri de Restaud? His mother died in his boyhood, his father drove him from France, his wife hated and feared him, his child would never see his face, and his servants were only kept by lavish payments. So men may make a mockery of living, a shame of days, may be blots on this fair earth, useless in a useful world, may cause but pain and sadness, and go into eternity more friendless, more wretched in their self-inflicted degradation, than the outcast dog slinking through the alleys of a city. CHAPTER IX. Mr a Minny was oddly pale and quiet when Oliver met her in the hotel parlor. She looked as if she i>*d not slept; and his heart throbbed at the pain he had caused her. Of course she had worried about her strange position and the trouble in Denver on aeoonnt of it

He oonld tell her at least the fear at the divorce was over. Death had settled the case. Yet it was hard to tell her of that death. He hesitated, and talked of the weather. “It is always horrid in Chicago,” she said, mournfully. "I shall hate this hotel, too; they would not let me have Skye in my room; they put him in some cellar, and he was not like himself when I took lfira for a little walk before you came.” Oliver had a bunch of roses he hud bought for htr on his way, but it seemed even heartless to off?? them to such an afflicted being. However, he sat down beside her on the sofa and laid the flowers on her lap. “Thank .you.” she said, mournfully. “I don’t think I ought to wear them. The chambermaid asked me if I was a skirt-dancer. ” The gloom settled on Oliver now. “She was impudent,” he said, crossly. “You see how impossible it is for a young lady to go to hotels alone.” “Well, you didn’t offer to come with me,” she sighed: “you even went to another hotel. Oh, I know! I looked for you in the register.” “You were down in the office?” “I had to go down for my dog and to tell them how mean they were,” Mrs. Minny said, wearily. “And you don’t know what an awful great ghostly room they gave me, full of closets and wardrobes and places for people to hide. I burned the gas all night and I had dreadful dreams.” She bowed her head over the Gowers and sighed again. “Roses make me think of funerals; do they you?” “I am sorry I troubled you with them,” Oliver said, stiffly. “Now .you are cross, and you've got that little wrinkle on your forehead.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “When you are smiling I think you are the kindest friend in the world. I guess I am cross myself. Do you know, I dreamed Henri came into that room last night. The bathroom had a little window looking into the room, and I dreamed he looked through this at me and made dreadful faces. He used

to frighten me that way once” —she blushed and hung her head then, and was silent a moment—“when we were first married, you know. He'd wake me up by staring at me—testing tho power of the eye, he called it. I was afraid, anyway, because my mother had just died, and I had never seen a dead person before. I can see her yet in her coffin, so dreadfully waxen and strange. Henri swore once over the Bible that if he died first he would come back and haunt me. After that dream I couldn’t sleep, but lay shivering with fear until daylight. I must go away from here to-day. Another night in that room would frighten me to death.” She trembled so at the thought, Oliver felt his task doubly difficult. “Don’t you think,” be asked, gently, “that those fears are very childish?” “Of course,” she said, briefly,“l know I am not sensible; you, Aunt Hannah and Dr. John call me frivolous; yet I have tried to do right. I came here on my way to save your good name, and I get scolded. I tried to go home once, the time I was so sick; and even Aunt Hannah said I was brave then. When my horse ran away in Maine I held on, and that red-headed young man said I was game.” She looked at him wickedly out of the corner of her eye. A little smile curved hev pretty mouth as she saw the wrinkle on his forehead. “I wish that you could be serious for a little while,” Oliver muttered. “I want to talk to you about something that concerns your future —something that has happened.” Oliver hesitated now; how could he teU her? She listened with her eyes on the carpet, a doleful expression on her face. He went off on a new tack. In an easy conversational tone he asked: “Would you not like to live in France?” “No,” she said, promptly; “I should hate it.” “Why?” “Because —because,” answered Mrs. Minny, picking viciously at one of her roses, scattering the petals on the floor: “from Henri’s descriptions his relations must be horrid. Then he or they think America queer and not nice; everything is France. I should be mad a hundred times a day. The English up in the park used to say: ‘This blarsted country, you know,’ until I felt like saying: ‘Why don’t you go back to England and stay there?’ To the De Restauds I should be the unpleasant foreigner our poor son married; in my own country I am myself, an American. I think it is very mean of you to talk about my going to France; and if that is the serious thing you needn’t talk any more. If you are going to be horrid I think I shall go out and take my dog for a walk.” How sweet she was in her willfulness! Oliver forgot his errand, looking at the lovely childish face with its pouting mouth and rebellious eyes. “I think you are cruel to my poor rose,” he said, softly. “You are cruel to me.” “Minny,” he drew nearer and took In his firm warm clasp her little hand, “I must tell you something—something that will shock and grieve you. Try and be brave. ”

’•Not the little bebyr* atu pi * •ously. “He is not deadi” “No, no; bat some one is dead —one that you feared, almost hated, andnoit must forgive amt try to think kindly of —tiie man whose name you bear—” She gave a frightened cry and hid her faco against his sleeve. lie could feel her tremble and quiver, but she made no sound. What must he do? Would she faint? How did women act, anyway? He put his arm around the cowering figure and tried to look into her face. She was ghastly pale, in her eyes a cm lous frightened look. “My dream, Mr. Oliver!” she cried, shuddering. “Oh, he will keep his word; he will haunt me always. 1 shall go u.ad from fear. Last night that was him. lie looked just as he used to when he wcko me up making faces. I am all alonrt. What shall I do? Oh, if Aunt HaiTnah were only hero! I could creep up to her in the night. She is so bravo; sh 6 said she wouldn’t be afraid of him, living or dead.” “Minny, you are talking foolishly,’’ said Oliver, sternly. “No dead person comes back. I am ashamed of you. And to be so silly, so heartless, whon that poor soul is lying dead!” “You don’t know anything about the dead; no one docs,” sho gasped. “My grandfather was drowned at sea, and that night lie came and knocked at grandmother's door—liis old knockthree times. Even Aunt Hannah says that story's true. I can’t be sorry—truly, I can’t. 1 was afraid all the time; and he was so dreadful. I gave him all mamma’s, money, and he took her jewels, everything of value. lam not a hypocrite, Mr. Oliver; I can’t make up sorrow just to please you.” “I don't want you to,” lie whispered, close to her ear. They were alone iu a corner of the big room, and no one could see. “I spoke hastily' because I hated to think of that dream and bow 3 r ou would make yourself bellow ho came back.” [TO EH CONTINUED. J

“ I THINK HE IS REALLY GETTING FOND OF YOU.” SHE SAID, TENDERLY.

SHE LOOKED AT HIM WICKEDLY.