Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1881 — TWO SECRETS. [ARTICLE]

TWO SECRETS.

BY SUSAN ARCHER WEISS.

*You don’t mean it, Hetty?” Loyd Button, a Rood looking, manly young fellow, leaning on the halfopen field-gate, looked earnestly in the faee of the of the young girl on tli6 opposite side of the fence. Bhe shrank from meeting his eye as she answered: “I am not accustomed to saying what I don’t mean.” He made no answer. Hetty scratched industriously with a bit of wild rose stem upon the trunk of the beech tree which overshadowed them. Suddenly she discovered that she was unconsciously tracing over the initials L. 6. and H. *W. —the latter her own, cut in the beech bark. She hastily withdrew her hand, and threw away the rose stem. “Do you remember what you said to me, Hetty,the day I cut those letters?’, asked the young man. “Something foolish, I dare say,” she answered, with affected carelessness. “You told me you loved me,”hesaid in a lo w voice. Hetty stooped and plucked a head of clover. “Perhaps I thought so then,” she said, intently examining the blossoms. “And only discovered your mistake wheu this rich popinjay from the city made his apjearance,” said Loyd, bitterly. She looked up with a flash of her dark eyes. She knew very well she . was doing something unworthy of her, and lowering herself in Loyd’s opinion, as well as causing him pain, and his reproach stung her. “I havq a right to like or dislike whom I safd haughtily. He seized an unlucky grasshopper which at that moment lighted near at * hand, and savagely crushed it to death. Hetty looked a s him in surprise. It so unlike Loyd to deliberately hurt «6ything. \ “You are cruel!” she said indignantly. MNot half so cruel as you. Hetty I had no idea you were so heartless and mercenary.” “The word escaped him unawares. Hetty flushed hotly. “If that is your opinion of me you ought to be glad to nave found me~out in ’time,” she said. “Perhaps I ought,” he retorted bitterly. “Then I hope you will be satisfied.as I am!”

She gathered up the skirt of her blue lawn dress and turned away. Loyd passed through the gate and walked by her side along the grassy meadow path. “I didn’t mean to offend you,Hetty,” he said, in a more subdued tone. ‘•I am not offepded. I don’t in the least care for your opinion of me,” replied Hetty, biting her lip end turning away her face that he might not see the tears in her eyes. They had reached a point where the pathway branched right and left, and coming along the latter was a portly, fashionably-dressed middle-aged man, twisting a cane, with which he was decapitating the tali weeds and held ' daisies. On catching sight of Hetty he quickened his Dace.', "Mr. Frisbee will see me home. I won’t trouble you further, Mr. Sutton,” said Hetty, with an air of great dignity, as she took a step, to the left. Now, this left-nand track was the most direct and frequented way to Hetty’s home; but the right-hand pathway, leading along the little stream and aldar-nedge, had ever been the favorite with herselfand Loyd. The young man paused now, and standing just where the two diverged, said, in a low tone, agitated, yet full of decision: “Hetty, decide now, once for all. Will you keep on with me down this path, or will you go with Mr. Frisbee on the other? Choose?” She hesiuted, and her color went and came.; “You have no right to speak to me o.” . , *“I have a right,”Jhe replied, firmly—“the right to know whether the girl I love is false or true.” Hetty, like Loyd, was high-spirited, and his look and tone angered her. “Go your own wav, and I will go mine!” she said, proudly. • And without another word she turned down the pathway by which Mr. Frisbee Vas approaching. Loyd, as he reached the gate, turned back to look at the two figures slowly sauntering along the green meadow. '•‘l could never have dreamed it of her,” he thought. “I believed she

loved me. And to cast me oft for a fellow like that, whose greatest recommendation is his wealth! Oh, that I should have been so mistaken in you!” And Mr. Frisbee, as he walked by Hetty’s side, admiring her girlish beauty and her pretty, coquettish ways, and thinking how he would “show off his young wife among his friend*—did the thought ever occur to him a3~to Loyd, that this girl, young enough to be his daughter, could -possibly iind-nr-him any attraction save his wealth ? But poor Hetty, since her father died bankrupt, had experienced enough of poverty’s ills, and heard enough from her mother and sisters to learn to look upon riches as the key that, could open to her the golden store of life’s pleasures. . . Loyd could give her comfort and competence,-but as Mrs. Fii9bee she would have an elegant city residence, carriage and servants, balls in winter and watering-places in summer, With everything else that she might desire. Not that she was light and frivolous, or longed for mere worldly pleasures; but for the time being the picture had <ioo-7i<ui hf>r «nd in hpr nresent angry and resentful mood against Loya, what wonder that she listened to all that Mr. Friebee had to say, ana before she reached home had accepted the rich widower’s proposal?” And yet somehow Hetty felt in her own heart that this was the 'most miserable evening she had ever spent. As the days went by, Hetty grew no happier in the contemplation of her brilliant prospects. She turned with a species of loathing from the man she had promised to wed, and her heart went out more and more to the lover whom she had discarded.

They sometimes met, but he was distant and proud, and it was not for her to make advances. So she decided to let her engagement become publioly known, and one day went over to Mrs. Sutton’s and asked Sue Sutton, Loyd’s cousin, to be her bridesmaid. “You ought hardly to expect it of me, Hetty,” Sue said, with some spirit. “I think you treated Loyd badly.” “How so?” “Because I know be loved you, and I used to think you loved him. You certainly did behave in a manner'to encourage him.” “Perhaps we were mistaken in fancying that we loved each other.” “If you were mistaken, Loyd wasn’t. I have never seen a person so changed and so unhappy,” said Sue, with tears iu her eves. “He didn’t appear to be unhappy last evening, flirting wfth Josephine Willis.”

“Oh, that was merely put on! She flirted with him, and he humored her, as a blind. I know Loyd—how proud he is, and that he would never allow any one to suspect how he suffers. But when we came home from the narty—where he had heard from Mrs. Carter that you were really engaged to tnat Mr. Frisbee— ob, Hetty, he looked so wretohedly, and we heard him walking up and down his room for hours, and tossing about on his bed 1 I’m certain he did hot sleep a wink all night.” “Where is he now?” asked Hetty, a little tremulously. “1 don’t know. He went out before breakfast, aud I haven’t seen him since. I believe his heart {is broken, and that he will pine away and die, or perhaps take his own life,” said Sue, with tears in her eyes. “And he had been looking at your portrait, Hetty, for I found it on his table, propped up against a book.” “Aly portrait? Why he sent it back to me.”

“Did he? Then this must be a copy. Wait a moment, and I will get it for you to see.” . if Sue was hardJy out of the room, when Hetty heard a well-know step in the ball, and the next moment Loyd himself entered. Instinctively she had draw’ll back, and tbe great book-case screened her from his view. He did not, however, look around, but throwing himself into a chair," leaned back with closed eyes, and seeing him thus she was struck with the change in his appearance. His face was pale, aud bore unmistakable traces of suffering, repressed by the strong will which she knew he possessed. But now, alone as he thought himself, the strain seemed relaxed. He bowed his (ace in his hands and groaned. Hetty’s heart beat fast and the teafs rushed into her eyes. Ob, if be would but bend from that, stubborn pride, she would give up Mr. Frisbee, wealth, everything in the world, for his sake! But for her to make advances— never! -Loyd rose from his seat and walked across the room to tbe book-case. Hetty shrank more closely iuto her corner, and the high-backed arm chair hid her. She heard him rummaging about behind the books on the shelves, and then she saw his arm extended to the light, holding up two glass vials. So near was she that she could distinctly read the labels, on© of which was “Laudanum.” This he thrust into his breast-pocket, and, seizing his hat, turned to leave the room. But at the door he paused, went back to the table, and, scratching a few hurried lines ou a sheet of paper, left it lying open and went out.

Hetty, almost as pale as her lover, instantly *q>rang up, and seizing the paper glanced over it, murmuring brokenly as she read: “Dear Mother: Can no longer bear—agony—seek relief—home tell Johnny—take good care of you—go before you—meet you in—" Hetty was trembling all over; but now a great light, as of a sudden res >lve, dawned upon her pale face, and without a pause she rushed from the room, crossed the lawn, and with light, swift steps followed the retreating figure down the road. She overtook him just as he turned the clump of cedars, near t the stables. Was it there that he desigued to commit this terrible deed? Loyd turned, on hearing her breathlessly call his name. He looked a good deal surprised at seeing her—no longer pale but flushed, and with disordered chestnut curls hanging about her forehead. > “Oh, Loyd, don’t do'it! For my sake, don’t!” J “Hetty,\;what ails you? Don'tdo what?” * “You know; you didn’t see me, but I was in the room when you took—the poison—the laudanum. Oh, Loyd,don’t kill yourself—don’t V’ He looked at her Bteadily, with a curious working of his coutenance. “Why should I not? You would not care,” he said, gloomily.

“lndeid, indeed I should!” she (ebbed.* “Qb, Loyd, I could cot itweultLkill me!” A JP Her pleading, tearful eyes were upturned to his. He looked down into her face for a moment, then took both her hands in his. “Hetty, you are going to be another man’s wife.” • “Never,lLoyd, never! Im? wrong —forgive me!” 1: J [T ‘ ‘ “You don’t mean to say, Hetty,”— his face lighted nti onrer as with trflushof ut*\y lif%—“you dop’t naeaii to say that yoh dp really tpVe me?”: < “Yes/ I do!'~I always *loved you, Loyd. I wouldn’t have told you but for this—but for that horrible poisoD. Give it to me,.Loyd, that I may feel you are safe.” . j He answered by taking her in Uia* arms; There was na one fiijar to sdn, them. Aqd-tbeß-he gave the deadly vial Into her hands, and she flung it as far as she could into the neighboring ifond. “Life is worth living for now, Hetty,” he said, as, with her arm in his, and her hand clasped in his own, they’ walked toward her home. • “But you \yj|l nevor know wlactfc paia I LlHVtt HUfleredT” Most people said that Hetty had done ngnt iu choosing Loyd Sutton, after all; and Mr. Frisbee indignantly went back to the city and consoled himself by selecting as his wife some other youug and pretty woman. His -marriage took the same time with Hetty’s. Some three years after this, Mr. Loyd Sutton, a comfortable and happy looking pater familias, said to his pretty wife: “I believe that any man can keep a secret from his wife; but no woman can keep one from her husband.” “Don’t you, indeed, dear? Now I think the contrary.” He laughed knowingly. “Perhaps I oau oouviuce you. I’ve had a secret from you, Hetty, ever biuce w« were mariied.” “Indeed! Won’t you tell it to me, Loyd?” “Wny, yes, as I don’t seejany reason in keeping it longer to myself. I wouldn’t tell you at first for fear you should feel mortified in knowiug it. Do you remember when you pleaded with me so {earnestly not to take my life? Well, the truth is, I hadn’t the least idea of swallowing thatlaudnum, I merely intended to use it as a remedy for the pain I was suffering from a terrible toothache.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Loyd Sutton, demurely, but with an arch glance of her black eyes. “I knew that all the while, dear. You sete, I read the note you left on the table, telling your mother that the pain was such that you could not wait till to morrow to take her to town, must go at once to see a dentist, and that Johnny would bring her, and you would meet her there. Then I knew what the laudanum was for.’, “Mr. Loyd Sutton opened his eyes very wide, and gave a low whistle. “You, see love,’-’ resumed bis wife, stealing her arm around bis neck, I had no other way of luting you know how I loved you and regretted my folly. It saved us both from being very miserable. But,” with the same arch look, “don’t you think that a woman can keep a secret from her husband as well as can a husband from his vrtfe?” And Loyd Sutton, kissing his wife, haa the manliness to acknowledge kimeelf convinced.