Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1888 — ACOQUETTE' SONQUEST [ARTICLE]

ACOQUETTE' SONQUEST

How well I remember the day Philip Darcy came back from Europe, where he had been studying, and hong out his modest little lawyer’s shingle. He had very little money n the world,but it was not very long before rich clients began to flock in and he made a handsome in come. Before he went away he had been very fond of little Mary Gordon, and we all thought he wonld marry her when he returned. Perhaps he might have if he had not fallen under the spell of the most adroit coquette in town, Isabel Harwood,who soon won him away from the old object of his adoration. For once this haughty beauty, who her own afrfl tell desperately in leve with the man she.had only tried to flirt with at first. < - At last Philip. Darcy made up bismind that he would call on Isabel and ask her to be his wife. He had fettled in his mind that he loved Mary Gordon oqjy as a sister. He found his divinity on the night in Jlaeeijori playing with a png dog in the upswing room—a horrid little eur he always disliked. She gave him one look and was frightened. With all her wit and artifice she sought to put off the fateful moment, but she could not With the wild impetuosity of his nature whe, deeply in earnest and exeited, confident too, that the blessed consummation was at hand, he caught her in his ardent embrace, gave her one impassioned kiss, and then asked her to be his wife—to bless him beyond all blessing that man had ever known. He was going on with a picture of his love, when she broke from him and turned and faced him. Sever mind the words she spoke She rejected him—she scorned him— she wondered at his daring and at his selfoonceit. But he did not stop to hear her through. The iron had entered his soul; and in those first few momenta he had seen what manner of woman he had loved. He rushed out into the night—it w£s night everywhere to him —rushed forth as utterly mad as ever man was, Where should he go—what Should he do to subdue the fire that eoEsumed him? _

In ether yean Philip Darey had been beast by one evil habit-the love of strong drink. But he had conquered it nobly—heroically conquered it; and since the day on which ha enteiwi thw office of the egad jurist who had been his first legal tutor he had not touched the, to him, fatal cup. r <. ~ ! Blindly, recklessly, caring for nothing, his life a chaoe, he plunged on, and without a thought—without premediation—he turned into a gorgeously furnished and brillian'ly lighted saloon, where a merry, jovial erew were holding high wassail. Toward morning two of his companions helped him home. Toward noon, on the following day, he -JLawoke andsat up. . It was a considerable time before he him after a time, and it all came back miirwirwinw » m nows The blow had been terrible. There is no need that we should ex-

pose the aadnees, th* Borrow, the dread calamity and the downward, downward course of the next twelve men ths! For one whole year Phillip Darcy drank fearfully. The tears and prayers of his frienda had no effect to roatrain him; no shame, no Buffering, no degradation startled him from the road to utter ruin. Late one evening, as Philip was wandering the streets, not vary badly off, a friend took hifl arm and led him home. As they entered the small receptionropm they heard voices in the drawingroom beyond. |One wav that of the hofl'.est; the other Isabel Marwood’a. Darcy knew it in an instant, and, having heard his own name spoken by tbe lady of the house, he grasped the arm of his friend and held him still. And in a moment more he beard Isabel Mar wood speak these words—they were burned into his brain and he could not forget them: “Yes, I rejected him. And wasn’t it a good thing for me that I did ee? Heavens! what a life for a wife to live. Yet I pity him. Idoceitainly pity him.” Ph ilip threw his friend's arm from him and rushed hem the house, and daylight found him walking not the streets but a quiet secluded cross-road away out in the eountry. She—she—pitied him! She had been fortunate in rejecting him! “Heavens! What a life for a wife to live!” As he kept repeating the words over and over to himself a great horror of his present life rose within him. He resolved to be strong again, and sought the shelter of his friend Archie Gordon’s house.

And thus it came to pass that Mary Gordon became Philip Darcy’s nurse, for he was very i l—almost at death's door—as a result of the course he had pursued; and but for the the tender, watchful, tireless care of Mary he might never have arisen from the couch of suffering. And now, as the conch of suffering became a couch of blessing, he knew which was the true love and which the false. Before he had become strong enough to leave the house the playmate of his childhood, the friend and companion of his youth, his deeply and truly beloved Mary, had promised that if he lived and needed her she would never leave him more. Another thing happened while Philip was an inmate of Archie Gordon’s dwelling—as acceptable as it was unexpected. A man whose paper his father had indorsed for several thousands and which he—the father—had been obliged to honor, had been away in the land of gold, and had gained a new fortune, and full restitution for all the father had lost on his account. So when Philip and Mary were married there was a snug sum of money in the bank for a rainy day. Two years passed and a man came out in society with a “grand splurge.” Arnold Fits Warren he called his name. He carried things with a high hand and cut a wide swath, Isabel Marwood fell into the trap at last. Arnold Fitz Warren must have believed she had money or he never would have bothered himself with marrying her. At all events, he proposed and was accepted, and the marriage speedily followed. J net one week later on and officer made his appearance with awniairi took Arnold Warren’s (the “Fite” had been a.. mere fancy of the moment) splendid equipage for debt And a few days after that, while Isabel’s husband lay in the drawing-room drunk, another officer came with a warrant and took the man himself. Isabel Marwood never saw her husband again, but she occasionally saw Philip Darcy, and saw his happy, blooming wife; and the time came when she looked upon his bright-eyed, beautiful children, and, thus knowing, the years crept upon her apace. What her thqughts—what her feelings—who shall say? ————? ' ■ ' ' -