Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1893 — Page 2

The Yellow Mask.

Part Second. CHAPTER I.— Continued. “But how did she first get the advantage of you?” “If I had found out, she would never have succeeded where I failed. AU I know is, that she had more opportunities of seeing hitn than I. and that she used them cunningly enough .even to deceive me. While I thought I was gaining ground with Fabio, I was actually losing it. My first susEicions Were excited by a change in >uca Lomi's conduct toward me. He grew cold, neglectful—at last absolutely rude. I was resolved not to see this; but accident soon obliged me to open my eyes. One morning I heard Fabio and Maddalena talking of me when they imagined I had left the studio. I can't repeat their words, especially hers. The blood flies into my head, and the cold catches me at the heart, when 1 only think of them. It will be enough if I tell you that he laughed at me, and that she —” “Hush! not so loud. There are other .people lodging in the house. Never mind about telling me.what you heard; it only irritates you to no purpose. I can guess that they had discovered —” •"Through her—remember, all through her!" . “Yes, yes, I understand- They had discovered a great deal more than you ever intended them to know, and all through her.” • “But for the priest, Virginia, I should have been openly insulted and driven from their doors. He had insisted on their behaving with decent civility towards me. They said he was afraid of me, and laughed at the notion of his trying to make me afraid too. That was the last thing I heard. The fury I was in, and the necessity of keeping it down, almost suffocated me. 1 turned round to leave the place for ever, when, who should I see, standing close behind me, but Father Rocco. He must have discovered in my face that I knew all, but he took no notice of it. He only asked, in his usual quiet, polite way, if I was looking for anything I had lost, and if he could help me. I managed to thank him, and to get to the door. He opened it for me respectfully, and bowed; he treated me like a lady to the last! It was evening when i left the studio in that way. The next morning I threw up my situation, and turned my back on Pisa. Now you know everything.” “Did you hear of the marriage? or di? you only assume from what you knew that it would take place?” ‘‘l heard of it six months ago. A man came to sing in the chorus at our theatre who had been employed some time before at the grand Concert give on the occasion of the marriage. But let us drop the subject now. lamin a fever already with talking of it You are in a bad situation here, my dear; I declare your room is almost stifling.” “Shall I open the other window?” “No; let us go out and get a breath of air by the river-side. Come, take your hood and fan; it is getting dark —nobody will see us, and we can come* back here, if you like in half an hour.” Mademoiselle Virginie acceded to her friend’s wish rather reluctantly. They walked toward the river. The sun was down, and the sudden night of Italy was gathering fast. Although Brigida did not sav another word on the subject of Fabio or his wife, she led the way to the bank of the Arno, on which the young nobleman’s palace stood. Just as they got near the great door of entrance, a sedan-chair, approaching in the opposite direction, was set down before it; and a footman, after a moment’s conference with a lady inside the chair, advanced to the porter’s lodge in the courtyard. Leaving her friend to go on, Brigida slipped in after the servant by the open wicket, and concealed herself in the shadow Cast by the great closed gates. “The Marchesa Melani, to inquire how the Countess D’Ascoli and the infant are this evening,” said the footman. “My mistress has not changed at all for the better since the morning,” answered the porter. “The child is doing quite well.” The footman went back to the sedan chair; then returned to the porter's lodge. “The Marchesa desires me to ask if fresh medical advice has-been sent for," he said. “Another doctor has arrived from Florence to-day,” replied the porter. Mademoiselle Virginia, missing her friend suddenly, turned back toward the palace to look after her, and was rather surprised to see Brigida slip out of the wicket gate. There were two oil lamps burning on pillars outside the doorway, and their light, glancing on the Italian's face, as she passed under them, showed that she was smiling. CHAPTER 11. While the Marchesa Melani was making inquiries at the palace gate Fabio was sitting alone inthe room which his wife usually occupied when she was in health. It was her favorite r join, and had been prettily decorated, by her own desire, with hangings in yellow satin and furniture of the same color. Fabio was .now waiting in it, to hear the report |of the doctors after their evening visit

BY WILKIE COLLINS.

Although Maddalena Lomihadnot been his first love, and although lie had married her under circumstances which are generally and rightly considered to afford few chances of lasting happiness in wedded life, still they had lived together through the oneyear of their union tranquilly, if not fondly. She had molded herself wisely to his peculiar humors, had made’ the most of his easy disposition, and. when her quick temper had got the better of her, had seldom hesitated in her cooler moments to acknowledge that she had been wrong. She had been extravagant; it is true, and had irritated him by fits of unreasonable jealousy; but these were faults not to be thought of now. He could only remember that she was the motherot his child, and that she lay iH —but two rooms away from him—dangerously ill, as the doctors had unwillingly confessed on that very day. The darkness was closing in upon him, and he took up his hand-bell to ring for lights. When the servant entered there was genuine sorrow, in his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he inquired for news “from the sick-room. The man only answered that his mistress was still asleep, and then withdrew’, after first leaving a sealed letter on the table by his master’s side. Fabio summoned him back into the room, and asked when the letter had arrived. He replied that it had been delivered at the palace two days since, and that he had observed it lying unopened on a desk in his master’s study. Left alone again, Fabio remembered that the letter had arrived at a time when the first dangerous symptoms of his wife’s illness had declared themselves, and that he had thrown it aside, after observing the address to be in a handwriting unknown to him. In his present state of suspense any occupation was better than sitting idle. So he took up the letter w’ith a sigh, broke the seal and turned inquiringly to the name signed at the end. It was “Nanina.” He started and changed color. “A letter from her,” he whispered to himself. ' Why does it come at such a time as this?" His face grew paler, and the letter trembled in his fingers. Those superstitious feelings which he had ascribed to the nursery influences of his childhood, when Father Rocco charged him with them in the studio, seemed to be overcoming him now. He hesitated, and listened anxiously in the direction of his wife’s bedroom before reading the. letter. Was its arrival ominous of good or evil? That was the thought in his heart as he drew the lamp near to him and looked at the first lines. “Am I wrong in writing to you?” (the letter began abruptly). “If I am, you have but to throw this little leaf of paper into the fire, and to think no more of it after it is burned up and gonp. I can never reproach you for treating my letter in that way, for we are never likely to meet again. '‘Why did I go away? Only to save you from the consequences of marrying a poor girl who was not fit to become your wife. It almost broke my heart to leave you, for I had nothing to keep up my courage but the remembrance that I was going away for your sake. I had to think of that morning and night—to think of it always, or I am afraid I should havo faltered in my resolution and have gone back to Pisa. I longed so

much at first to see you once moreonly to tell you that Nanina was not heartless and ungrateful, and that i you might pity her and think kindly of her, though you might love her no longer. “Only to tell you that? If I had been a lady I might have told you in a letter; but I had never learned to write, and I could not prevail upon myself to get others to take the pen for me. All that I could do was to learn secretly how to write with my own hand. It was long, long work; but the uppermost thought in my heart was always the thought of justifying myself to you, and that made me patient and persevering. I learned at last to write so as not to be ashamed of myself, or to make you ashamed of me. I began a letter —my first letter —to you; but I heard of your marriage before it was done, and then had to tear the paper up and put the pen down again. “I had no right to come between you and your wife, even with sb little a thing &b a letter; I had no right to do anything but hope and pray for your happiness. Are you happy? lam sure you ought to be; for how can your wife help loving you? “It is very hard for me to explain why I havp ventured on writing now, and yet I can’t think that I am doing wrong. I heard a few days ago (for I have a friend at Pisa who keeps me informed, by my own desire of all the pleasant changes in your life) —I heard of your child being born; and I thought myself, after that, justified at last in writing to you. No letter from me, at such a time as this, Can rob yourchild’s mother of so much as a thought of yours that is due her. Thus, at least, it seems to me. I wish so well to your child, that I cannot surfely be doing wrong in writing these lines. * “I have said already what I wanted to say—what I have been longing to say, for a whole year past. I have told you why I left Pisa; and have, perhans, persuaded you that I have

gone through some suffering, and borne some heart aches for your sake. Have I more to write? Only a word or two, to tell you that I am earning my bread, as I always wish to earn it, quietly at home—at least at what I must call home now. - 1 am living with reputable people, and I want for nothing. La Biondella has grown much; she would hardly be obliged to get on your knee to kiss you now; and she can plait her din-ner-mats faster and more neatly than ever. Our old dog is with us, and has learned twouiew tricks; but you can’t be expected to remember him, although you are the only stranger I ever saw him take kindly to at first. “It is time I finished. If you have read this letter through to the end. I am sure you will excuse me if I have written it badly. There is no date to it, because I feel that it is safest and best for both of us that you should know nothing of where I am living. I bless you and pray for you, and bid you affectionately farewell:. If you can think of me as a -sister, think of me sometimes still.” Fabio sighed bitterly as he read the letter. “Why,” he whispered to himself, “why does it come at such a time as this, when I cannot, dare not think of her?” As he slowly folded the letter up, the tears came into his eyes, and he half raised the paper tcThis lips. At the same moment someone knocked at the door of the room. He started and felt himself changing color guiltily as one of his servants entered. “My mistress*is awake,” the man said, with a very grave face and a very constrained manner; “and the gentlemen in attendance desired me to say —” He was interrupted, before he could give his message, by one of the medical men, who followed him into the room. “I wish I had better news to communicate,” began the doctor gently. “She is worse, then?” said Fabio, sinking back into the chair fromwhich he had risen the moment before. “She has awakened weaker instead of stronger after her sleep,” returned the doctor evasively. “I never like to give up all hope until, the very last, but—” “It is cruel not to be candid with • him,” interposed another voice—the voice of the doctor from Florence, who had just entered the room. “Strengthen yourself to bear the worst,” he continued, addressing himself to Fabio. “She is dying. Can you compose yourself enough to go to her bedside?” Pale and speechless, Fabio rose from his chair, and made a sign in thb affirmative. He trembled so that the doctor who had first spoken was obliged to lead him out of the room. ‘■‘Your mistress has some relations in Pisa, has she not?” said the doctor from Florence, appealing to the servant who waited near him. “Her father, sir, Signor Luca Lomi; and her uncle, Father Rocco,” answered the man. “They were here all through the day, until my mistress fell asleep. ” — “ + PoydU kn O w whore to find them now?” “Signor Luca told me he should be at his studio, and Father Rocco said I might find him at his lodgings.” “Send for i them both directly. Stay, who is your mistress’s confessor? He ought, to be summoned without loss of time.” “My mistress’s confessor is Father Rocco, sir.” “Very well—send or go yourself, at once. Even minutes may be of importance now.” Saying this, the doctor turned away, and sat down to wait for any last demands on his services, in the chair which Fabio had just left.

CHAPTER 111. Before the servant could get to the priest’s lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father Rocco himself. This favored guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed for the third time when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence, “Rather an awkward business,” replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. “The dressmaker named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife’s protection about a year ago ” “What of her?” inquired the priest eagerly. “I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at everybody.” “When did they go?” “Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you were so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the disagreeable dog—" “Where have they gone to? Have you found out that?" “I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence; but what particular part of the city they have removed to I have not yet had time to discover." 5 “And pray, why did they ■ leave you, in the first place? Nania is not a girl to do anything without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it?” The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow. “You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself

when you first brought Nanlna io our house?” he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke. “Yes; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not suspect you. It was just possible at that time that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it; And everything depended on her remaining in Florence. I think now that I, did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all impossibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on.” ' ‘ You remember, ” resumed the little man, “that the first consequence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learning to write?” - “Yes; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing, but to wait and see if she turned her kuowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You in formed me in your regular monthly report, that she never did anything of the kind. ” - . /;. ~— “Never, until three days ago; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter which she dropped into the box. ” “And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house?” “Unfortunately JI did not,” answered the little man, reddening and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive severe reprimand. But father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she written to? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, before sending him a letter? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written? ‘‘l regret not discovering the address —regret it most deeply,” said the little man with a low bow of apology. “It is too late for regret," said Father. Rocco coldly. “Tell me how she came to leave your house; I have not heard that yet. Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the., bedside of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have all my attention; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible,” “I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have—or rather had —an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business. ” The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously. “Inthe second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina.” Father Rocco’started, and listened

eagerly. “But I must do the girl justice to Say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement; and that. Whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him.” “A good girl!” said Father Rocco. “I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her.” “Among the other offenses,” continued the little man, “of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers.” “They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that.” “Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these private papers?” “Unfortunately they were. Pray, excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again. ” “Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused; it cun only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl?” “I infer as much; though why he should do so —” “Simpleton! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?” “Yes, I said that, and I know’ it to betrue.” “Well! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any impression on the girl’s fancy, to establish some claim to her gratitude and try if he could not win her that way? By showing her my letters he would make her indebted to him,for knowing that she was watched ia your house. But this is not the matter in question now. You say you infey that she had seen ray letters. On what grounds?” ” “On the strength of this bit of paper,” answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from his pocket, “She must have had your ting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the tabic.” (to be continued.) The most noted Chinese doctor in the country has just died in San Francisco, He was Li Po Tai. He came from Canton about 1850 and built up a large practice, having white people os well as his own countrymen for patients. The EmEeror a few years ago sent him the ighest Chinese medical diploma.

THE WORLD’S FAIR.

A Few of Its Wonders—Pennsylvania’s Pyramid of Coal. In the exact center of the Mines Building is a tall needle of anthracite coal from the Mammoth vein of Pennsylvania. It is a part of the State exhibit. Fifty-four feet high -it stands, and in the mass are nine-ty-five tons. The foundation goes through the floor. The mass is ten fen feet square. The cap was put on and the needle completed Thursday. It cost 110,000 to get up the pyramid. The bottom layer is from the bottom of the coal vein, the second layer is from the second layer in the coal vein, and so on to the top. There are six car-loads of it in all. How many men and women are prepared to believe that a fabric, as soft and pliable as silk, with a gloss and texture rivaling the weaver’s art, can be spun and woven of glass? Not many, doubtless, yet it is actually being done every day at the Exposition. The glass-worker who blows and twists and shapes into all sorts of fantastic and ingen-

PENNSYLVANIA'S NEEDLE OF COAL.

ious forms, souvenirs of the Fair, is a familial’ feature of every exhibition. The man who engraves your name on a mug or goblet “while you wait” is an annual attraction at all the shows, but the glass-spinner who draws over a wheel that looks like an old-fashioned bicycle with a wide tire a thread fine and elastic as a silkworm’s web is a decided novelty, and the weaver whose deft fingers toss the bobbin back and forth in the loom, fashioning the crystal threads into a cloth of surpassing fineness, is almost new in the realm of industrial art. In the whole exposition, wonderful as it is in all departments, there is no illustration of progress more interesting than the magic transformation of sand into this cloth of glass and its manipulation into hundreds of ornamental uses. In making this new art a prominent object lesson in their model glass works the Libby Glass Company, of Toledo, O.,have afforded the public a chance of viewing one of the most astonishing achievements of modern handicraft. The ceiling of their showroom has been adorned with a glass tapestry at the cost of SIO,OOO. Nothing like it in interior decoration has been seen before. Articles of furniture, small tapestries, table scarfs, lamp shades, and other objects made of this rare fabric are displayed, beautiful in design and rich in color. This exhibit is a favorite resort of the ladies, who flock to it daily in constantly increasing numbers. Owing to the superior quality of ’their ware the Libby Glass Company were allowed the exclusive privilege

LIBBY GLASS WORKS.

jf constructing and operating a cutglass factory on the Exposition grounds and they evidently intended to leave a lasting impression on the minds of all. The building, the surroundings of which are elaborately ornamented, cost over $125,000, and is equipped with the best machinery and appliances. Over two hundred skilled operators are employed and the expenses exceed SI,OOO per day. Every process of glass working is carried on before the admiring gaze of visitors, from the great furnaces and crucibles containing the molten metal, red with heat, to the shapely crystal pieces cut and polished into the dazzle of the diamond. So interesting is each stage of the work that the visitor is loth to leave the fascinating place. Some of the finished pieces of cut glass are finer and handsomer than any yet shown in this country, and cannot be exceeded by any European artisan. Since the opening of the exposition more than one-third of all the visitors have passed through the turnstiles at. the entrance to the glass factory. Five thousand can be accommodated at one time, yet so great has been the patronage that Mr. s Libby has been compiled to charge a nominal admission fee of 10 cents in order to prevent overcrowding, but each visitor receives a souvenir in glass. It is not too much to say that one-half the whole num-

ber who attend the Fair will visit this marvelous exhibit. ■ ’ The Company will show in their exhibit at the Columbian Exposition a great number of interesting original manuscripts and drawings for important illustrations in the Century and St. Nicholas. Manuscript poems by Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier and Bryant will appear in the St. Nicholas exhibit, with the manuscript of the first chapter of “Little Lord Fauntleroy,” by Mrs. Burnett, and original stories by other well-known

THE FIRST TYPEWRITER. [Patent Office exhibit.]

writers. The originals of famous letters and documents quoted in Messrs. Nicolay and Hay’s “Life ol Lincoln” will be shown, including a certificate of a road survey made by Lincoln in 1834, with bill for his services at $3 a day, the letter of the committee apprising Mr. Lincoln ol his first nomination for the presidency and his reply, the corrected copy of his inaugural address, from which he read, March 4, 1861, the original draft of his proclamation calling for 75,000 men, drafts of important messages to Congress, as submitted to the Cabinet, Mr. Lincoln’s written speech on Kenting Grant his commission as ;enant-general, and the autograph copy, in pencil, of General Grant’s reply. Letters from General Grant to the editors of tbe Century regarding his papers for ths War Series — the last from Mt. McGregor will be exhibited, with original manuscripts by General McClellan, Joseph E. Johnston, and others. The Century Company will show also how an illustration is prepared for the magazine, from the artist's drawing to the printed page, by wood-engraving, and by various photo-engraving processes; how the ‘‘Century Dictionary” was made,

THE FERRIS REVOLVING WHEEL.

with copies of the earliest English dictionaries, and manuscripts and proofs of the “Century Dictionary," in various stages. This exhibit, with that of other publishers, will be found in the north gallery of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building

PEOPLE.

Rev. Thomas Spurgeon will sail from Auckland, New Zealand, for San Francisco on May 20. He will pass several days in Chicago, and will assist Dwight L. Moody in his evangelical work in that city, Rev. William C. Winslow, of Boston, the eminent archaeologist, has been elected an honorary fellow of of the Society of Science and Arts of Great Britain on account of his valuable labor as an orientalist. The only surviving officeholder under Jackson’s administration is said to be Judge Benjamin Patton, who was at that time United States district attorney. He was present at Cleveland’s inauguration, though he is eighty-four years old. He lives quietly on his great estate of nearly two thousand acres, known as Fontland, near Picksville, O. . Admiral Blake, the hero after whom the flag-ship of the English fleet in this country is named, did not become a sailor until he was fifty yeare old, but made up for lost time when he did.

Novel Railroad.

Rocky Mountain News. The cut below represents one ol the most unique street cars to. be found anywhere in the Western (Country. It is run on Col. Jay Cook, Jr.’s line on Thirty-fourth avenue, running through his addition and connecting with the City Cable Welton street line. The cut repre-

sents this horse and gravity car on the way down hill, the speed being regulated by the brakeman. The horse draws the car up hill and thein gets in rides back, to the great amusement and 'delight of the passengers. The line is well patronized, especially by ladies and children, who much enjoy the novel spectacle.