Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 21 And the young wife sobbingly told |her story. "And now, dear Mrs. Woodward,'' she hispered, "I am here to ask you to keep your promise. You told me that fef ever I needed help, I— I was to come to you. Oh, and I do need help— I must have help— and I have come to you !" "Now, my dear Grace, sit down and calm yourself," said Mrs. Woodward. "Of course you shall have help. Yes, yes, I know that I told you to come to me. But, my child, have you thought well of the consequences? What does your husband think?" "He — he does not know," replied the young wife, in : _a tone that was scarcely audible. "I have not told him." Mrs. Woodward shook her fat head. "But do you think it 'wise? Do you think it prudent?" she asked mildly. "Wise ! Prudent ! What ' have I to do with wisdom or prudence?" cried the younger woman, her whole : attitude changing from \ shrinking timidity to almost fierce anger and defiance. "Is he to suffer for me? Is it his life from which all the freedom and happiness is to be shut out? | Xo, no, he would welcome it gladly. It is his great hope — a child to inherit his name and fortune ! But what would he pay of the price? Will he bear/ any of the pain? Will his life !i be changed in any one particular? But what of mine?" She stood now with her hands tightly clenched at her sides, her eyes flashing, her breast heaving, her whole being radiating a violent anger. "But what of my life? I am young. I love living — living in the world, the world of pleasure and joy and happiness ; the world of theaters and dances and dinners and dresses and shops — not shut in between the four walls of a nursery ! Have I thought of the consequences? Aye! But what are the consequences in the balance against what he would make my loss? Oh, I hate him!" Her unnatural passion expended, she sank exhausted into a chair, covered her beautiful, almost childish face with her hands, and rocked herself back and forth in a paroxysm of unrighteous grief. When Grace Catherwood reached her home again she retired at once to her own apartments, and, dismissing her maid, locked herself into her bed cham For a moment she wavered. She felt she was growing weak ber. There she drew a small bottle from her chatelaine bag. She had gained what she had sought ! For a long time she sat with the bottle in her hands, gazing at it with feelings strangely contradictory. At first there was the sense of an uplifted burden that had borne hard upon her. She was to be free! Free to enjoy that life for which she was willing to barter her very soul ! Free as the honey bee to flit from flower to flower of the garden of life, sipping their sweetness, but without the bee's thought of the morrow. For the bee gayly gathers the sweets of the bright summer to store away for the long, dark days of winter. But Grace Catherwood knew nothing of the winter of life. To her it had always been one splendid summer of sunshine and happiness. She placed the bottle on a table, and, having laid aside her street dress, slipped on a soft, clinging house gown. Then once again she took the precious bottle, which, when she uncorked it, was to release a little devil that would dispel the loweringcloud which threatened to darken her butterfly existence, and a glass of water. And then there came other thoughts — thoughts of the soul that was seeking through her to enter the gates of that life that she loved so well, and from which she wished to shut it out ! Thoughts of her husband she loved so well and thought she hated so much ; of the wrong she was about to do him. For a moment she wavered. She felt that she was growing weak — that a cold fear of what she was about to do was creeping over her. She wrenched the cork from the bottle almost in a frenzy. It seemed to her that days must have passed when she again returned to consciousness. What had happened? She seemed to feel very ill. Then she recognized the face of the old family physician bending over her. He was looking very grave, and shr.king his head sadly. She tried to speak, but found that she was too weak. What had happened to her? Suddenly she remembered the bottle that was to have made her free. That was it, of course, and she had been very ill. But it was all over now, and she would soon get well again — and live once more that life she loved so well ! Then her eyes wandered, a little farther. She saw her husband sitting at the