The Other Woman's Hand

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 364, 30 April 1903, Page 8

The Other Woman's Hand

v A Stadicd Offense **d Its Penally.

THE young man who would make for himself a name and fame goes •Mat. By tbe same token, he who would hide those both betakes himself «*Mt. Henesly went west because the girl 1m was in love with jilted him, out of fcans, for a richer fellow, and he was very hard hit. He went west and was lost to sight, and tbe places where he had been knew him no more. If anyone chanced to mention bim to the girl, •he smiled the smile of pitjing contempt, which is most women's tribute to the memory of a man they have treated abominably, and said: "Poor Diek." She was as mean as she was beautiful—which is not the fairy-tale formula; but she got her punishment in the end —which is. ' This is how it came about: Circumstances and physicians over Which she had.no control sent the rich man she had married—whose name was Kent—to spend a season on the Pacific •oast. Kent's fancy lighted upon a seaport town, the only objects of interest In which were a break-water, in course •f construction, and a spit of land upon which, tourists were assured, the skeletons of dead and gone pirates might yet be dug up. Xeither these fcor the adjoining shipping village, Which only awaited the appropriation of a delinquent congress to become the harbor of the Pacific ■lope, offered to Mrs. Kent that variety and excitement which alone could make existence palatable to her. So she decided that if there •rere to be ;any such, they must come from within herself. Therefore, as the most unlikely thing that she could happen upon, she determined to try what it might be like to lead that which is known as a normal and healthy life—going to bed when the frogs began to sing in the dismal marshes about, and getting up with the sun. "1 will take plenty of exercise," she explained to her husband; "I will row for a couple of hours before breakfast, on the lagoon, I think." She experienced some real enthusiasm about it at this point. Kent did not. He foresaw the disturbance of his own comfort, which was not greatly considered at the best of times, and he tried to discourage her; but without success. At daybrrak she made her way across the strip of land that divided the lagoon and tbe sea. The holds and cottages faced the sea, but the lagoon »>s the inner harbor, and there were upon . it only wharves and rickety bucthouses and fishermen's huts. It was Cot exactly a picturesque outlook, ordinarily, but tbe sunrise lights cast a •ort of .<braour over it now. Even thr deep. N»o*e sand was cool and tinted, and a!I :rnced over with fine cabalistic lines "Jure the lizards had dragged their Irlls and no one had as yet atepper!. I.at»r on. it would be blistering bo: 31. d the marsh weeds would give • u: y t-iroking smell; but this early, their? Xv.-.u rfytliowant! pink blossoms had a fr sfi and pungent scent. She .*;•! • >ve dapath that led to a rough hoard *i;r»ck. staniling i>n stilts over tbe *bb-n le mud. where a sign advertised thr.. boats w«-rt builded a:;d for rent. W'un she stopped in the sinaK doorway, her figure .-.hut cut most of the ittjht. and she could barely disc* r; the man whri was moving about ir..-.iue. He cantt ti>viard her. Her back was to the low ra;. s of the sun, so her face was in the blackness,and only hrr form.was as g i«tening white as the Angel of Ap^rr.l.pse. Had he a row-boat, she asked; one no: too and with oars "of a moderate sw.ti:? He was taciturn—a ''or.g-sh.-tr- character, probably—for he did ; dt even answer, only took a pair if .peon oars from their r3ck on the wa!i, ...J led the way out to the landing pier. She followed, running against strange shapes of wood, and nitmbltng over piles of lumber in the glr.om. When they were out on the landing, he turned about and faced l.er suddenly. She was quite close behind him, and she gave a quick start back. "I thought so," he said, srteadily; "I Ihonrht the voice was like yours." He had had that much warning, hut *he lad had none at all, and it might hav« been a full two seconds heforc she got control of herself. Then the bvr.aty of the situation and all its possibilities floated upon her suddenly, r::d she decided that her movement of inpuise had been the best she could lave made. So she followed it up. She shrank back into the doorway farther still. "Richard!" she said, cowering. He stood resting upon the oars and ■scrutinizing her stolidly. He flattered that he was calm, not to say Mrs. Kent had a deeper than aurjy** sight. She knew that he appeared cool for very much the same Mason that a circular saw appears •till whpn it is going fast enough. For herself and for the major pnrt of mankind she was a rtry light scoffer at love; but she was no such fool as not to know that the heart which has truly lored and never forgets does have ita existence in the fl"sh as well as is. the lines of Krin's bard. So, summing up the sitnat'on with the aid- of observations upon hrs character, made rather exhaustively some five years gone by. she came to the conclusion th.a| when she should be ready, U Would take perhaps half as hour a t •ide to h.-ve him at her feet a* a «___ Henesly spoke at last. «Y ott your work pretty thoroughly you were about it, you see " V , s "I we:.l to the devil £J * *ome:hmg less than a y. ir , Ve7 ', marnerf a Portuguese Bsfe-^iJ

I was drunk, and she and I are living together in that shanty ever there.' He nodded in the direction of a little unpainted board shack some 50 yards off among the sands. Mr*. Kent covered Iter face with her palms while she gained time to try and think of something as dramatic and concise. But her own appearanca did not lend itself to narrative of the kind. She made a broken murmur, vague with hints of awr own deep wretchedness, do instead. Henesly did not answer; only turned on hie heel and led the way to the landing steps. Be wai there to help her out when the came baek. When she aaked if ahc might use the boat next morning he told her yes. He explained it to himself as being proper pride, and that aha should not fancy him afraid. After • day or two he altered the explanation to that it couldn't matter any way, and often that he did not try'to •xplain. He let things go. At this point ehe lingered, sitting upon the keel of a yawl up for repairs, and talked about herself in hopeless vein. The ensuing steps were talk about himself. He responded fairly easily, and showed hie drawings, hie tools and the new gasoline engine band mw which was his especial pride. He taught her how to start the engine up, and to cut along traced lines through the hardest wood with the toothed band of steel. It was inevitable, thereafter, that they should—having had herself and himself—come to themselves-. And when that happened—it was about the tenth day of her "normal and healthy" life —much more did as well. So that when she started to go at last, and stood, beautiful, in the midst of all the roughness around, his head went completely, and he caught her hand against hie lip* and held it there. It was delight and bliss and temporary oblivion to him. It was the success of an experiment with her, and the point beyond which she did not mean to go, for her wisdom was of this world. But to Maria, Henesly'* Portuguese wife —who was under the boathouse, peering up through a knothole—lt was rage and jealousy of a very savage kind. She had had her suspicions of the woman who came so often and for so long at break of day, and now she wae verifying them. As for what they said, the two, she could neither hear nor understand all-of that. Her English was limited. But she saw Henesly kissing the shapely hand, and there was nothing incomprehensible about that.

If Henesly lad had the slightest idea of what Maria had seen, he would have been justified in being uneasy and in recalling the warning of one of those poets of hi» better days, anent mute natures which punish you in deeds. For Maria made no sign at all. She only waited her time. It came very soon. That same night Henesly was called upon to repair the hull of a launch, and he had to be up until long past midnight, working with lanterns, to take advantage of the tide. The consequence was that he overslept himself the next day. Maria, however, did not. She arose early and went out. When Mrs. Kent came, humming a snatch of song that she knew would be calculated to awaken memories in Henesly, Maria was hidden behind a pile of lumber in tbe dark corner where the gasoline engine was, lying in wait, with a big knife up her sleeve. Mrs. Kent had no suspicion of that. She wandered around the boathouse, playing with various things, and finally, aa the time grew long, she went over to the corner and amused herself by starting the band-saw up, as Henesly had shown her how to do. The gasoline engine began to spit and hiss, and the shiny contrivances, whose names she did not know, to clatter and turn. The saw-edged ban<S itself began to whir so very fast that it seemed to be'quite still. She held a scrap of wood against it and watched It cut Bmoothly in two without a jar. When she looked up she could see Henesly hurry over along the path through the dune* from his shack She stopped playing with the saw, and stood waiting for him, beginning the strain of song again. Her hand was lying dose to the moving band. Maria raise* herself up in the shadow and looked at it. It was so white, so small, so near the turning saw. It wa» the same hand that Henesly had kissed the day before.

The whir of the machinery was in Mrs. Kent's ears. The light of the low rays falling through the open door was in her eyes. She did not hear t>' e boards- behind her creak. She did. not see that some one w a » eominp-nearer and nearer, with hot eyes, watching that white and careless >, ail( j The engine was spiting and clattering unconcernedly wh en Henesly stepped into the, pl ace , an d in the gloomy corner, near it, something white a nd huddled was on the floor It wjis a woman's figure fallen on the face and with arms thrown out 0 n the end of one arm there wat a hand On that of the other—there w a , none' Mrs. Kent's tale, to Henesly and to' her husband, was never quite clear Perhaps she had moved; perhaps *>' had swayed; perhaps some on» , a ® pushed her arm against the. *r „? had thought that some «,»* " w " Shß past her, just as she *e*» - had 8 on * and, besides,, the ha. B d ied and '•o— - go.oe v ■ cut oleßn »* * h *

And W „ never saw \r °' WR « B° nß - Henesly as. he saV '" r a S sin - But that ni S ht dropped < l!one ln his cabin, his head earned on n ' s *°l a,< * arml i a voice . .n at the window above his head .ne in with the croaking aong of i frogs in the swamp outside and with the drifts of the thick, gray fog. "Kess it," It said from vacancy, almost in his ear; "kess it, ef you like to, now." And something fell on the table near bis forehead, with a thud. He groped and touched it. It was soft I and cold. He felt it over. It was, u small, stiff hand.—San Frane&to A*> gonaut.