TRAGEDY OF LOVE

Hokitika Guardian, 30 September 1926, Page 4

TRAGEDY OF LOVE

BERLIN, Aug. 10. For five days all Germany has been enthralled by the terrible tale of love, passion, jealousy, and death unfolded | during the trial at Fraiikfort-on-Main of Sister Williohnine Elessa. a hospital nurse, for the murder of Dr. Seitz. Sister Flessa is a tiny creature with a dead-white face and black hair, who ■looks as if a breath of wind would blow her a Way, but all through the trial she fought for her life with the courage of a lioness. That she shot Dr Seitz, the man who was to her the whole of life, she did not deny, but she maintained that she had only meant to wound him so that lie would have to lie abed for a fortnight, when she wcir'.d be lat his side and he would have time to think and come to a decision about their future. The low"!* court had already c"i! r, " r'ted her of murder and she appealed against that sentence. Sister Flessa is 35. and a womm who yearned for a touch of romance to bring colour into her drab life. All her yearning for love concentrated in the doctor, whom she met in the corftse of her professional duties —a stout, ordinary man of 40, who was married And divorced many yeaft ago. Were thVe two ever lovers? That is a question which was never answered. Sister Flessa declared that she

was tho doctor’s mistress. ' Did sf-e speak the truth, or was it a point 01 pride with this plain, forlorn little creature to make the world believe that she attracted and * fascinated a .man of the world ? The doctor had tiaken her for walks and to-the theatre. From pity or because he loved her; • who knows? His friends who. gave evidence declared that Sister Flessa was not the type of woman who attracted him and showed that there was a wompn whom he feared. He had spoken of a woman who told him thfit she longed lor a child and desired him to he its father. “That woman will be my ilite,” ho had said to more than one. \\ as lie beset by a love-sick woman or was he trying to escape from an entanglement which had been passing amusement to him and all life to Sister Flessa ? Here again the question received no answer from tho Frankfort court. “I HAVE SHOT HIM.” One thing is certain. There was a day last October when Sister Flessa waited on the staircase of the doctor’s flat ami when lie came out shot at him tlirire with a revolver ami killed him. When tho inhabitants of the house rushed to find out what had happened they found the nurse hv the dead man’s side with his head resting on her lap. ‘‘l have islvH him, hut I ilitl 11() * mean to.” slu-j moaned, and begged those around to fetch a doctor. “Help, help,” she cried. “f will not l un away. 1 onlv wanted to 1 tighten him. You do not know what it is when one loves a man.” , . . Before her nwful deed Sister Floss-c----had made a discovery. She had foil ml that the doctor was going to marry the daughter of a woman whom she was nursing. This girl, chainiing ami pretty, ('mu- to court to give evidence. hut the judge spared the two women from seeing each other. Sister Flessa was taken out of court while the girl. who. according to her sterv, had robbed her of her lover and whom she had robbed of a husband. gave evidence. , The Public Prosecutor dropped tlie charge- of murder ngainst Sister I<lessa, and the court convicted her yesterday of manslaughter. She was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour. M lien she heard the sentence the tmv, frail woman rose and her sharp, disogreeulilc voice cut the air in shrill wares of despair mnl vengeance. “Forty vears or seven.” she said, “it* all t no s-une.” and turning to the Dublin Prosecutor she looked at him with concentrated malignity and cried: “I will be even with you yet.”