A ROMANTIC DOUBLE SUICIDE. Two Lovors Despairingly Gamble for Love and Life; Losing, They Die Togethor. (From Our Special Correspondent.) London, February.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 352, 20 March 1889, Page 3

A ROMANTIC DOUBLE SUICIDE. Two Lovors Despairingly Gamble for Love and Life; Losing, They Die Togethor. (From Our Special Correspondent.) London, February.

Tiicnii have been sundry vague references in the newspapcis to an alleged double suicide of a romantic nature at Monte Carlo, bub till Ceo. K. Sims (who is e>tnyi ing at Nico with the dandy bookmaker, Lance Logan) inquired into the matter, and told the sad story in last Saturday's 'Referee, 1 no one had any idea whab a | truly rainful and sensational affair ib was. j 1 Dagonet ' w rites : — There has been a real suicide at Monte Carlo. Ab the time that the a Hair occurred I was in Nice, but, information of an official character having reached me, 1 determined to set out ab once for the scene of the tragedy and mako myself master of the details. There is nothing more difficult than to ariive at the facts connected with Monte Carlo scandals. Everything that is unpleasant, or that is likely to incieate the prejudice against the pastime of the Principality, is hushed up with tho skill which comes of long practue in the ai b of concealment. Writing bo r ore I have had an opportunity of seeing the London papers, I cannot say what veisions, if any, have leached the metropolis, bub you can rely upon it tbab the stoiy which 1 am about bo tell you contains tho absolute facts as to * the romantic suicides ab Monte Carlo.' Ifc was on Monday that I went over from Nice to Monaco to conduct my investigation. On Sunday I was s othcrv i&o engaged,' and, moreover, 1 thought it bobter to let a little time elapse, bo that the authorities themr,el\cs should have an oppoibuniby of getting tho information which ib was my intention to ' tap' in ttans- | mission. When I arrived in Monte Carlo, tho h'i\?b person I met was an oflicial of bhe Adminis bration, %\ho, in leply to my queries, profes.^ed absolute ignoiance of any suicide having taken place ab all. I then found an official of bhe Principality, and boldly told him my business. I wib polite, aid he was polite, bub he told me candidly that ib was nob his d?she to tell me more than he could help. * These libb'e affairs,' he said, 'do us no good here, and we should be considered to be acting prejndichlly to the interests we represent if we gave bo a foreign journalist bhe materials for a sensational article on a, Monte Cailo suicide. 1 thanked the gentleman for his plainness, and pressed him no further. If 1 were to tell you the difficulties I had in collecting a few .simple facts, if I were to describe the various artifices which were used to put moon a false scunb, you would have some difficulty in crediting raj' narrative. Let me therefoie content myself with stating that I did geb full intoiirmtion ab la=b. bub I only did it on giving my distinct assurances that I would nob mention the name of any one of my informants. The place at which the suicide was committed was a small house situated in the Condainine ab Monaco. In front ot it an Italian labouier was ab work in the street. With this man I engaged in conversation, and asked him it he hf.d heard of a young couple committing suicide The reply was, ' I know nothing.' Then I told him what I knew, and rattled .some loose silver in try pocket. *Ah, as the Signor knows so much ib cannot matter whab I tell him,' said the man, and then ho pointed out to me the window of tho room in which the young couple had come to their end. ' Ah, I saw them often,' he said,' this last few days, while I was ab work on the road heie. They used to c. mo out arm-in-arm. They weie very loving, and I .said to myself, 'Id is a newly-maiiied couple.' Ha\ing fixed the position of the loom well in my eye, I entered the hotel, und found it practically empty. The proprietress came out to receise me. 1 explained bhab I was looking for rooms for some friends of mine. Could I see which apartments wete vacant. ? ' Yes, certa nly. 1 I was taken into most of the rooms, but none suited until I found myself in bhe apartment of the romantic suicide. I said nothing to the lady, nor she to mo. The room was a small but comfortable one. Two wooden beds stood side by side. These wcie the beds un which two days previously bhe lovers had stretched themselves to die. The sun shone in ab bhe opan window ; the blue Mediterranean glinted below, and as far as the eye could see all was peace and beauty, and the joyousness of life. It was from bhese windows thab bhe young couple had taken their la?b look upon earth. They had looked out upon the sunny land and bhe deep blue sea with a fixed purpose of self-desbruction in their hearts — with the letter already written which was to tell their friends the story of their last days. It was bo this pleasanb little room in w Inch I stood that they returned on the last night together, with their last hope gone, with the knowledge in their heaibs thab when the sun lose again over bhe palm groves and oiango trees and the white cliffs and smiling seas they would have pa?sed from tin's woild to Eternity. What a last walk in the moonlight that must have been .'--the man of twenty-nine, the woman ot nineteen — lovers, fugitives from their homes — she a married woman, he a married man, and But lee me tell it you, beginning, middle, and end— this pcifecb French tragedy, this cuiious study of mora's and manners ab Monte Carlo, this romance of bhe passions, this libtle life-drama taken ' palpibabing' from bhe pages of bhe modern JBouleyard novelist. A young mnrtied man of Lyonb fell in love with a young married woman. They met secretly, adored each other, and agreed to fly together — to pub the seas between themselves and their families. But bheie was a slight difficulty in tho way. They had very little money for a long journey, and they wanted to be far, far away — in America for choice. Then the idea came to the man that they would take their small capital of a few hundred francs and go to Monte Carlo, and make it into a fortune which would enable them to live in peace and plenty on the faf-ofF shore. So it came bhat one day, with a small box and a portmanteau, the fugitives arrived at Monte Carlo, and pub up in this litblo hotel, where for Bfr. a day you can have bed and board. They had only a few hundred francs with them. In the letter which bhey have lefb behind bhey explained thab from the first their arrangements were complete. They foresaw tho pos&ibilibies of bhe sibuabion. They would play unbil they had won enough to go bo America, or they would lose all. And if they lost all they would die together, and give their friends no furbher trouble about them. They were only a few days in Monte Carlo. They risked their louis only a few at a time, and they spent the remainder ot the days and evenings in strolling about tho romantic glades and quiet pathways of the beautiful gardens, whispering together of love, and looking into each other's eyes. The end came quickly. One evening they went up in the soft moonlight to the fairyland of Monte Carlo. They entered the Casino. They had come to their last

tew golden coins. One by ono the croupier's remorseless rake swept them away, and then the lovers went out of the [ hot, crowded rooms, out from tho glare of the chandoliers and tho swinging lamps, inLo the tender moonlight again. Down •'the staircase of Fortune" arm in arm they went, along the glorious marble torraces that look upon the &ea, on to where at tho foot of tho great rock on which Monaco stands there lies the Condamine. It was their iast walk together. The lovers were going home to die. That night, in some way which I was unable to ascertain, the guilty and ruined man and woman obtained some charcoal and got it into their bed-room. They then closed tho windows and doors, and piepared for death. They wrote a letter— a letter which an official assured me was so touching that, as he road it in the room whore they lay dead, the tears ran down his cheeks. Then the girl — she was but a girl — dressed herself in snowy whito, and placed in her breast a sweet bouquet- of violets. Then the charcoal was lighted, and the lovers laid themselves out for death, side by side, and paa ed dreamily into sleep, fioin sleep to death, and from death to judgment. These aro the facts of « The Romantic Suicide at Monte Carlo.' It is not a moral story; it is not a now story. I havo (old it pimply as it happened.