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Show DAILY j SHORT STORY j .a psoor or. love. . . .. .... . i Howard Roller, manager of the great , manufacturing firm of Halthubef & Co., left the office of Dr. Herz, Ma old achool- ; mate, with an expression of grim determination deter-mination on his handsome face. He had Just heard bis awn sentence of death pronounced and knew, himself to be doomed. Tha news did not come to him as a surprise; he had long suspected It. Now he knew it for certain. , The beginning bad come when he bad ' been forced to ask for a two months' leave of absence because of a weakness of the legs, which bad made it tmpoeel-ble tmpoeel-ble for him to attend to his work in all parts Of the great factory buildings. The head of the firm had been exceedingly exceed-ingly kind to him and expressed the hope that It was nothing more than an attack of rheumatism which would be cured in a few weeks, and had told him not to worry as he granted his demand for a vacation. But would he give him leave of absence for two, three or, maybe, may-be, even ten years? And what was to become of his wife. Hedwlg, whom be loved as sincerely as when ihey were married, fourteen years ago, and of Ernest, his only eon what was to become be-come of them while the husband and father became more and more helpless every day? Ahi he knew what his own fate was to be knew that it would be the aame tragedy which he had seen happen in his parents' housw while he was etlll a boy. How well he remembered how his father, a man of unusual strength, who had never known a day'a sickness, had been brought home in an ambulance one day, struck down by an apoplectic stroke. How he had lived a helpless, paralyzed cripple tor fifteen years, and how his own mother had worked herself to death trying to provide for the whole family. When he was IS years old and had high ambitions of entering college and winning fame and fortune later on as a lawyer, he had been forced to leave high school and go to work for Hal timber tim-ber & Co. Ail his hopes had been crushed out, and still he had been so happy when this chance was offered him to help lighten the burden of his mother. - Mary, his only sister, had died early, because her frail health had been entirely en-tirely ruined by bending over the sewing sew-ing machine twenty hours a day. But the poor palayred father had outlived both wife and daughter, outlived the love of his wife, and his mind had almost al-most given way when he first discovered that even the woman Be had loved was waiting for his death and considered him nothing but a burden. And now this tragedy was to be played once more with other actors. His darling Hedwlg, hfs beloved wife, was to become, as had his mother, the bread winner of the family, in whose bosom love was to be turned slowly into bitterness bit-terness and hatred, and his Ernest, who was already dreaming of studying civil engineering, was to be cruelly disappointed, disap-pointed, as he had been himself, for what little pension he would get from the firm would never pay for hia education educa-tion at college. , The thought of this was more than he could bear; it must never happen. There was another way out of it all. His life was insured, insured very high. It had always been his pride that he wpuld leave his family weU provided " for should he die. How much better would it be were he to die now than in time have his wife look forward to the time when Phe could get the money from the insurance -company which would enable her to live well and send her boy to col-luge. col-luge. It was, after all, the only thing to do under the circumstance. He saw it was his plain duty to commit suicide. He was walking along the canal toward to-ward his home and the black., dirty water seemed to draw him toward it so strongly that he stopped, and, leaning over the railing, began to think. Was he right? Would not his wife and boy suffer more by losing him in this manner and go through the rest of their lives known aa the wife and son of a suicide? Suddenly he had an Idea. His friend, the doctor, had advised him to seek reft in the mountains, and that would give him the opportunity he rought. He was humming merrily when he entered en-tered his house, and smiling told his wife that there was no reason to worry and that the doctor bad told him that there was nothing" the matter with him but a slight attack of rheumatism and that he needed a change of air. He said that at be had leave of absence for two months he would spend the time among the mountains of Switzerland and return re-turn home with new strength to take up his work, and he told with delight of the time when,- as quite young, he used to have quite a reputation as a mountain climber. i The next two weeks Roller was an entirely en-tirely different man. He could speak of nothing but his trip, and hla wife had never seen him as happy as this for many years. The rheumatism seemed almost to have left him when be finally boarded the train which waa to carry him to Lucerne. Every two days after be bad left Mrs. Roller and Ernest received beautiful postal cards from him, and he never forgot to tell how much better he felt already. Then one day came a telegratn that he had fallen Into a crevice in the ice of a glacier near Chamounlx. The -local paper spoke of his rashness in trying try-ing to climb Mont Blanc without a guide, and the head of Halthuber & Co. said to his partners: "Too bad that this should happen to Roller; he must have recovered entirely to have confidence to undertake such a trip alone. Luckily fen- his wife and son, he was nnusually well insured, as one might expect of such a model husband and father." But -his old schoolmate, the doctor, turned pale when he read of the death of his friend. His gold-rlmmed spectacles specta-cles became dim and he mumbled to himself: VPoor old boy There are not many who are thus able to prove the unselfishness of themselves, and no one. but I will ever know how he gave blv, life for those he loved." , 1 ' The tendency of prices on Atlantic liners is to decrease the cost for those who travel by steerage and to Increase . the cost of those who make the voyage first cabin. .T1 f PaJa , "' |