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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1903)
cdy With a Tragic Interlude by Cyrus Townsend Brady ft ! (Copyright. 19C9, by T. C. McClure.) CHAPTER I. Ilero Venn dntlrnai. F THERE wa any perron that Miss Fanny Olen especially de tested and to whom she was de termined she would not submit. It wag a masterful man. And If there ever waa If appearances counted for anything a masterful man on earth, cer tainly Rhtt Bempland, at that moment, waa he. The contrast between the two waa amus ing, or would have been had not the at mosphere been no surcharged with passion ate feeling, for nhett Bempland waa six feet high If he waa an Inch, while Fanny Glen by a Procrustean extension of herself could just manage to cover the five-foot mark; yet such waa the spirit permeating the smaller figure that there seemed to be no great disparity, from the standpoint of . combatants, between them after all. Rhett Bempland was deeply In love with Miss Fanny Olen. Ills full consciousness of that fact shaded his attempted mastery by ever so little. He was sure f the state of his affections and by that knowledge the weaker, for Fanny Olen. was not at all sure that she was In love with Rhett Bempland. That Is to say, she had not yet realized It; per haps better, she had not yet admitted the existence of a reciprocal passion in her own breast to that she had long since learned had sprung up In his. By just that lack of admission she was stronger than he for the moment. When she discovered the un doubted fact that she did love Rhett Bemp land her views on tho mastery of man would probably alter at least for a timet love, In Its freshness, would make her a willing slave; for how long, events only could determine. For some women a life time, for others an hour only can elapse before the chains turn from adornments to shackles. The anger that Miss Fanny Glen felt at this particular moment gave her a tem porary reassuransce as to some questions which had agitated her how much rhe cared, after all. for Lieutenant Rhett Bemoland. and did ahe like him hattu Major Harry LacyT Both questions were Instantly decided In the negative for the ttme being. She hated Rhett Bempland. per contra, at that moment, she loved Harry Lacy. For Harry Lacy waa he about whom the difference began. Rhett Bempland, confident of his own affection and hopeful as to hers, had attempted, with masculine futility and obtuseneaa, to prohibit the further attentions of Harry Lacy. Just as good blood, au fond, ran In Harry Lacy's veins as In Rhett Bempland's, but Lacy, following In the . footsteeps of his ancestors, had mixed his with the water that Is not water because It la fire. He "crooked the pregnant hinges" of the elbow without oesaatlon, many a time and oft, and all the rices as they usually do followed en train. One of tho oldest names tn the Carolines had been dragged In tho dust by this latest degenerate scion there of. Nay, In that dust Lacy had wal lowedshameless, persistent, beast-like. To Lacy, therefore, the civil war came as a godsend, as It had to man7 another man In like circumstances, for It. afforded an other and more congenial outlet for the wild passion beating out from his heart. The war sang to him of arms and men aye, as war has sung since Trola's day, of women, too. He did not give over the habits of a life time, which, though short, had been hard, but he leavened them, temporarily obliter ated them even, by splendid feats of arms. Fortune was kind to him. Opportunity mtled upon him. Was ft running the blockade off Charleston, or passing through the enemy's lines with dispatches In Vir ginia, or heading a desperate attack on Little Round Top In Pennsylvania, he al ways won the plaudits of -men, often the love of women. And In It all seemed to bear a charmed life. When the people saw him Intoxicated on the streets of Charleston that winter of t3 they remembered that he was a hero; when some of his more frightful transgres sions came to llRht. they recalled some splendid feat of arms, and condoned what before they had censured. ' How he happened to be In Charleston w.i because he had been shot to pieces at Gettysburg' and had been sent down there to Aim. But die he would not. at least -mw ' ; Iff f i 'fw FANNT OLRN LOOKKD FROM ONE TO THE OTHER. 6HJ0 COULD NOT BPKAK. BIIH WAS TOO CONSCIOUS OF THAT BTEKN IRON F1UURB. not then. He would not have eared much about living, for he realised that, when the war was over, he would speedily sink back to that lovel to which he habitually descended, there being nothing to engage his energies, but his acquaintance with Miss Fanny Glen had altered him. Lacy met her In the hospital and there he loved her. Rhett Bempland met her In a hospital also. Poor Bempland had been captured In an obscure skirmish late In 1861. Through some hitch In the matter ha had been held prisoner In the north untjl the close of 1863, when he had been exchanged and, wretchedly 111, he had com back to Charleston, like Lacy, to die. He had found no opportunity for dis tinction of any sort. There was no glory about his situation, but prison life and fretting had made htm show what he had suffered. At the hospital, then, like Lacy, he, too, had fallen In love with Miss Fanny Glen. By rights the -hero, not of this story, perhaps, but the real hero, was much the handsomer of the two It is always so In romances, and romances good ones, that Is are the reflex of life. Such a combina tion of manly beauty with unshakable courage and reckless audacity was not often seen as Laey exhibited. Bempland was homely. Lacy had French and Irish blood In him, and he showed It. Bempland was a mixture of sturdy Dutch and Eng lish stock. Tet If women found Lacy charming they Instinctively depended upon Bempland. There was something thor oughly attractive In Bempland, and Fanny Glen unconsciously fell under the spell of his strong personality. The lasting Im pression which the gaiety and passionate abandon of Lacy could not make, Bemp land had effected, and the girl was already powerfully under hta Influence stubbornly resistant nevertheless. She was fond of both men. She loved Lacy for the dangers he had passed, and Bempland because she could not help It, which marks the relative quality of her affections. Which one she loved the better until the moment at which the story opens she could not have told. Nobody knew anything about Fanny. Glen. At least there were two facts only in possession of the general public con-, ce ruing her. These, however, were suffi cient. One was that she was good. The men In the hospital called her an angel. The other was that she was beautiful. The women of the city could not exactly see why the men thought so. which was con firmation strong as proofs of Holy Wrltl She had come to Charleston at the out break of the war accompanied by an eld erly woman of unexceptional manner and appearance who called herself Miss Lucy Glen, and described herself as Miss Fanny Glen's aunt. They had taken a house in the fashionable quarter of the city they were not poor at any rate and had In stalled themselves therein with their slaves. They made no attempt to enter Into tho social life of the city and only became prominent when Charleston began to feel acutely the hardships of the war which It had done more than any other section to promote. Then Fanny Glen showed her quality. A. vast hospital was established and the young women of the city voluntered their services. The corps of nurses was in a state of constant fluxion. Individuals came and went. Some of them married patients, some of them died with them, but Fanny Glen abided. Not merely because she stayed while oth ers did not, but perhaps on account of her innate capacity, as well as her tactful ten derness, she became the chief of the women attached to the hospital. Many a sick soldier lived to love her. Many another, more sorely stricken, died blessing her. ' In Charleston she was regarded as next in importance to the general who cons-