A TRAGIC STORY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2722, 29 January 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

A TRAGIC STORY.

One might be inclined to doubt whether anything as melodramatic as the stories recounted by Air E. Phillips Oppenheim could occur iti real life, but the author declares that his .most sensational plots have- been taken from, actual fact. A certain cosmopolitan little restaurant in Paris furnished him with the plot of one novel, and a dancing-hall with another very tragic story. I was told the following incident which (says Air Opperiheim) had also come under the personal notice of my informer. To a certain dancing-liall,-well-known and very -popular at that time with the students in Paris, there came, ono night, a girl whose appearance and every movement clearly demonstrated that she was not one of the regular habitues. Night after night she appeared as though she were looking for someone, who-m slie never found. At length, one evening, a man entered with a party of friends. He had the face of a saint, and the heart of a fiend. Everybody knew his reputation, and everyone shuddered when, after looking at her for a moment, he went up and spoke to the girl. He was the first stranger sho had ever allowed to address her. tSlhe talked earnestly to liim for a long time. The frequenters of the place were all deeply moved at the episode, for they wanted to tell her what sort of a man he was, yet, for some reason, no one dared to do so. She left the hall with the man, and many weeks passed before she returned . AVlien she did return, someone found out her story. .She was an artist with a groat gift and a high degree of technical skill. One summer night she had been taken to a dance at one of these halls, and had stayed on until late in the morning, when, suddenly, one of the dancers pulled uj> tbe blind of a window which faced tho east. The sun had already risen, and the daylight came streaming into the room, producing an indescribably dramatic contrast to the electric light, the n - en and women in evening dress, the halfdrunk wine on tho refreshment tables, and the floors strewn with cigarette ash. The play of the two conflicting lights and the whole incongruity of the scene, had inspired her to paint a picture, which she determined to call, “The Lifting of the Blind.” Her reason for haunting this dancing-hall was to fi.-uf, among the habitues, someone with the exact type of spiritual face she desired to serve as a model for the man she wanted to represent in the act of lifting the blind and letting in the light of day. Tho whole idea, as you see, was an intensely poetic and imaginative one, and was full of a deep significance. AVell, having found that man, the girl painted her picture, but she had to pay for her association with him. Night after night, after her first return, she appeared in the dancing-hall, still with hungry eyes as though looking for someone to come. At length he came. It was the man with the face of the saint and the heart of the fiend. As soon as he appeared, she rose from where she avas sitting, and drawing a revolver from her dress, she pointed at him, and fired. He fell dead almost at her feet. Then the whole story came out. What happened to her? I believe she was imprisoned for a short time. It was so dramatic an incident in real life that I had to use it-, and I wrote it as a story almost as it was told to me.