The Trail of the Serpent
By Clara Edna Rosecrans
ARE you going out to-night, Scott?” asked pretty Kathleen Lorimer, as her young husband rose from the supper table and began putting on his overcoat. There was an anxious note in the young wife’s usually cheerful voice—a look of solicitude in her blue eyes that made the man wince as he answered with forced carelessness: “Why, yes, little girl; I promised Jim I’d be down at the store to-night. He wants me to look over the books with him.” Kathleen shivered, the room was warm and bright. “It’s very lonesome here by myself, dear,” she said, looking wistfully into her husband’s handsome, boyish face, which reddened slightly under her gaze. Well he knew in his secret heart that it was not the loneliness that the poor wife dreaded. It was not the mere going away that made the tears start, but the terrible fear of how he might return that grieved her heart. He stood a moment irresolute. “If it’s dreary here at home, let me take you over to your mother’s while I’m out,” he said. Kathleen shook her head. “No,” she said; “it’s you, not mother, that I want for company to-night.” “All right,” he answered lightly. “I’ll promise not to be out long.” So saying, he bent and kissed his wife, and went out. She listened till the last footfall had died, then with a sigh that was almost a groan, went about her work. Scarcely a year had passed since Kathleen Reed had stood at the altar, a happy, contented bride. She knew that Scott drank a little; but like many another fond girl, she was sure he would settle down and make a good husband. Scott Lorimer’s father had died when the son was a mere boy—died in the prime of his manhood, slain, alas, by the terrible habit that was dragging his son down a swift incline to ruin. Not the least part of Scott’s inheritance was the corner drug store, a prosperous business ably managed by a distant relative of his father. Sad indeed was the awakening of Kathleen, when, shortly after her marriage, she discovered that Scott was his own best customer, and that, more and more frequently, as the restraints imposed by the honeymoon wore off, he returned late at night in a state of beastly intoxication. To-night, left alone in the cozy sitting-room, she mended the fire, drew an easy chair to the table, and tried to busy herself with her embroidery. The hours passed leaden-footed. The little clock on the mantel chimed eight, nine, and ten. When at last it struck eleven, Kathleen arose and wrapped a dark shawl around her, over her neat house dress. Taking a lantern from behind the kitchen door, she lighted it and went out into the darkness. What need to describe that fearsome journey through the dark, deserted streets of the country town; or the condition in which she found her husband; or the terrible humiliation of the proud, girlish heart, as she saw her loved one, his reason dethroned, his manhood debased, by the terrible fiend of drink? What need to tell it all, when it has been written over and over again in the heart’s blood of the best and noblest of our land? That was not the last journey of a similar nature that the poor wife made. Night after night, as the midnight hour drew on, might she be seen stealing forth into the darkness to lead her erring husband home. Poverty she never knew. That last bitter drop in the cup of the drunkard’s wife was spared her. Tho she never complained, one could see that the heart was bleeding inwardly day by day. The light went out of her eyes, and the pretty flush from her cheek. She drooped like one overburdened. Thus three years passed away—years of slow, heart-breaking sorrow to the once happy wife; of slow downward progress for the husband. Then suddenly the end came: Scott was smitten with typhoid fever, and lived only two weeks. There was no hope for him from the first. His constitution, tho naturally strong, had been ruined by drink; his stomach had been literally burned up, his physicians said. Never have I witnessed with a sadder heart the passage of a funeral train, for I had known him as a prattling baby, as a handsome schoolboy, and as a young man. Girls, this is a true story, which might be duplicated in many a village and city all over the land. Take warning, therefore, you who perchance are just entering upon the witching days of courtship. Beware lest you give your hearts where your reason and conscience may not follow. Be sure that the youth upon whom you bestow your heart’s best affections has given his heart to God, and is thus stayed against the terrible temptations that lie about his path. So shall you be happy in your love. So also shall you build a home that shall be a shadow of that blessed and everlasting home above.