And then the two lines of the story that appeared at the very bottom, where the paper folded under the edge of the jug:
New York, February 1. (Special to Tribune.)—As a distinct surprise in élite circles will come the announcement of the engage
He tilted the jug in frenzied eagerness to absorb every detail of the bitter news, and was confronted by the rough, stone bottom which had worn through the covering, leaving mangled shreds of paper, whose rolled and mutilated edges were undecipherable.
Vainly he tried to restore the tattered remnants, but soon abandoned the hopeless task and sat staring at the head-lines.
Over and over again he read them as if to grasp their significance, and then, with a full realization of their import, he closed his eyes and sat long amid the crumbled ruin of his hopes.
For he had hoped. In spite of the scorn in her voice as she dismissed him, and the bitter resentment of his own parting words, he loved her; and upon the foundation of this love he had builded the hope of its fulfillment.
A hope that one day he would return to her, clean and strong in the strength of achievement, and that his great passion would beat down the barrier and he would claim her as of right.
Suddenly he realized that as much as upon the solid foundation of his own great love, the hope depended upon the false substructure of her love for him.
And the false substructure had crumbled at the test. She loved another; had suddenly become as unattainable as the stars—and was lost to him forever.
The discovery brought no poignant pain, no stabbing agony of a fresh heart-wound; but worse—the dull, deep, soul-hurt of annihilation; the hurt that damns men's lives.