MERCILESS REVENGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

MERCILESS REVENGE.

LOVE-SCORNED HEIRESS. SHOP ASSISTANT FIANCE. WOMAN'S HEART OF STONE. When a woman plans revenge, she plans thoroughly. Revenge is the one dominating thought in her life; she pursues it with a mercilcssncss and an energy that transform her into a veritable Fury. And when that lust for revenge is prompted by wounded vanity and a spurned offer of her love, it has as its aim the utter ruin of the man who has rejected her.

The most terrible case of this sort, writes Sir Wm. Thomas, in "The People," came to my notice some years ago, and all I could do was to look on and pity the poor man who had got into the toils. The daughter of a rich client of mine fell madly in love with an assistant in an oilshop. Despite her father's appeals and bis threats to cut her off with the proverbial shilling she remained firm in her determination to marry the shopman. He had been talked over by her, and in turn refused to listen to reason.

I made inquiries and discovered that the young man had thrown over a pretty girl from his own station in life to become engaged to the rich man's beautiful heiress, lie was a keen mechanic and fired with an ambition to enter the motor trade. .•

Hβ was not in love witli the rich girl. That was proved by the ease with which 1 bought him off. The price was £1000, gladly paid by the father. The shop assistant wrote to the rich girL breaking oft' the engagement. All she said was that he would probably regret it. She resumed her normal life, and the 6hop assistant married his original love. His Luck Turned. T -, the young man, started a garage in the South Midlands, and did very well. He whs happy and well pleased with life, but within a year of his marriage his luck began to change. He was ambitious —as he had always been—and agreed to amalgamate his business with that of a rival garage owner. Under the scheme he received the smaller percentage of the profits. The joint business began to fail, mainly because the grandiose and unsound schemes of the senior partner invariably ended in disaster. More capital was required, and as the young man had no more money this additional capital was always found by the senior partner, with a resultant decrease in young T 's share of the profits.

Eventually the business went smash, and as a result young T became a bankrupt. But his ill-luck did not end there. Some months afterwards his wife died in childbirth, and he was left alone in the world, hopeless, and with nothing but a £3 a week job as a mechanic in a garage.

She Proposed,

One clay a luxurious car drove up to the garage and from it descended Miss M , the girl he had thrown over. She told him that she had from the first been responsible for his ill luck, that the rival garage which had amalgamated with hia own was one owned by her, and the "proprietor" had been in her employ. Then with all the assurance in the world she proposed that they should marry. Her offer was alluring. She had beauty; fihe had wealth—her father had died and left her all his money—and she offered him release from his. povertystricken life as a mechanic. He was lured into marriage. And then the second act of this drama of revenge was staged. T 's life became- a hell upon earth. He never had money; his wife heaped on him all the indignities' she could think of. She insulted him before the servants; treated him worse than a dog; and robbed him of any little contentment he had had, eTen in the garage. He became sour, bad-tempered, miserable. And when his wife died she left him not a penny—only a cheap sneer in her will at the way she had trapped him. T had eix years of that marriage misery. He was a broken, dispirited man ever afterwards. For nearly ten years the beauty woman with the heart of stone had usST him as $. tool—a tool to be the whims of her revengeful fancy. It was an illustration of the old saying with the modern touch—a woman scorned never forgivcis.