VOLUNTARY EXILE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 167, 12 April 1926, Page 7

VOLUNTARY EXILE

BAYARD BROWN'S EARLY ROMANCE REASONS FOR LEAVING AMERICA (Rec. April 11, 5.5 p.m.) London, April 10. The sad story of Bayard Brown’s voluntary exile from his native America reveals that it was the result of an early love romance. On Good Friday, which was an anniversary he always tenderly regarded, he is stated to have had a premonition of death and opened a secret draw, in the Valfrevia’s state-room and withdrew the faded photograph of a woman, to which he applied a match and watched is slowly burn. He then crushed the ashes in the palm of his hand, and virtually did not speak again It is known that the photograph bad been locked in the vacht since arrival in England, and that Brown also frequently gazed upon it in the secrecy of the state-room. When his end was near the only words Brown uttered were: “I am not afraid of death.” A significant action was the gesture of reconciliation with his family, after half a century, bv arranging that his body should be conveyed to' America and buried in his father’s grave. As a youth Bavard Brown was regarded as eccentric, and when he fell in love his eccentricity fell in his way and, he was jilted. Brown felt that his family’s to restrain his original outlook on life was a menace to his freedom, so he left America, vowing he would not return. He remained steadfast, though once lie nearly faltered. He ordered his yacht to sail for America, but t changed his mind when he heard the captain clanging the orders to the engineroom Twenty years ,ago his two sisters journeyed from America, but they were not allowed on board, Brown merelv speaking to them from the taffrail. It is revealed that Brown enjoyed life fullv when young. He was a keen horseman and dancer and was musical. He had constantly lived in fear of visitors to the vacht, and invariablv asked. "Do you bring George or Louis?” Nobody was able to interpret the meaning of the question.— •\u.-N.Z. Cable Assn