TRAGIC ROMANCE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 4130, 30 October 1920, Page 1

TRAGIC ROMANCE.

FOUND LIFE EMi'TY WITHOUT SWEETHEART. That there is abundant truth in the old maxim: "The course of true lovo never runs smooth," has been brought home in vivid 'fu&h'OJi to two young Italian lovers, whose secret .romance has ended in tragedy. It was a case of the rich sudtor,'the girl of humble station and forbidding parents, and a sensation has been caused by the sad ending of the aifair. The young swain was v -highlyplaeed official in the Ministry. of Pensions named Guipeppe Gradinetti. i A member of tlie most elegant clubs in Rome, where he was highly respected, the young officer for some time past had been completely enamoured of Signorina Maria Labroca,. a beautiful Italian girl, living in a poor quarter of Rome. Alaria returned the officer's love, and there began an idyll which gained in strength during long walks in the environs of the capital. They became engaged, but the officer hesitated to inform his people because he feaxed their opposition to the marriage. The two continued to meet clandestinel- until one day the girl's mother learned of the secret engagement, and, doubting the intentions of the highly-placed official towards so obviously a poou girl, she forbade her daughter to see her lover again. A promise was given, but it was soon broken, and tho mother was again informed of Maria's long secret walks with her lover. Determined to end what she described as "a dishonest intrigue," she locked her daughter in the house. Alaria implored her mother to have faith in her lover, but, realising .her mother's obduracy, and that it would be impossible to gain her consent. Mania, wrote' to Sigtior Gradinetti begging him not. to try and see her again. Gradinetti refused the request, and in his attempts to see Alaxia he even forced an entry into her house. But, at last, convinced of the impossibility of overcoming the opposition of his own parents and the prejudice against him of Alalia's mother, Gradinteti with expressive .sadness wrote, "Why live? There is nothing left." Then, in his room, after .addressing letters to "The Mother of Maria," to his father, to a friend, ■ and to "Alia. Ala via," he shot himself as an "everlasting protest against parental interference."