THE MAN WHO WAS DEAD

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 1 June 1914, Page 3

THE MAN WHO WAS DEAD

Real life has plainly no intention of being outdone in the dramatic by either fiction or the drama. For instance, the other day a grey-haired man knocked at the-door of a flat in "VVilliamsburg, TJ.S.A., arid when a grey-haired woman of his own age opened it, found it hard to control his emotion. "Don't you know me?" he asked. "Don't you know your husband ? I've hunted all over the world for you. and just found you were living." The woman's reply was to throw herself it to the man's arms. The facts that preceded this little drama were these: More than 35 years ago Alfred Welland, then a prosperous British resident of Egypt, became involved in Turkish affairs, and at the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war, enlisted in the Turkish Army under Osman Pasha, who made him an officer. At length news came to' his wife at Cairo that her husband had fallen at Plevna. After a serious illness caused by the news, Mrs Welland and her young son left the country, and, being of independent means, travelled a. good j deal. She visited Australia and finally j settled in the United States. Her son | grew up and married. In the meantime Welland was looking for his wife. He had been left for dead on the field, had been captured by the Russians, and had regained his health so slowly that it was two years after Plevna- that he returned to Cairo. His wife and child, he was told, had gone to Australia, so he followed them there, only to be told that they had left for America. In America he was checked by one of those pieces of misinformation of which the novelist is so fond; He was told that a .woman and a boy answering to his description had died of fever. TJltiTnatelv he went to Canada,, where he did well in business. He seems never to have given up hope, for from time to time he followed clues. At length he received information fror" friends stating; that they Tielieved they had really found his wife, and on going to the •address given, the. door was opened to him by her. That night +bey eet off to Boston to, see their eon. The New York paper tells -that the story rails WellnTvl an Enoch Arden. but he was more fortunate than that very unlucky person.