BROKEN-HEARTED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9497, 28 April 1894, Page 2 (Supplement)

BROKEN-HEARTED.

A, WIFE'S PITIFUL LETTERS .READ r ■'■ IN COURT.—*s ;^;: -, In the Divorce Courfa, London,, recently Mr. Frederick Romer, solicitor.'of Bedford Row, obtained a decree nisi with costs, and- £1500 damages. Mr. Nicholas Deyereux, stated to be in the army, was cited as the corepondent. "My wife cold me,'\sftid Mr. Romer, "that she was annoyed with Mrs. Devereux, who was stupidly jealous of her. 1 agreed with her, it was very absurd that Mrs. Devereux should be jealous, and I had no suspicion whatever." Twelve days later the unsuspecting husband went to Brussels, and the day after he arrived there he received a telegram informing him that his wife had eloped with the jealous Mrs. Devereux's husband. The whole story is a sad one. Mr. Romer,* when only 24, married a girl of 18, whom he had known from childhood. For a time they lived very happily together, said Mr. Lockwood in his opening statement, and they became great friends in 1891 with Mr. and Mrs. Deyereux. This name hid the identity of s r A YOUNG AND POPULAR ACTRESS. The two families last year shared a cottage at Henley. Devereux was a man of leisure), but Mr. Romer had to come up to town five days out of the week, and did not get back till seven o'clock. It was in August that Mr. Romer went to Brussels, where he received the crushing intelligence that his wife had eloped with his friend. From that time he had never seen her, but he had from time to time received pitiful letters, appealing for his forgiveness. The first of these come from Paris as early as August 16 :— "I am here in Paris, dying; in misery," Mrs. Romer wrote. "I was taken away by a trick, and drugged, and only oame to myself on the boat, when 1 was told I was being taken to you in Brussels. For God's sake come and take me away, or I shall kill myself. He soys he is taking me from Paris tonight, Ido mot know where. lam in some back street, and have not been allowed to go out or see anyone since I came here. Ido not know where I am going, but put an advertisement in the Daily Telegraph on the chance of my seeing it. He watches me day or night. If I never see you again, do not thiuk me the vile creature you must, but only pity me. I dare eat or drink nothing for fear of being again drugged. Do some thing to get me back, or I shall die.—Yours,, Floriue. He is out and doesn't know I am writing. I have borrowed a stamp." IN ANOTHER LETTER SHE SAID : " I have tried hard not to write to you, but my heart is breaking. I cannot bear you to think me so very bad as they have tried to make me out to be. You would feel sorry for me if you knew all. I know to my bitter cost that I care for you more than for anyone in the world. Come to me if you have a grain of pity in your nature. For my darling little girl's sake, come ! I have sat on the platform of Gower-street station every evening to try to catch a glimpse of you as you pass in the train. Do not refuse to see me! I want you to hear my story from my own lips. I dream every night I am with you all agaiu —and I pray I may never wake. I am not altogether bad—there is some good in me, and there is nothing I would not do to redeem the past. I would lay down my life to have one kind word from you again."

PETITIONER TOOK NO NOTICE of either letter, nor a third, equally despairing in tone, which ran :— " For the love of Heaven, have pity on me and see me. I can't go out of my life without seeing you again. It is killing me. Oh ! Fred, have mercy on me. I have sinned bitterly, but for the sake of our children, and for the sake of what I was, have pity on me. 'fry and think of mo as the girl you married 13 years ago, and not what lam now. I will atone for the past with every (blank) of the future. Think before you send me to a life of shame. For pity's sake see me once again. If I go away and live with aunt Fanny will there be any chance for me?—Florrie. '

How far the wife's allegations were true, said counsel, he would not stop to consider ; bub Devereux had behaved abominably, cruelly, wickedly, to his friend, and ib was quite possible that he might alao have behaved treacherously to this poor woman. Mr. Romer, in claiming damages, sought no personal advantage, bub was only trying to compel Devereux to make provision for his victim. In his evidence Mr. Romer said that he felt it impossible, after the manner in which his wifo had acted, to have anything more to say to her, bub HE WAS ANXIOUS FOR HER FUTURE. In view of that future he claimed damages, though determined that nob a penny of them should ever go into his pocket or the pockets of his children. Whatever the jury might award he would ask to have settled on the respondent. Mr. Deane said that, in addition to the evidence that had been given, he was prepared with proof that at Newhaven, on August 19, 1893, tho corespondent, who had arrived from Dieppe with a lady, left a scrap of paper in his own handwriting containing directions for their luggage to be forwarded to Devonshire; bub as evidence had been given of the identification of the respondent and corespondent at tho hotel, as they were ab the moment he spoke in the corridor of the court, and as inside the court they were represented by counsel who had not asked a single question in cross-examination, he did not think further evidence necessary. Mr. Justice Jeune observed to the jury thab the letters in the case gave him the impression thab Mrs. Romer was a woman who, but for Devereux, might have led a chaste and happy life. The jury found for the petitioner, with £1500 damages.