BOBBED HAIR TRAGEDY

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12526, 16 August 1926, Page 4

BOBBED HAIR TRAGEDY

DRIVES MAN TO SUICIDE WIFE’S SACRIFICE OF RICH TRESSES HUSBAND’S FATE Madam© C —wo will call her that, though that is not her rfeal name—had many virtues and one glory. When she married the little Lyons engineer there were many who counted her fortunate, for he was a sffcftdy-going, hard-working, clever craftsman, but there were many more who counted him thrice blessed on his choice of wife. Yvonne —again wo will hide her identity, for no blame in the matter of which we are to tell can rest upon her—came to the little house in the little street that henceforth was to be her home, armed cap a pie with all the arts of a thrifty French housewife. No one could make a soup so delicious as Yvonne, no curtains were so spotless as those with which Y’yonne draped . her windows, no tilbd floor so clean, no stove so highly burnished, no 0110 who knew so well the value of a franc. And with all these virtues, which indeed you will say are the virtues of countless Yvonnes, went a quickness of spirit, a tender heart, a guileless soul, and the love common to all women of a good gossip. CROWN OF GLORY But though, knowing Yvonne, one may speak in these terms of high praise which may call forth ridicule from the sceptical ones of the world, one can declaim without fear of contradiction upon the glory which lay in her burnished hair. Surely never was such a glory on a woman’s head since the days of our first mother. Those who know of her as a neighbour, and as a friend, could admire from afar those coiled wide strands of gold that reflected back the light of the sun, or shone softly, lustrous in the light, of the oil' lamp swinging from monsieur’s ceiling. It could not bo with such a crowning diadem that Yvonne did not draw to her side admirers in plenty like moths to the candle flame, except that hero the simile is not exact, for Yvonne was too kindly, too loyal to the man whose name she bore to lure only to scorch and burn. Indeed, it may he said that. admiration passed over her. Certain it is that from the day monsieur, her husband, took lior from her home', Ins oridc, to tho day on which she fast saw him her child-like simplicity of heart was untarnished, and the glory of which others spoke might not have been licrs for all tlio account she took of it. FAREWELL LETTER How else could it be if one must explain the sacrifice upon which Yvonne had decided. “Why not?” she must have said when asked if she really laid decided to have hei tresses shorn. And though to her interrogators she would not have clothed these thoughts ill words, to herself she must have said “My heart is one with that of monsieur, my husband. What is a head of hair to a mail who has my whole love, my whole life, my limitless dc.votion ?” So would say Y'vonne in the simplicity ol her heart. But what of monsieur? Truly lie loved his wife. Had lie not had' cause to bless her devotion? In sickness had she not ministered unto liiin In health who more blessed in the choice of a mate to walk with, to talk with; to share in one's inmost secrets J Thus would you say monsieur the

husband would answer. Not so. Th* answer was found on the railway line. Monsieur had sought death, and. his last written words were: ‘‘l Cannot bear the sight of Yvonne with her 1 locks shorn like a man.” Tragedy? Farce? Who can hold the balance? These are the facts tw I have them of the little Lyons engineer to whom a bobbed head was unendurable.