A VOLUNTARY EXILE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19761, 12 April 1926, Page 9

A VOLUNTARY EXILE

ME BAYARD BROWN’S STORY. DISAPPOINTED IN LOVE. (Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, April 10. (Received April 11, at 5.5 p.m.) The sad story of Mr Bayard Brown’s voluntary exile from his native America, reveals that it was the result of an early love romance. On Good Friday, an anniversay which he always tenderly regarded, he is stated to have had a premonition of death. He opened secret drawer in the Valfreyia’s state room and withdrew the faded photograph of a woman, to which he applied a match and watched it 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 had been locked on the yacht since its arrival in England and that he also frequently gazed upon it in the secrecy of his state room. When the. end 'as near the only words Mr Brown uttered were, “I am not afraid of death.’ A significant action was a gesture of reconciliation with his family after half a century by arranging that his body should be conveyed to America and buried in his father’s grave. As a youth he was regarded as eccentric and when he fell jn love his eccentricity fell in his way and he was jilted. Mr Brown felt that his family’s attempt to restrain his original outlook on life was a menace to his freedom, so he left America, vowing that he would not return He remained steadfast, though once he nearly faltered. He ordered his yacht to sail for America but changed his mind when he heard the captain clangin'' the orders to the engine room. Twenty years ago two of his sisters journeyed from America, but they were not allowed on board, Mr Brown merely speaking to them from the taffrail. It is revealed that he enjoyed life fully when young. He was a keen horseman and dancer and was musical. He had constantly lived in fear of visitors to the yacht and he invariably asked. “Do vou bring George or Louis?” Nobody was able to interpret the meaning of the question. —A. and N.Z. Cable.