SHRINE OF A LOST LOVE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 835, 13 October 1916, Page 4

SHRINE OF A LOST LOVE.

HOUSE TENANTLESS FOR 45 YEARS. Number I'.* Queen's Gate. Kensington, lias been stricken and tenantless for over 40 years. Now a part of il lias collapsed and killed two workmen who were making some alterations, and at the inquest at Westminster yesterday an old romance was revived bv Mr Bingham, appearing for the widows of the workmen, says the "Daily Mail," of August 2.'!. He told how -lf> years ago a happy lover built Xo 19 for his bride-to-be.. On the eve of the wedding she eloped with his brother, and No 1!) was left ready for the home-coming, empty, while the faithful lover waited for her repentance and return. She never came, and by and by the man placed a caretaker in charge, and never afterwards entered the house except to pay this woman's wages. From that day until now. when the house has passed into other hands, not a thing was done to keep the place in oriler. Sorrow brooded in the empty rooms, and gossip pointed to the dreary monument until the story became common talk for a lime ami then dropped out of memory. "What has happened to the bride — retribution?" asked the coroner yesterday. Mr Bingham: 1 am not instructed. All the information forthcoming was that the man who all these years had been content to leave Xo 19 tenantless, merely to shrine a precious memory, had died, ami the property had been sold by the executors. But, of the loved one ami the faithless brother and the course of their romance there was no word.