WIFE'S STRANGE STORY.

Western Star, 8 December 1933, Page 4

WIFE'S STRANGE STORY.

KEEPING HUSBAND'S SECRET. SILENCE FOR SIXTEEN YEARS. To-day I " sat in a little house in Brighton and heard a true story, yet one as strange as any of the fantasies of Edgar Allan Poe, ■ recently said a Sunday "Express correspondent. The narrator was a slight-little woman in her fifties, with burning eyes. .She is Mrs Annie M'Awley, who has just heard of her husband's death, after 16 iyears' absence from her. Now she has revealed the secret history of their married life. . •

"My husband was wild andUncontrollable,' Mrs M'Awley said. "I loved him but he always caused me anxiety. ] When, he had been drinking he was mad, desperate. After we had been married a little while I became aware that he- had a dreadful secret. I will not tell you how 1 knew, nor what that secret was, but it was. a .terrible thing—something he had done 26 years ago. It was not murder, and it was not theft. With all his failings my husband was an honest man. ;

"My burden of secret knowledge nearly drove me mad. Day and night I carried it, unforgettable. I kept it to myself for 10 years. Then, 16 years ago an incident led to a discussion in which I let my husband know that I knew his secret. I could see by his face that, he was surprised. ('I assured my husband that his secret was safe with.me, > whatever happened, but on the Sunday he said good-bye to our , five children.:. ~ the youngest not 18 months old. We never, saw erch other again. I have always doped he would come back. He said he would when he was 60, and. I have never locked my door in case he kept his word, and wandered home again.

"My children never knew. There was only one other '.living person who shp.red our knowldge. She was an rid,: old woman, and for yeai-3 I gave i-er i? orey and kept her from want to, ensure her silence. At last she is dead, and I aicne in the world know.

"Nothing in the world would make me divulge that secret, for which I have paid with agony, with, hard work, and with money I could not well spare. My children- never shall know, and I am thankful that at least the secret is mine alone.

. "My husband wanted to see me before he died. He had a premonition that the end was near, but he left it too late, and we never met again. During his 16 years' absence lie supported himself in various ways, and no one ever guessed that he was married."