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he made over here had to content themselves with guesses. All of them, naturally, were tinged with romance. It was variously suggested that a woman had betrayed him, that doubt had assailed him, that his wife had deserted him. It was evident enough that, whatever the tragedy, it had shaken him to the depths, for he fled not only from his home, but from his profession and from all the old, ordered habits of his life. During the twenty years that remained to him, he was never once to find safe harbor and be at rest.
The reality had no romance about it. Dr. Oliver Dryer, the present pastor of the United Free Church of Evie, Orkney, tells the story quite simply:
"I have only been about three and a half years minister of Evie," he writes, "so that I can give no personal evidence. But the memory of Mr. Rose is quite fresh to many of my congregation. They speak very highly of him. He had great gifts, literary and poetic, and was a powerful and energetic preacher, but he had one serious fault—he was a victim of intemperance—and that to such an extent that on several occasions he suffered from delirium tremens. For this cause he was sent to America, and I know nothing further concerning him."
It is not quite fair to say that he changed his name. What he actually did was to add Gordon
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