STIRLING. Entered According to Act of Congress, in the Year 1899, by Sireet & Smith, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington. D. C. Entered at the Post Office, New York, as Second OFFICE: 238 William St.. New York New Yor k, Septe mber 16, 1899, Three Dollars Per Year. Two Copies Five Dollars. CRT ee arts = hN Mh i. >a ‘4 Pet rf _ > Vie q Ns ATs = NSS VR WOKS OP ars = x UT ANT UT \ Wallin) iy d qt TMA TG TTT Some aa uy WW RaNaea Nite < Vitex \ Vy Zee rei, Beryl was on the floor clutching at the folds of the sister’s robe. Beryl leaped .to HER EVIL GENIUS. By ADELAIDE STIRLING, Author of ‘‘ Lover or Husband ?”’ ‘‘ The Wolf's Mouth,’’ ‘‘ Nerine’s Second Chotce,’’‘*‘ The Purple Mask,’’ ‘‘ Saved From Herself,” Ete. CHAPTER I. THE CONVENT PRELUDE. “Beryl, dear!’’ said Andria. The “summer holidays had great convent school was deserted, pils gone but two, who were in the alcove be- longing to the elder of them, and, as if that breakage of rule were not enough, were seated on the small white bed it was counted crime to rumple. The -elder girl was eighteen, grown up; after to-day convent rules would concern her no more, for that very afternoon she was going out into .‘the world’ to-earn her own living as.a governess. She was wild with excitement, would have been enraptured with “the living foretaste of liberty, had it not been for the child whod clung to her, sick and exhausted with stormy crying. She looked down on her pityingly, and the reverend mother could have told you Andria Heathcote was not given to compassion. Her red-brown hair grew too strongly on her fore- head for that, her full rose lips were too heavy. . Yet something in the very strange- ness of the girl who clutched her had caught at her hard young heart. For Beryl Corselas was only ‘a child, and young for her years at that. It seemed to Andria that the sins of eleven years old were too seriously taken when they were consid- ered crimes, and yet the brat’s goblin ways were enough to provoke a saint—or Sister Fe- licitas! “Beryl, look here,’’ repeated Andria, “don't cry any more. I'll write to you. I’m not go- ing very far away.”’ The child lifted her-face from the girl’s shoulder. It was a curious face, with some- thing almost vacant about it, yet what ‘the lack was no one could quite say. She had ex- traordinary eyes, strangely and uncannily beautiful, so light a brown as to be almost yellow, tawny golden under the heavy eye- begun and the all its pu- lashes that were black as ink. The warm whiteness of her cheeks was blurred with crying, paled with real despair, and the start- ling crimson of the childish lips had been hard bitten to check the sobs that might be heard: She pushed away the long cloud of straight hair, that was not black nor brown, but dusky, a cloud of darkness with no color to be named, from her face, and spoke with sul- len, unchildlike contempt. ‘*You won't write!’’ Her eyes were like burnt out coals. ‘‘You’ll mean to, but you won't. You’re always trying :to save other people’s feelings outside, but inside you never care. You'll forget!’’ “T’ll try not to,’* with a sudden pang. Was she really what Beryl said? Did her hatred of giving pain really make her crueler in the end? She kissed the wet cheek, “if do forget, if I am like that, will you promise me something? Remember that I don’t mean to forget; and that I don’t really. Think to yourself it’s just my way, and that some day you'll see me again. Will you try, Beryl?’’ “It’s no use my trying anything, without you —in the house with Sister Felicitas!”’ “Keep out of her way, then! Why are you always getting into her black books?” “Because she hates me. I’m never myself with her.”’ **You are with Mother Benedicta!”’ “IT might as well be comfortable statue in the chapel! I see about of her.’’ She clung wrapped her. “Oh, it’s you I want—you!”’ she gasped. I’m going to be good it will be for you. else do I like? Just you and haven’t any of them except my rabbits. I hate, hate, hate Sister Felicitas!’”’ A shadow, tall, slight, angular, fell on them. Andria looked up with a start, since convent tradition was still strong in her, and she was breaking rules openly. Sister Felicitas stood in the doorway, black against the sunlit pas- sage. “You've no right to be here, Beryl Corselas,’’ her voice seemed to float out into the shaded whiteness of the alcove, calm and cool as frost. ‘‘Go away and do your weeding. Your garden is not a pretty sight.” Andria felt the quick shudder in the child’s body. ‘‘Please, sister,’’ she Andria is going away.” with the as much suddenly to the that en- "Te Who animals—and I And arm said, “let me stay. the ground, and was free at last. “I have nothing to do with that.. But while I am in charge of the kitchen garden you must do your share there. Go at once,’ very softly, but the downcast eyes were angry. Andria Heathcote could not be reprimanded, and Sister Felicitas longed to do it; she was always making that hateful child rebel against lawful authority. But to-morrow she would be -gone. “A. few minutes more ter to you. Go to your weeding,’ scornfully. Beryl Corselas sat up, her slim, childish body quivering. “I won't go!’ her voice low and passionate. “You know there are no weeds for me to dig up. I hate gardens. I wiSh everything in yours would die, or else choke you when you ate it—nasty, nasfy old onions!”’.in a trans- port of temper. ‘‘Beryl!”’ even Andria, who hated Sister Fe- licitas, was aghast. “You can do your weeding or not, that is for you. to say.” Sister Felicitas’ face was quite untroubled, but she was. trilling her fin- gers against-her black habit. ‘“‘But it is for me to say what will happen to you if you dis- obey.”’ **T don’t care what you do to me!’’ “No?” Andria knew that far off sound in Sister Felicitas’ voice; there was not a girl in the canvent whose nerves did not twitch when she feard it. ‘“‘Then I suppose I can send those rabbits of yours to market! it will be time for rabbit soup soon.”’ “No, no, no!’ the child’s voice was horrible in its wild scream of supplication. If th or lesS cannot mat- she said, ere || had been any one in the empty corridor they | must have hurried to the sound of it. “Not my bunnies. I love them. truly people. You—you couldn’t be so wicked!’’ ‘ | she They're | } “If you can talk such nonsense about your | rabbits, the sooner they are gone the better,’’ icily. ‘‘No—get up, child! You. will tear my habit.”’ For Beryl Corselas was on the floor, clutch- ing at the immaculate black folds of the sis- ter’s robe. “You won’t take them away—say you won't, sister!” She paid no attention to the hand that tried to disengage hers. ‘“‘I’ll do any- thing, I’ll work in the garden, I’ll say I’m sor- ry——’’ The miserable voice made a listener start, but Sister Felicitas only “drew her skirts away deftly. “That you will be obliged to do,’ she said. “Y’ll beg vour pardon now,’’ sobbing, ‘‘only please don’t send my rabbits to market! I'll go and weed—I truly will.’’ “You make an idol of senseless things. You will be better without them.’’ In ‘‘the world” the tone would have been called cruel. The child jumped to her feet, her wild, dusky hair streaming, her face white and fu- rious. “Tf you take them away I’ll kill you!’”’ she cried out, shaking, gasping. “I hate you. You make me wicked, and then punish me. I-——” she stopped as if something had turned her ‘to stone. In the doorway stood the reverend mother— Mother Benedicta, who had never been known to visit an alcove, who was high above the girls and their rulers—was in front of her, a gracious, stately figure in her black habit and white bands. There was a curious look on her beautiful, placid face, enough to stop the tongue even of Beryl Corselas in a temper. Yet she was not looking at the child, but at Sister Felicitas. | a@ child had been quick to see she was too apt |} to let things. go; to put a good face on ugly i culprit, as the sister’s steps died away. | child is growing sullen—strange.’’ Her face showed gaunt in the moonlight. men thought her dead. t “ rules and sorrow. at} Andria’s going has made some one a little | hysterical this morning! Is that it, Beryl? | Come to’'mé, my child,’ she put an arm round} the sinner, who stood petrified as if at the| sight of a saint from heaven. Mother Bene- dicta’s cool fingers felt the hot throbbing of | the child’s lax hands, and her face grew} sterner. i ‘‘You are sorry for your rudeness to the good | sister, is it not so, Beryl? -Yes!’’ at the dumb} nod that was a lie’ of despair. =‘I will see to} the child, then, sister. I know you are busy. | Sister Ignatia is waiting for you. She needs | your help.”’ Sister Felicitas’ face grew white. : “Yes, reverend mother,’’ she returned, quiet- | ly, but her face was not quiet as she left the} aleove. To have Andria Heathcote incite that | hideous child to. mutiny was bad enough, but | to have Mother Benedicta set aside her author- | ity was worse. And there had been that in} the-face.of the reverend mother that told Sis- | ter Felicitas that even rancorous hatred must | go softly. ‘“‘Reverend mother, my rabbits!’’ think breaking gasped the | “You | won’t let her take them?’’ “It was not meant, Beryl! The good sister thought to touch your heart, that is a hard| little heart, is it not?’’ she said, smiling. “‘But run away now and wash your face. Then you can go to my room and wait there quietly till | Andria and I come to you. I will ask -Sister Felicitas to let her. onions wait for to-day.” | But there was no smile on her face as the child slipped away. radiant with gratitude. “It was a pity you had her here, Andria!’’ | said. “But it is the holidays, after’ all— only it provokes Sister Felicitas, who is always so conscientious.’’ Andria’ Heathcote was brave enough, but as matters. Yet now that curious politeness of hers left her. “You heard, reverend quickly. ‘‘That goes on said, The she long. mother,”’ all day **“Do you mean that, Andria?’ Mother Bene- dicta was not apt to talk so freely, but An- dria was going away. “Yes, reverend mother! I knew know. And it is true,’’ flushing boldness, ‘‘that the sister dislikes Mother Benedicta sighed. “The child is difficult—they tell gibly idle,’’ but she said it chiefly answer. “She can speak Spanish, she works hard at that, though no one knows but Sister de Sales. School is bad for her; the girls bully her. Could you not send her home sometimes, dear mother?’’ “She has no home; did you not know? She has been here since she was a baby. We doy; not even know who she is.’’ For once the} Mother Superior had forgotten herself. “Sister Felicitas knows,” said Andria, quiet- | we “What! Why do you say that?’ “Because,”’ once launched, Andria was float- | ing well, “I heard her tell the child that she | came by her mad temper honestly—was her mother over again.’’ Mother Benedicta stood dumb. She had heard more than she liked of Sister Felicitas’ methods this morning, but this passed all bearing. “You must be mistaken,” she said, for the you did not at her own Beryl.”’ me incorri- to hear the | ity. i sat p For a moment, both (See Chapter VI.) Andria saw her I have been wrong. of the child. I honor of the convent, but breathing quicken. ‘‘But After this I will see more promise you that much.’”’ To think of Sister Felicitas having known | all this time the parentage of Beryl Corselas, which had been, the mystery of the,quiet con- vent lives, was.too much even for her char- It seemed but yesterday since -a woman, wild, despairing, with the hand of death al- ready on her, had brought the child to the convent. She had been told that no baby of three years could be taken, and had sunk into the nearest chair as if her last hope were gone. Mother Benedicta had pitied her, seeing her sovill. (Afterward she had altered her mind about the illness; it might easily have been furious disappointment that had sapped her strange visitor’s strength.) She left the room to tell a lay sister to bring wine and food, but, though she was absent only a minute, when she returned the woman was gone. The win- dow was open on the garden, and in the room a pale, yellow-eyed child, in exquisite clothing that was marked ‘Beryl Corselas.”’ That was all. -Never from that day to this had they been able to find out anything more, nor but that the convent charter provided for certain charity pupils could the rules have been stretched to keep the.waif, Yet kept she was, and now a.curious thrill made the superior tremble. Yet it was im- possible. It had been six months before Sister Felicitas joined the community—and the wo- |-man who had flung the child on their charity | had been pink-cheeked, Sister the to golden-haired, And still Felicitas was pale and dark. herself mother superior—— She’ forced speak. “T. do child,’’ strange. not know what is to become ‘df the she said. ‘“‘As you. say, she is» very I never hear any good of her.’’ “There is good in her. But Sister Felicitas has a repulsion for the child.. You can see it.”’ “T hope not,’’ said the good woman, but ‘her own thoughts frightened her. ‘*You had better write to her, Andria, I will see she gets your letters.’’ She had quite*forgotten the reason that had brought her to Andria Heathcote’s alcove in this sudden suspicion that had sprung up. She looked unseeingly at the girl who had spoken out against all her secretive nature. Yet An- dria’s was not an ordinary face, and worth the watching. Cleverness and self-reliance were written on the forehead, from which the hair was brushed back convent fashion; cleverness again in the wide eyebrows; perfect bravery was in the full-lipped mouth, dogged patience in the clean chin; but the warm blue eyes had a veiled something in them that told of reluctance to speak out, of a temper that would hold out a right hand to an enemy and stab effectually with the left. Not from treachery, but be- cause things were more easily done in that |} manner, Mother Benedicta had meant to speak of these things, but she turned away with only one sentence as she signed to the girl to fol- low her. “You will have to fight yor own battles, Andria,’’ she said, almost absently. ‘Do it well and openly, as you fought Beryl’s to-day, And do not forget that this convent life has been but the prelude to your warfare.’ Andria bowed her head for the blessing that followed. She thought the reverend mother looked strangely old and worn to-day. CHAPTER II. A FRIENDLESS. FUGITIVE. careful of the mystery Mother many things, had of Benedicta, meant to add of the community. Two days after Andria’s had called her very quietly. shriven, with the questions ask Sister. Felicitas yet unspoken, the good mother had followed the beaten pathway the saints have left toward heaven. It was Sister Felicitas who found her dead in her bed, but it was not prayer for the perior’s soul that sent the sister to her knees, but utter thankfulness that a stumbling block was gone from her path. Beryl Corselas heard the news in stony silence. Only once had the reverend mother ever noticed her; and yet she felt alone. Andria, though the weeks went by, never wrote, just as the child had prophesied; for all her unchildlike wisdom she never thought that it was Sister Felicitas who opened the letters now and that Andria’s promise was well kept for a year, After that year perhaps she dared not write to the convent—who shall say? But her let- ters ceased, And Sister Felicitas rose stead- ily in the community till to-day, five years after Mother Benedicta’s death, she had been made Mother Superior: Only Beryl] Corselas knew what the story of those five years had been. Years of in- justice, of petty tortures: Mother 3enedicta was not cold in her grave before the’ rab- bits were killed by the cook before the very eyes of their shrieking, fainting owner—of slow warping of a child’s spirit till now a girl of sixteen, she was deceitful from fear, silent from sullen hopelessness, almost ugly from misery. She sat alone in an empty class room, where her face was but a white spot .in the growing dusk of evening. The heavy lids drooped over her tearless eyes; she was past crying now, as she was past all childish things. Mother Ben- edicta would have turned in her grave had she seen how those years of pain had changed the child’s looks, how tall and ill-nourished she was in her outgrown convent uniform, Sister Felicitas punished by depriving the growing girl of proper food; she was under sentence now where she sat in the empty classroom and heard the clatter of other hungry girls in the refectory. And hunger—and something else— was making her dangerous as a wild beast. “If I don’t get out of this I'll kill her!’’ she thought, clasping and unclasping her strong young hands. ‘‘And I know she doesn’t mean me ever to get out. She means to make me a nun, and it’s no use my telling Father Parker I’ve no vocation, for he’s deaf and never hears what I say. She can take her time and yell at him. If I shout in the confessional I only get punished. The other nuns would stand up for me—some of them. But though this might keep me from being made a novice, they couldn’t keep me from being made a lay Sister; for it’s in the charter that charity girls must pay the convent back for their keep, somehow. And she’ll never let me Zo out into the world to do it. I—I’d be willing to starve if I could only get away!” She got up and went to the window. heedless of bumps against the empty forms. But out- side there was nothing to see but a Novem- ber garden, cold and barren: a homeless rake- heel cat, crossing it furtively. The girl watched the miserable creature with the painful sympathy she felt for all ani- mals. In the dusk she saw it leap nimbly to the top of the high wall and disappear. The convent rebel did not even know what was on the other side of that wall, but she knew too well what was on this side. A lay sister’s life, spent in the kitchens; in scrub- bing, killing fowls—she shuddered. And Mother Felicitas’ eye always on her, always With the same threat, the same malice. She peered into the twilight. The stray cat was gone. Beryl Corselas stretched her young body, stiff. with long sitting, just as the cat itself might have done before it started on its furtive journey. But when a sad-eyed nun came and let her out of the locked classroom her face was as sullenly. vacant as usual. There was no one—not even Mother Felicitas, full of self-conceit at her realized ambition— to Know that the girl’s pulses were playing a wild tune that night, and that the chiid- hood that had sat so strangely on her had fallen from her like a garment. Unnoticed, Beryl slipped up to bed before the other charity pupil; and undressed in their joint alcove. Pale and too slender in her white cotton nightgown, she passed under the white sheet that separated her cubicle from the next. It belonged to a rich West Indian girl, and in a box on the table were sover- eigns, as she had known there would be. Without a pang of hesitation Beryl Corselas took two in the glimmer of the floating night- light. Then she lifted the sheet and slipped under it, back to her own alcove, just in time. As she put the coins noiselessly into her. bed the stout girl who shared the alcove came in. She whispered sharply, though talking was forbidden: ‘‘You’re to be moved to-morrow. sent to therkitchen with Sister Agnes. : I wish I was you; you'll get enough to eat. Sister Agnes is just sweet.’’ Beryl raised her eyebrows Significantly. The sister in charge was clapping her hands as a Signal for the girls to say their evening prayers. But there were no prayers on the lips of one girl on her knees, Would it ever be quiet? Would the tossing of the girls never cease as they twisted on their narrow beds? It seemed years to Beryl, lying motionless in hers, longing for the dead middle of the night to bring quiet breathing to the hundred sleepers round her. A-wakeful devil seemed to be making his rounds among them; girl after girl turned, tossed, coughed; not till long after’ midnight was the hush settled and complete, and not till ‘then did Beryl Corselas, whose arteries were thumping with suspense and determination, stir on her hard bed. Absolutely without she and looked about her. Her business had been more easily done in the dark, but in every alcove there floated a wick in afi inch of oil buoyed up in a jar full ef water. In the glimmering, unearthly light the white sheets separating the alcoves seemed te stir, but she was used to that: and to have put out the dull light would haye waked the neavy.sleeper in the next bed. Barefooted, Beryl slipped to the cold floor, dressed, put her stolen money in her pocket and, shoes in hand, crept through the wide corridor between the double row of alcoves. Even the sister in charge heard no sound as the light step passed, not a soul stirred in the convent as the girl stole down the wide,,pol- ished stairs in her stocking feet. In the lower flat it was dark; she was forced to keep one hand stretched eut at arm’s length before her, as she crept inch by inch through the silent house. The schoolroom door creaked as she opened it, but once inside ficods of moonlight made her way clear. She looked round the room, where she had sat a hungry prisoner from afternoon school till bedtime, and in her fierce exultation at leaving it forgot she was still unfed. The window fastening gave under her strong fingers,-the sash moved easily, without noise. and, as quietly as the cat she had watched that evening, the girl dropped. on the frozen grass outside. Skirting the wall she moved quickly to the very spot where the.cat. had crossed it, from a kind of superstition that she must climb over at no other place; and there mounted it with an-effortless spring just as the other wandering: thing had done. _ Sie With a laugh she slipped to_the ground and put the shoes she carried. For the cat had been a good pilot. on a road departure, sound sat upright on She stood that she knew-led to London, and she stretched out her arms in a kind of rapture. She was free from Mother Felicitas at last! But a waving shadow that came suddenly before her eyes killed her h&sty joy. It was only the shadow of a bare, crooked tree, but its outline was like an arm outstretched to catch her, ‘Beryl, you fool!” she thought. “By morning you will be caught again unless there are miles between you and the con- vent.”’ She began ty) run, and not a girl in the school could run like her. Yard by yard she got over the hard road, till by daylight she found herself in the suburbs of the great city, though where she did not know. She walked on soberly till she came to a baker’s shop, and there bought a roll. risers about, but no one looked at her. her plain hat and coat were ordinary enough. Presently she grew bold enough to stop at a street coffee stall. The hot, strong stuff did her good: as she paid for it she began to think coherently for the first time since she had gone to bed. “T must have a place, and I haven’t one!” she pondered as she walked on refreshed: I could get to Andria I should be all but——”’ for her years. : her, and more pertinently still five years ago had never known where grown up girl had gone. in Andria. pefore her absence was Beryl Corselas to her burden, but Fate was stronger than she, for so many years the capable head Death Unanointed, un- she had meant to Su- There were early for “Te right, Her face grew too grim and bitter Andria had long ago forgotten the child of the There was no-hope Without a friend in the world the girl walked quietly on her aimless way. Long i discovered (for her stout room mate merely thought stolidly that Beryl Corselas had got up early, and said nothing about her empty bed till breakfast time) she was adrift, like many another waif, in the interminable streets of London. CHAPTER III. THE WHEELS OF FATE. Two days afterward a shabby little chemist in a shabby shop on the Huston road looked carelessly at a strange customer. A tall, big-boned girl in a frock too short for her had asked for laudanum for a toothache, She looked half wild with pain (or despair— the chemist never thought of the latter!), and he sold her some. Her face grew livid as he pushed a book toward her and requested her to sign her name. It was always done, he explained, when people bought poisons, With a frightened hand she scrawled some- thing, but the name was so outlandish to the man as he stood peering at it that he never noticed with what haste his customer had left the shop. She had been a fool ever to have entered it, yet in the new and dreadful knowledge that two days of London streets had crowded on her she had felt there was nothing else to do, Perhaps her very innocence of the world had made her pass scatheless through perils she only half realized, but that half was enough. Behind her lay the convent, and she could never go back to that; round her were the awful streets where policemen kept hurrying her on, where people passed her indifferent- eyed, or else—Bery! Corselas turned sick and faint at the thought of those other people who, had not passed on, Her money had been stolen, all but the few shillings she had put in the bodice of her frock, and when that was done, what in all the world remained to her? No one had ever liked her. She had no belief in any one’s charity, and the girl’s heart swelled as she an- swered her own question. “Only just death,’’ she thought, fingering the little bottle of laudanum she had been forced to sign her name to get, ‘or Mother Felicitas —for she’ll trace me by it. Well, I’a rather die out here than live in the convent!” She had walked on aimlessly enough, and looked up to see she was in front of the en- trance to a railway station, where people kept going in and out. With a sudden inspiration she followed a woman inside, and stood be- hind her at the booking office. A train was waiting, ready to leave; on the carriage near- est her was a sign, ‘‘For Blackpool.” She knew where that was, even with her badly learned geography lessons; it was a long way off from London and Mother Felicitas. She bought a second class ticket, imitating the woman in front of her. At least she could rest in the train, since her tired feet would hardly carry her. She had no moneyat all when she had paid for her ticket, and could just manage to follow a porter and stumble into the carriage marked Blackpool. To her joy no one else entered it, and the train started, The cushioned carriage was rapture to her tired body, but before she stretched herself out on its scant luxury, she drained the little bottle the chemist had sold her, and threw it away. Then she curled herself up and slept; at first uneasily, with the unaccustomed sounds of the moving train in her dreams, |} and then heavily, as people sleep themselves death. There was to no peace in the world for such as she, and at sixteen. Beryl Corselas had found -it out. She had tried to get employ- ment, but the women at whose doors she had knocked wanted no such unearthly looking nursemaids, and she could do nothing else. To sleep her life away was all she could do, and there would be plenty of time for that be- tween London and Blackpoul. Remorselessly as the wheels of fate the train rolled on, and dreamlessly the girl slept. If she had known two things she might have flung the laudanum from her like a snake. The first was that Andria Heathcote had been longing for her, yet not daring to visit her in the safe refuge of the convent. The second that if Mother Felicitas had known that her missing pupil had gone to Blackpool she would have laughed silently, since that was the only part of England Beryl Corselas had to avoid. But in ignorance and despair the girl had drugged herself till-a creepy warmth was in her veins, and so, bound and helpless, would deliver herself to a worse than Mother Felicitas, unless’ Death, like a quiet friend, called her before such things could be. (To be continued.> ———_>- 9+ ______ Lover or Husband? OR THE MADNESS OF JACKY HAMILTON. By ADELAIDE STIRLING, uthor of “Tie Wolf's Mouth,” “Nerine’s Second Choice,”’ “The Purple Mask,” “Saved From Herself,” Etc. (‘LovBR OR HUSBAND?” was commenced in No. 38. Back numbers can be obtained of all newsdeéalers.) CHAPTER XXIV. ‘‘For I am desolate, and sick of an old passion; And yet I will be faithful in my fashion.” ‘“‘Now,’’ said the man quietly, ‘‘tell me what all this means?.’ As if his voice broke a spell that was on her she looked up with sudden boldness. “You to ask!’* she cried. ‘‘Oh, you can’t take me in with no acting, Lesard, trying to look different and then saying in the next breath that you’re yourself! What gamé@ are you up to? You know all about the murder. You were here that night—Brookes saw you.’’ Her old effrontery was coming back to her, though her face was still the color of lead. “You to come here putting. on airs and trying to frighten me with old stories, when I could give away ten robberies you’ve done, let alone vour being h€ére that night!’ But something in the man’s face frightened her again. c ‘Look again,’’ he said slowly. ‘It was not } who was here that night: Did it never come to your knowledge that the. Lesard you have the honor to know has a brother?” “Brother? Not he!’’ she said, broken with surprise. ““‘There ain’t but one Lesard—I can swear to that!”’ “Then you'll perjure yourself. There are two, and neither of them are in your power, be- cause one knows too much.”’ Trembling with rage, she gazed at him and knew he spoke the truth. This Lesard she had méver seen before. eras “Then your brother was hand in glove with Jim—did all his dirty work,’’ she cried, malig- nantly; ‘‘was hidden in this house the night of the murder!’’ If the man’s face changed a little she could not see it: where he sat, with his back’ to the window; his voice was perfectly: level as he answered: “That doesn’t concern you,’’ he said. ‘Phe point is what you: know.” . He took out. his watch. “I'll give you ten minutes, after that’ ~—he shrugged his shoulders—‘‘the police can question Mary Gresham—not I.’’ Mrs. Gibbs sprang to her feet: “You can go to hell—you and your ques- tions!”’ she gasped. “If you want to know who killed March- mont you can find out nearer’ home than me! What was Lesard doing in this house that night, if it wasn’t murder? Where is he now, with the jewels he stole out ofthe cellar?” she stopped, almost choking in her rage. The cellar! What “did ghe-.mean? But whether she told him news or not, she did not know, for he never blanched. “Where he is is his business—not mine,’* he returned slowly. ‘‘Do you think I came about the murder? It is no concern of mine who killed Marchmont.’’ Mrs. Gibbs was suddenly motionless where she stood. If it was not to find out that he had come, what had brought him? Her terror of this stranger redoubled. Was he made of iron, that he never winced when she spoke of Le- sard? Was he really his brother? “Four minutes have gone’—he was looking quite carelessly at his watch—“six more—then the police.’’ “Call them new’’—she was panting—“and I'll tell them and you, too, that Lesard’’—— She stopped short, cowering as from a blow, yet the man had not moved except to lift his eye- lids a little. ‘“‘What do you want to know?” she was suddenly whimpering, edging away from him. ‘Don’t look at me like that! It’s no good. I don’t know anything you’d like to know, and-if I did you can’t do anything. He’s in it,” significantly. ‘I thought you were him when you came in!’’ “But I’m not he!”’ the man said slowly. “And you may as well know that I can, and will, do anything.”’ THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. There was something in his voice that would have made her run for protection to the very police downstairs rather than stay alone with this man whose very presence was a threat; but, bold woman as she was, she dared not stir till he gave her leave, “I didn’t do it,’ she sobbed; “I swear I didn’t. And Lesard was here that night! Brookes saw him.” “It’s nothing to me if the whole world saw him,”’ indifferently, ‘‘nor if you murdered every thief in London, All I want to know is what you—yes, youk’—with sudden lightening in the steely eyes, sudden threatening in the voice that had been so low—‘‘did with Jacky Hamil- ton. You had better tell me if you take any interest whatever in the future career of— Mary Gresham!” “Hush! hush!” she clapped her hands to her ears. ‘‘You don’t know who might hear you,”’ “Oh, yes, I do!’ coolly. ‘No one can—till I cal.them, We are in a lonely part of the house, you and I!” The cold terrer of death seemed to fall on her at the significant tone: she tried for words, for something that would Satisfy this man who would stick at nothing to gain his ends, and could only falter out a name. “Jacky—I—there was no Jacky! Her name was Gillian.’’ “Not Gillian,’ sharply, ‘“‘the other! The sis- ter who came down afterward. What did you do to those two girls to make them go out into the dark that night, rather than stay another hour in this house?” “Nothing,” said the woman slowly, and some of the terror that possessed her seemed to have fled. ‘I did nothing, And if you've any sense you won’t ask me another ques- tion about those girls—if you care for them.”’ “That’s my business. Go on!” he leaned against the mantelpiece and lit a cigarette, ap- parently as cool as the woman opposite was flurried. But as she spoke he forgot the light- ed match between his fingers, and held it till it scorched his hard skin yellow, and then brown. “That girl—that came down’’—in spite of her fright she teok a pleasure in telling him— “didn’t come as any visitor. She came here as Miss Hamilton’s maid. And she brought testimonials from—well, it don’t matter! But, anyhow, I took her because she was one of the gang. She did her work well, and I wouldn’t split on her now if’’—her face worked in a dreadful mingling of sorrow and spite— “she hadn’t gone off like that, when her sis- ter, or she, killed Marchmont!” The black end of the burned out match fefl from the man’s fingers, sounding loud in the utter stillness. For a minute his face was as evil as that of the other Lesard, but it cleared as he drew a quick, scornful breath “Five minutes ago,’ he said, and if his face was scornful, his eyes were devilish, ‘‘you said it was my ‘brother who killed Marchmont! I don’t believe it was either he or two slips of girls. Mary Gresham, who is wanted for man- slaughter, is, it seems to me, wanted now for murder!’’ The woman flung out her hands in despera- tion, in grief that had a certain dignity _be- cause it was real. “Believe what you like.” that,.for it’s not true. I loved him this many a year. In my way I was faithful to him where many another woman would have be- trayed him. No one knows better than you that he didn’t always treat me fair. But I'd go to my grave this minute a happy woman if I could but hear him speak once more, even if it was to swear at me.. What I said about Lesard I said to try and frighten you; I don’t believe he had any hand_in it, though it’s God’s truth that he was here that night and that some one—either he or they—took away all the jewels. But that’s neither here nor there, for whoever’ did it, it will come out; it.always does. But it wasn’t he that mur- dered Marchmont!”’ “Go on!” he said again, as she stopped for breath. But she saw that his cigarette was as dead as the match that had scorched through the skin of his finger. “The girl came down a month ago, as I said, Jacky, as you called her, Mary James she called herself—a pale chit of a thing with smooth, red hair—what! wasn’t that the girl you meant?’’ For the man had unmistakably started. “Red or yellow, what does it matter?” he had recovered himself impatiently, but he was utterly at a loss. Jacky Hamilton-——his Jacky— —had had hair like burned gold, waving and curling like fine gold wire, a very glory to her small head. And pale—Jacky’s cheek was like a peach in the suns: Who was’ this that had passed herself off as Jacky Hamilton, and where was the real Jacky now? “There was no yellow about it,” Mrs Gibbs said, flatly. ‘“‘Just a good plain red. And her face was like chalk. She was no fool, either, for she brought: those recommendations that showed she was ‘in the know’ just as calm as if they were real references. fT trusted her’’— she winced to think how much—“‘and all the time she must have been lying low to get a chance-at those jewels—or perhaps at him, I don’t know,” wearily. “‘But she wasn’t clever enough at the end.’’ ““‘Never mind that!’ would have woman. ter ?’’ Hither way the answer would hurt him, and his lips shut in a hard line to endure it. “Gillian said so. That beast of a Vivian knows all about it; he told it at the inquest. But sister or not,” venomously, ‘‘she was a devil, a red-haired, lying devil! And it was she started all the mischief in this house. She knew everything; she let in Lesard and——’ the woman stopped short. What had she been thinking of all this time to talk to this man about the stolen jewels! In her fright for her own safety, her certainty that he knew all about everything, she had forgotten that “it was one thing to guess the household had lived by thieving, another to be told it out- right. Marchmont was dead, but she wanted him to go to his grave like a gentleman, with half the county at his funeral. “You needn’*t pull yourself up,”’ he said, con- temptuously. “I know who was at the bottom of the very first burglary in this neighbor- hood. All I want to know is why you say those girls kiled Marchmont?” For the first time Mrs. Gibbs looked him in the eyes, and what -she saw there tied her tongue. Alone with him, in°a- shut-off part of apt house, she dared not be the one to tell im. “Go down,” she said, “ask your friend Rich- ardson, the detective, what he found in the cellar. And then wonder, if you like, why I Said that girl with the smooth, red hair was a devil. And tell, if you like, that T am Mary Gresham, that Marchmont was Jim Adams the burglar—and I will tell’’—she got up and faced him like a wild beast at bay—‘“‘that your own brother is a burglar and worse; that black as you thought Jim and me, we were nothing rr by side with Lesard, that’s a fiend out of ell!” “I will tell nothing while you can be of use to me,’ said the. man, slowly. His face was pale under his dark skin, -but somehow she knew it was not fear for his brother’s safety that took the good blood from his cheek, but some other thought that she could not fathom. “But if you say one other evil thing about Jacqueline Hamilton I will tell—brother or no- brother—everything I know about you to the police, Stay here, and hold your tongue till I come batk. And remember that whatever lie you tell about ‘those girls brings you nearer to prison for life. And neither you nor the butler are to leave this house tiil I find out the truth. You understand?’ He was* gone with his long, noiseless stride almost. as he spoke, but though it was hours that passed, he did not eome back again. Mrs. Gibbs looked up as the room began to grow dark, and laughed where she sat. Her strange enemy had got more down stairs than he bargained for! ““He may tell me he isn’t Lesard over and over,’’ she said to herself. ‘But till that’s proved, black and white, I don’t know but one Lesard. And so I'll swear, no matter what they doe to me. My gentleman may find him- self in a wasp’s nest before he’s done with me!”’ She would have been more triumphant still could she have seen the man in his thoughts. Richardson had taken him-into that ghastly cave below the cellar, and after one glance he had hurried out again into the open air. And Richardson had spoken as he followed him: “You were wrong, you see, Mr. Lesard! [ll have to_get a warrant out for those girls,’’ he observed, as carelessly as if they had been two kittens he must drown. And now as Lesard sat waiting to take the train to London, dark lines grew beneath his eyes. Jacky Hamilton’s conduct in this house; Jacky Hamilton’s face bleach (for Richardson had spared him nothing) had been all of a piece. If-she had been on the side of right and honesty, why had she never written to the man who could have swept every trouble from_ her path as the wind sweeps straws? And the madness of it appalled him. How had she come by those testimonials? And where was she now that she thought to she cried, ‘‘but not The man’s sharp words been a cry of agony from a “Was the girl Gillian Hamilton’s sis- get away safely with that mute and awful ~celebrated. case’ from coming into court. witness of crime printed in blood for all the world to see? How had she ever come to such a pass when all she had to do was to telegraph one word to him and be free of Marchmont forever? The man flung back his head like a horse stung by a poisonous fly. : Jacky Hamilton might be a thief, a murder- ess, anything! But he loved her—loved her even while he hated her for what he could not understand, Louis Lesard, who was for his sins, cursed with a brother’ who was his double, forgot everything except that it was Jacky Hamilton who must have done this thing—and that they hanged even women for murder! Dark, lean, sinewy, he stretched himself in his chair as a man does who means to try his strength against fearful odds. What, was it Gibbs had said? That in her way she had been faithful to Jim Adams, “who had not always treated her fair.’’ After all, what did he know? Not even to himself would he allow that the eyes of love could not be mistaken in the prints of the lit- tle fingers that had worn his ring. And let her be true or untrue, he would be “faithful in his fashion’’—as far as gates of shameful death. CHAPTER XXV. THE RED MOUSB. “Jacky,” said Gillian voice, “Jacky, look!’’ It was nine o’clock in the common, dingy lodging house where they had found a refuge —a dirty, out-at-elbows place in the Northend Road, where the landlady had asked for no references beyond the sight of her week’s money paid in advance, Out in the country they had left spring was coming slowly, with Sweet scents of budding trees; here in London omnibuses crawled through the reeking mud; under their window a fish vender sold stale fish by the flare of a paraffine torch; and yet till now they had been happier there than ever in Hamilton Place. For the jewels, safely sealed, had been sent’the day before to Scotland Yard; sent-by the expressman like an every-day bundle. As the clock struck the first, stroke of nine Jacky was almost gay, for come what might they had saved little Mrs. Fareham; but as the last stroke died away she heard Gillian speak suddenly, and her heart died within her. What was the matter? For Gillian had sprung to her feet, and stood holding out the evening Paper they never dared to go to bed without reading, and she was trembling from head to foot, as a woman only does in unbearable fear or pain. “Jacky!’’ she repeated, her teeth chattering, “read this.’’ The younger sister snatched the paper. Its badly printed columns swam under her eyes in the dim gaslight. Gillian pointed to something in big black let- ters, and Jacky’s face turned white as hers. ‘““Extyaordinary Restitution of Stolen Jewels —Murderers of Paul Marchmont Conscience- Stricken—The Painfully, as though she spelled out each word, Jacky Hamilton read down the half col- umn of close type, that brought beads of cold fear on her forehead. “Our readers’’—as if it concerned somé one eise, she noticed the thing was poor journalism, badly written—‘‘our readers will be interested to learn that an incident almost unparalleled in the records of Scotland Yard occurred yes- terday when all the jewels stolen in the great Wellford House robbery were returned to the police by the prosaic hands of Carter, Patter- son & Co., the great carriers. “On inquiry at the office it was learned that the ordinary brown paper parcel which con- tained them was brought in by a shabbily dressed girl, thickly veiled. The clerk who received the parcel remembered it distinctly from the fact that it was done up in a pe- culiar way and sealed in every possible place with red wax. : “No doubt is felt by the police that the sender was one of the two Hamilton girls, whose mySteriouSe disappearance from Hamilton Place on the night of the murder has never been explained; and this conscience-stricken act has thrown a sudden light on the murder itself, as well as on the burglaries occurring in the neighborhood. “The Daily Mail'is, as usual, the first to learn the fact. which will electrify all London that warrants are out for the arrest of both girls for the robberies which have so far been a mystery, and also for the murder of Paul Marchmont. : _ “For in the old house where the murder took place a secret passage exists, ending in a cave with an outlet into the grounds, and through that passage the murderess undoubtedly es- caped. We say murderess advisedly, since on the cellar stones the police have discovered the’ print of a girl’s small hand, marked in blood, an unmistakable record of the author of the crime. “The murder is one of peculiar atrocity, when it is remembered that the late Mr. Marchmont had adopted one of the missing girls from pure charity. It has been learned from the faithful servants of the dead man that she rewarded him with hatred and ingratitude, but it was not until thé extraordinary restitution of the jewels taken from Wellford House that the real history of the crime was unveiled. “It is now believed by the police that the elder of the two girls, having introduced her sister into Marchmont’s house on false pre- tences, profited by the opportunities given them as mistress and maid to rob right and left at Wellford House, the supposed maid stealing the jewels from the rooms of the Buests while her mistress, apparently guilt- less, disarmed suspicion by never leaving the ballroom. That Mr. Marchmont discovered this crime and taxed them with it would ex- plain his death, since both girlS must have been quite unscrupulous, and when driven ‘to desperation would have been quite équal to overpowering a small, eldérly man. It is sup- posed that one of them held him from behind while the other stabbed him with his own in a queer, hoarse dknife, a large one, which he used for pruning the roses, which were his great hobby. then fled from the house by the secret pas- sage, of which they must have been well aware, since Hamilton Place had been the home of their family for centuries, until want of money forced their father to sel] it. “Tardy repentance or fright has evidently im- pelled the guilty girls to make the restitution of the jewels which has caused so great a sensation and supplied the mysterious rob- bery and murder with a clear solution. That they are in London is certain, and their ap- prehension is now merely a matter of time. To their hiding place the police already have a clew,.and right minded people will rejoice that they will undoubtedly suffer for their crimes, : “En revanche the appearance of the stolen jewels has come just in time to keep a coor oa very pretty and popular lady will be congratu- lated on the discovery of the mystery sur- rounding her loss of some borrowed jewels, which leaves her reputation unstained by an accusation now proved to have been utterly unfounded.’’ Jacky dropped the paper. “It's wickéd, wicked,” she ‘gasped, “‘to let them publish lies like that! How dare they take it for granted that any one is guilty till they’re tried? Don’t look like that, Gill! They can’t make out we did it.’ “We can’t prove we-didn’t.”’». The voice of despair cut at Jacky’s heart; for the first time she realized where they stood, to what a des- perate pass they had come. “And if we tell the truth twenty. times over,’ the miserable voice went on, “it. will be no good. Lesard will be gone by that time to some safe place. He will read the papers and laugh to see me bearing his sins while he gets off. And Mrs. Gibbs—she will believe I did “Why do you say ‘I’? it—— Why not ‘us’ ?’’ sharp interruption. “Because I told Sir Charles I hated March- mont, and Mrs. Gibbs knew it, too.’ “Sir Charles will believe in you.” “No one believes in a girl like me. Those people—Jacky, you “don’t know them. They don’t feel for others. I’ve seen those women stand by and-slaugh at a hunted, homeless dog—they’ll laugh like that at me.’’ “Hush!”’ cried Jacky, angrily. “Sit down. We must think what we’re to do.” Her own heart was beating in sickening thumps, but for all that she could still hope in the truth that shames the devil. : “Do you think they have traced us?” she pointed to the papers. “It. doesn’t matter. They if. they haven’t.”’ = Jacky kicked at a hole in the carpet, whistling tunelessly after her fashion. “They shan’t—I won’t let them!” she said. breaking off suddenly. ‘‘Listen, Gill, we’d bet- ter get out of this. We’re pretty; people no- tice us too mueh even in this house.” “We'll be turned out next week! I’ve spent, or lost, or something, all the money Sir Charles lent me.’’ “But there’s ten pounds for me the They in will at bank.”’ Mystery of His Death Solved.’’ | VOL. 54—No, 48. dread- Gillan began to laugh hysterically, ully ““‘Who would cash your cheque here in Lon- don unless they knew you?” she said with chattering teeeth, ‘‘And in the face of this,’’ touching the ill-omened newspaper, “I don’t Suppose even you. are going to walk calmly into the bank and demand your money.” Jacky sat aghast, beyond even whistling. She had never thought of that. ‘Write to Sir Charles,”’ she suggested, for- lornly. “‘Who is probably leading the hue and cry against us by now,” The quick pain in Gillian’s voice made Jacky look sharply at her. Why was she so bitter against the man whoehad certainly been her friend? ““You’ve no right to speak like that,” she returned, coldly. Gillian burst into a storm of sobbing. “No, no,” she. cried. “I know. I didn’t really mean it. But just because he was good to us is the reason I won’t drag him into our affairs. Oh, Jacky, he was kind to us; he was a gentleman, and if I wrote I might get him into dreadful trouble.’’ “He’s a man,” bitterly; ‘““men keep clear of- trouble.’’ “TI can’t write—don’t you see I can’t? I that am’’—shame in her voice that would once have been proud—‘‘Lesard’s wife.’’ “Don’t!’ said Jacky, fiercely, even stung beyond endurance that any woman should have been Lesard’s wife. And yet she hated him all the more fiercely for Gillian’s wrongs, till the love that was turned to loathing in her bit at her heart for the deadly vengeance that might yet be had on Lesard. “Why do you think he’s gone?’ she de- manded, and even yet could not speak the name that she had loved. ““He’s not a fool, and he had money. Be- sides, at first he would not know he had me, his wife, for a scapegoat. He had to go.”’ “He may come back—when he knows.” The smile that no happy woman has the trick of came to Gillian’s lips, bitter, delicate, ‘““Not he, not Lesard,’” she said, gently. “You may put what you’re thinking of out of your mind, Jacky. Even if you could do {t-9¢ would kill me. -I will never let the worla— or’’—she stopped Charles Vivian’s name on her lips—‘‘ Or any one know I was ever Le- sard’s wife, his foolish, happy slave. Tell me,’’ more gently still, ‘‘do you think any one in that express .office could swear to y,ou ?”? ““Not as the red-haired girl who was at Ham- ilton Place,’ swiftly, for the waves of burnt gold shone unstained now in the burnished curls Lesard had loved. ‘‘Try not to despair, Gill,” bravely enough; ‘they can’t know what the paper says. Think of the Many, many guilty people who must have escaped from far worse places than we are in, who are inno- cent. Let’s go to bed now. To-morrow we can think of somewhere to go.”’ “On that?” returned Gillian, dryly, holding out six shillings. But she got up and went over to their bed as if she were too weary to care for anything but sleep. In the ugly light from a dirty -gas globe the younger sister sat thinking, her~ curled gold head bowed on her arms that were folded on the table. Money they must have, or else clear them- selves even as little Mrs: Fareham had been cleared,~but there was no one to play Don Quixote for them as they had for her. The hate for the man she had loved—that hate which has’ driven even g00d women to madness—seemed to quicken in her as Gil- lian’s sleep on their miserable bed deepened, A curious thrill went through Jacky Hamil- as whole body—a mad hope that was devil- ish. With a speed that was uncanny in its noiselessness,’ she got up and seizing on Gil- lian’s ‘hat, stole from the room. The clock up- stairs struck ten as she slipped out into the bustling thoroughfare of the Northend Road. Women with baskets jostled her as good women do a bad one; men in soiled paper col- lars and flashy clothes stared at her, and turned away sharply as they saw her eyes that were fixed as though she looked on a hor- ror. Presently she found herself in a cross street, going she knew not where, walking be- cause the movement helped her to plan out what was in her heart, led unfalteringly by some spirit in her feet. When she had walked for half an hour like one who follows through thick mist a well known path she realized where she was—but not why she.was there, nor whatesuch yet other aplace _. could have to do with Jacky Hamilton. She stood in a well-lit, quiet street—quiet but for the hansoms that flashed up it and stopped at the portico of a smart stone house opposite her, where men got out and went in. She knew the place for a sort of private gambling house, kept by a woman, a gor- geously handsome creature who drove herself in the park in a high mail phaeton, always alone, always insolent, parading her brazen beauty before the world. . The girl with whom Jacky had lived during those few happy months in London, when the world had seemed a place of roses and silver trumpets and Lesard, had pointed one day with tears in her honest young eyes to the shining carriage, the solitary woman. “She was the daughter of the innkeeper in our village,” she had said, “and look at her now. Oh, it is a dreadful place, London. The Red Mouse, they call her, because she has gnawed through so many men’s fortunes and her money is stained with blood. She keeps a gambling house, but the police nevér trouble her. She has too many friends with heavy hands.’’, The words came back now to_the pale girl with’ the -hardset mouth, standing in the street, splashed by the mud from those flying hansoms. It was the house of the Red Mouse she stood before; there and nowhere else her business lay. But even yet she did not know what she had come to do. . The night, was strangely warm and clear for March; the wide, double doors of the house were flung wide to the portico of white stone that shone like marble in™the keen electric light-over the doorway. Jacky, as if the light fascinated her, drew slowly nearer, till she stood on the pavement — directly in front of the door and could see into the hall. It was carpeted with red, soft and thick like velvet, and in the dimly glowing light of rose and amber lamps:she saw the luxury that reigned in the house. Flowers, statues, _pic- tures, she could see, and a mounting frail of perfumed smoke that rese from a great brass incense burner at the foot of the mar- ble staircase. A man servant in plain clothes stood motionless in the doorway, never even glancing at the small figure in’ black on the sidewalk. The passersby often stopped to Stare at the decorous Goorway of the house where men won fortunes, or more often, were beggared of their all. Neither mattered to the Red Mouse. The winpers paid her ‘too good a percentage of their takings. Jacky—staring into the house that so cleverly evaded the law, where no-one ever passed the sentinel servant who didnot» bear an or- thodox invitation card in the handwriting of its mistress—wondered afresh why she had come: Heavy with the dreadful fears that had come to her with the reading of the papers, mad- dened with the longing-to make Lesard know that: her own hand could strike in the dark as— surely as his own,,the girl did not notice as a ‘small dainty. brougham drew. up just behind her. - “Now, then, child,” said a woman’s voice» at Jacky’s. shoulder—a~ voice with a telltale hoarseness in it—‘“‘don’t stop al] the way.” Jacky sWung- around, startled. It was the Red Mouse herself. ‘Tall, fair, exquisitely made, she stood waiting to pass, her clear-cut face gay and insolént. “Fhere was too much rouge on the lovely cheeks, too much -carmine on the hard month, a line of black on the eyelids that showed in the search- ing electric light. But at none of these was | Jacky Hamilton staring like one who sees a ghost. Her cloak of palest violet satin, soft with ermine, filmy with lace, had fallen back from the shoulders of. the Red Mouse. She held it on with one strong hand, laughing at the surprise on the face of the loitering girl. It was not often that a woman gazed at her beauty with such excited, covetous eyes. But Jacky had never even glanced at that painted face. : On the white throat of the Red Mouse, that rose like a lovely column where the-cloak had slipped back, shone and sparkled something whose unholy fire Jacky knew. It was the necklace of black diamonds that Lesard had taken from the cellar. * indivi Nhs Deli ee “KEEP TO YOUR PLACE, And your place will keep to you.” Without good health we cannot Keep situations nor enjoy life, Hood’s Sarsapa- rilla makes the blood rich and pure, and thus promotes good health, which will help you “keep your place.” Hood’s Sarsaparilla Never Disappoints. It is America’s Greatest Medicine, 25c. HOOD’S PILLS cure distress after eating. VOL. 54-No. 4&, 3 THE NEW YORK WEEKLY. There was no mistaking it, shining red and green, with the centre of each stone a scintil- lating spot of white light. . “Oh!” gasped the girl, and cried instinctively, “how lovely!” __ The Red Mouse was good natured to reck- lessness. ‘“‘What? My necklace?’ She paused, facing the shabby girl. ‘Bah! I only like it because it’s new. I paid too much for it, only this afternoon.’’. ‘You bought it from Lesard!’’ cried Jacky, and then could have bitten her tongue at her own madness. “What if I did It’s none of your business,” said the Red Mouse, rudely. “Get out of the road, will you?’ And the scent of her satins and laces reached Jacky as she brushed by. She knew now why she had come here at this hour. Lesard was still in London. _Gillian, who had been his wife, was tongue- tied; but not Jacky, who hated him with the hate of hell—who must hang if he went free! (To be continued. The Broken Trust: ‘A WOMAN'S SILENCE. By BERTHA M. CLAY, Author of ‘A Wife's Peril,” “Lady Ona’s Sin," ‘A Hand Without a Wedding Ring,” ‘‘Dora Thorne,” “How Will It End,” etc. (“THE BROKEN TRUsT’’ was commenced in No. 39. Back numbers can be obtained of all newsdealers.) d CHAPTER XXVIII. SIR ARTHUR FORGETS. &e ‘What is the matter with your hands, Edith?’ asked the artist as he took his place at the tea-table, ‘“‘What have you been doing to them?’ “The dust is yellow, and will not wash off,”’ she replied. “I have spent three whole hours looking for that picture, papa, all among such an accumulation of papers that would frighten any one, but I cannot find it.’’ “What picture do you mean?” he asked; won- deringly. “That picture with the scarlet-berried bush with two children under it. I am sure I saw . it some years ago, and I am determined to setimid it.’ : ~ © *Convince a woman against. her will, and she keeps the same opinion still,’’’ sang Paul Westerne. ‘‘Never mind those disagreeable things now; help Miss Bruce to some tea.’’ They talked long. Paul Westerne asked Es- ther if she liked London. “T like its size, its grandeur and its wealth,” she said. ‘“‘It seems to me the home of science, but the sin and sorrow spoil it. I have seen more of both in London streets than I knew existed.’ __ “What of the sins do you not see?’ cried Edith; ‘‘the gigantic frauds, the daring im- postures, the wrongs no man sees; and no man ean redress?’’ Again that curious pallor came over the scar- let lips. = *‘Heaven is above all,” she said simply. ‘“‘I have an implicit belief that sooner or later every ill deed comes to light.’’~— And the two girls looked straight at each other. If they could have known that each was thinking of the same man, and the same crime! : They parted mutually pleased with each other, and Paul promised Esther if she would bring her color box he would gladly give her a lesson, : “I shall not let Sir Alan see this face until my picture is finished. He will be charmed with it, I_know.”’ “Remember my test the next time he comes,” said Edith. ‘If he answers the three questions correctly, I will confess that I have made a great mistake.”’ ‘He may have forgotten,” but Edith shook her head. : “Alan Wayne would never have forgotten,’’ _ she said simply, and the artist was reduced to a ce. - es , ys afterward he vame, and Bidith saw . ap that her father would have given any- - thing to escape the ordeal. said Paul; They were in the pretty drawing-room, and Edith joined them-there. ‘ : Paul Westerne felt. embarrassed. Sir Alan talked resolutely of the picture, and the work to be done at Carsdale, while the artist puzzled his brains until he was in de- ies as to how he should begin the conversa- ion. ‘ Chance favored him at last, Sir Alan told him>-ef some rare Indian plants that had been sent to Carsdale—flowers that grew like a beautiful golden bell amidst silvery leaves. . Paul looked up at him, trying in vain to smile in his usual, careless, genial way. ‘Talking of flowers, Sir Alan,’’ he said, ‘‘do you remember the name of the flowers we planted in the little garden at Wabash?’ He saw himself quite plainly the furtive movement of the eyelids, as though the man were summoning courage to return his glance, aie saw, too, the shade of fear come over the ace. . **T do not remember,”’ he said, at last; ‘‘were they mignonette seeds?’’ “Do you remember planting them?’ asked the artist. » : “T have some vague recollection—something like a dream,’’ he replied hastily; ‘‘but I can- not be certain.”’ & phen you cannot tell me anything about ‘‘No,’’ he replied, ‘I have seen so much since then; trifling incidents have died out of my mind.”’ “It might not have been a trifle for you,” said Mr. Westerne. “I wonder you have for- gotten it!” ; Sir Alan rose carelessly; theFe was no stir in the quiet figure near the window. —_ Paul Westerne began to hate the task, yet he felt curious to know if Sir Alan would fail in the other questions as he had in this one. He spoke of the news in the morning’s paper, of the fashionable gossip, of everything and any- thing save the subject that filled his mind. He made a spirited attempt at last. “Sir Alan,’’ he said, “Edith and I often won- der whether you have preserved the little keep- sake she gave you when you parted. Have you it still?’’ “T have been very unfortunate,’”’ he said; ‘‘I lost it long years ago.”’ “Do you remember what it was?’ asked Paul. Westerne. “T forget. All that childish nonsense dies so soon. from one’s mind.”’ “Do you remember what you gave her?’’ asked the artist wistfully. This was the last test; if he failed the artist no longer saw his ‘way clearly. “T forget,’ said Sir Alan again; ‘‘Miss Edith will think me very-ungallant.” The quiet.figure at the window never moved; she uttered no word, and Sir Alan, all uncon- scious that he was being tested, continued his conversation. He remained for another half hour and then went away, wondering if the time would ever come when Edith Westerne would look more kindly on him. “Tt know what it is,’’ he said to himself as he went down the street. -“‘Poor Alan talked nonsense to her and she thinks I ought to matfry her; perhaps he would have done so had he lived—I shall not! Was ever man so teased? There is one woman I want to marry, one woman I ought to marry, and one who wants to marry me.’’ When the door had closed behind Sir Alan and the artist, with a puzzled face, returned to the drawing-room, Edith looked at him very quietly. : “Well, papa?’’ “Well, my dear,” he replied, strange, certainly.’”’ “T have not to beg his pardon. Papa, do you think any one possibly can forget the incident of sowing those seeds? You remember Alan held them in his hands and the wind blew some in his eyes; his father and you feared for long days he would lose his sight. He was for weeks obliged to have his eyes carefully cov- ered. They were nasturtium seeds, sent me from England.’’ ® “T remember all about it. he could forget,”’ replied Paul Westerne. “When we parted I had but one sixpence in the world. and we broke it in two, each taking half. He knew nothing about it, you see—not @ word!”’ . ‘"No,”’ said her father, ‘‘not one word. I am at a loss what to think. He must be Alan Wayne; he cannot be any one else.”’ * * * * * ‘it was very I do not see how 2 * A&A week later Sir Alan called, bringing with him Lord Helstone, his most recent and fash- ionable friend, to see the picture. In These Days No Paper Novel Should Cost More Than Ten Cents 2 The Only Book Lines at This Up-to-Date Price are Published by Street & Smith, THE EAGLE LIBRARY The Pioneer and Leading Ten Cent Line. Examine this great list of stories and authors : 1.—Queen Bess...... .....Mrs, Georgie Sheldon 2.—Ruby’s Reward...... Mrs. Georgie Sheldon 8.—He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.. Julia Edwards 4.—For a Woman’s Honor....Bertha M. 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