The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-12-24 00:00:00

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The mrohman, an old family servant, might have
refused to drive so young a mistress on so doubtful
• journey. But Sam wee of an age when snob deeds
raise sympathy in the basset; so be took his reward,
and 1, with my boy, was harried from my home.
Weary of travelling, we returned to England, and
rioted a small bouse—a mere °attics—Dot far from
Broadstairs, where, es we thought, we ran little risk
of being seen by anyone who knew us. My
husband, being food of blithing, sought the shore
every morning, and I at in the garden until he
returned.

We had not been at Broadetaire very long when I
fancied there was a change in his manner. I was
certain came secret redid upon his mind, and I
became aware also, that though be went to the
shore he mimed to bathe. Sitting alone with=
tboatilits I grew jealous, and determined to
him; so instead of remaining at Doom, one day I
hurried along a bye-road to a part of the enplaned'
that overlooked the sands. I cast my eyes down.
wards, and saw him walking with a young lady
about my own age. After a time they left the made
and walked towards our home. They were to pre-
occupied to detect that they were followed, but sat
down to talk by a quiet bank near a cornfield, where
I hid amongst the wheat I was not near enough
to hear his words, to which she listened so earnestly,
or hers, on which he seemed to hang with tender
interest. I noticed him bolding her hands fondly,
twining her curls in his Soren; and I raw him kin
her before they parted. I watched this day after
day, and yet I said nothing. She only paned a few
minutes each time in his company, as if fearful of
being missed by her friend., But wits not that
enough? was it not too much for a young loving
wife to witness?

One morning I noticed a bouquet of flowers, just
gathered, lying on the escritoire where he had been
writing. Full of suspicion I diverted his glance to
another part of the room, and with a hasty glance
read the words scribbled upon I piece of paper: "I'll
meet you at eunset on the mods, and, if your plans
are ripe enough, we leave Broadstairs to-morrow."
He returned to his desk, folded the note, and went
out with it and the flowers. Could I not guess how
the one would be concealed in the other, and for
whom Did I not know the golden-hsired 'lrma
With the sweet baby•fice that bad bewitched him?

That morning lapent at home, a wretched prey to
love, jealousy, and wrath. Al all hssards theme's.
meeting must be prevented. Should I charge him
with perfidy, upbraid, entreat' Should I prevail?
Should I risk failure? No; a thousand times no.
As our dinner-hour drew near, a foolish, an evil, a
vile idea entered my miserable mind. I was mad
then; I know now that I was mad. I laughed when
remembered the laudanum in a tiny bottle on the
mantlesbelf of my dressing-room. I emptied it into
Us. wine decanter. Lionel drank wine, but I did
Dot. After dinner he slept. Coffee was brought,
but still his slumber lasted. It wee.. I wished. I
sat and watched him. The hours went on slowly.
I sent the servant, to bed, and the house was very
quiet. It grew late, the wax lights—there wu no
gas—burned down low; he still slept very heavily.
One, two, sounded—then three. It was broad day-
light ; and I drew up the blinds, for I was getting.
restless and alarmed. Daylight was let in, and it
fell upon the arm-chair and upon the face of • dead
man. I dropped. at his feel; I.!.ried to pray, but

knelt there wordiest and thoughtlesa Then surely
I was mad—carefully. cunningly, strangely mad.
As Heaven is my witness, I had only meant to
cause a sleep to stop that meeting and to put off an
explanation so bitterly humiliating, so stormy in the
aspect of its gathering clouds.
I knelt before my dead husband and laughed. I
had no part in the laughter ; it was as if the voios
of some strange spirit issued from my lips, and
sounded curiously in my ear. I was aroused
auddenly by bearing the servants oome downstairs.
I was alone with him ; and they would say I had
murdered him, and the fair girl with the golden
hair and the baby's faos would stand by and see me
strangled out of life on a scaffold. How I found
strength for the terrible task I cannot tall, but I
took Lionel in my arms and carried him into our
sleeping-chamber, which adjoined, threw open the
windows that led from the dining-room into the
garden, and then locked myself and my crime away
together. I laid him on the floor by the great box,
and knelt down.
Suddenly an idea came into my head. I opened
the box, and taking out my clothing made it into a
bundle. There wens closet in the room which I had
once opened, and had seen amongst other domestic
curiosities the old ticking of a bed. I took it out
and covered it over Lionel, and with the MON
strange strength lifted him into the boa. He was harely
deed then, for his limbs were not stiff, and I folded
them into the space. Then I locked up the box
and dreamed, and went into breakfast. A note lay
on the table. It wan contained in a little pink
envelope, directed in a girlish hind. As my eyes
rested upon it my jealousy and anger rushed to life
again. I felt glad that Lionel was deed. I took up
the note whieh she with the yellow hair and pink
face must bare sent, and tearing it open read, "Dear
Lionel! How the letters ran before my eyes I Did
she dare to call him her dear Lionel! Ay, it was
there, written upon the pink paper with perfumed
ink :

"Dui Lloln,-1 h 2.• pleaded yanr cause with
papa end mamma, but cannot move them ; and because
they think I must have seen you here, our governess is
ordered to bring us all home to-morrow. But do not
despair; for if I oan do nothing at present, I will yet
reooneale them to you some day. I fear I shall not be
allowed to write, but in silence and absence do not
doubt that I am, and ever shall remain,
"Your affectionate sister,
" Eprr

His sister! Ali I was ever climax so terrible?
This, thee, must be hi. favourite Utter Edith, of
whom he had so often talked, but who was unknown
te me. Alai! why had he kept their meeting
secret? That too. was obvious: could he expose
me to the mortification of knowing that she was
pleading for my recognition by his family, or that
he was forced to meet a dearly-loved sister by stealth
because be had chosen me to be his wife'
_ . . _. • . .

And Lionel was dead. I hardly comprehended
that fact. Fear was upon me. I must tly, and I
must conceal the deed. Twenty mile, from my own
home a lonely house stood in the midst of a wood.
Report called it haunted, and no one of the simple
country folk dared approach, far le o inhabit it. In
• feigned name I wrote to the landlord, and
requested he would let it to me, with permission to
enter immediately, saying that I was anxious to
secure a good house at the low rent I did not doubt
he would be happy to accept. I would have given
any price for the bones, but I wished to give a
likely reason, not the true one. My offer was
acoepted by return of post.
Meanwhile I had told my two servants that their
master had left early in the morning for town.
whither he wished me to follow him, as we found it
neosesery to take a long and unexpected jeurnnY•
I had paid all debts when the landlord's lesser came.
Harrying to London I there disposed of oar valuable
plate and whatever I possessed, except a little linen,
a few jewels, and the horrible sarcoskallnn, hernd_Ww
my life watch. I was anxious to gain on) new aDOGet
as I knew the delays of a day or two would banes
detection. Bat my route we. purposely circuitous
and broken to baffle any efforts that might be made
to trace me, though under the family ban it was
hardly likely.
The cbeM was placed in • large room—a sort of
loft—at the top of the house; and after • few
preparations bed been made by three women who
were induced to come to the haunted place whilst it
was day. I was left Moos. The fact of my hiving a
large box put in the loft excited no suspicion. The
tieepeotare was that it contained books.
There, without servants, without the oompanion•
ship of • living soul, I dwelt alone for many years,
until upon the death of the old landlord a new
master of the soil desired to pull the house down.
Then with my chest I travelled from Owe to pleas,
a haunted reales woman asking myself eternally,
"Ainl,aneorinadr

I had written so much of my history, in this poor
cottage at Hampeteed, to give it some day to one
who has been kind to me; but going over the details
of my life haii raised in my mind a horrible
suspicion, more exquisitely agonising than all that
has gone before—a suspicion the bare form of whicb.
es it suddenly came before me, oast me into that
frenzied fit which has closed the life of one who
neither wants nor wishes to die—one who only
desires to live her vague life* on sad on, gazing
etomally at the sarcophagus. The idea, the
certainty so terrible in its nature, is that Lionel was
I not dead when I placed him in the chest, Lionel
was under the influent>, of the narcotic, but living—
Lionel, my love, my husband, wee pat kyles into
the tomb and stifled by his beautiful wife's mad
bands; and his young wife of Miaow summers
looked up his life and the secret of her crime and
sat down heartlessly beads it to perfonn her anal
lsis-ratish. Let bar dia—Georagena 0. Ole& in
The Belgravia Amara.

"LOVE STRONG= THAN DEATH r •

At the Christmas of odd& I me going to writs, •
brother, slier twenty years of age, bud.... beak
too., briaiimg with hial his 0•17 MAL Ina was •
half Spaniard, Ned the prettiest girl I ever mor ; her
uncommon beauty, for is was utterly mane mar
of or girls, and her quaint ways, took me bads
by storm at mos, sod oeinpletely subdued that ef
Mark Amberly. New, though Mark WS ma
seiolly spu.kia a nolation, hi ••• • ••••1"s
s iresZ
sou, sad hat fee lose Naha wee
loved for his owe A soldier, sad Moe sem of •
soldier, Mark had wee beams wheat, in our oul-ad•
the-world county, bed established ban a biro al
oboe, sod I verily believe the dear lad wee ha
ashamed of his V. 12, so deep tad smut was th•
worship with which we favoured it
Mark wm away. at Ina's std.; so we all sew hail
It would be, and the love-making pee • new dram
to the gathering. Christmas-me WIG •' the ahem*
had bee decorated, the " guleare"' breed, Me
Christ/nes to.. dismantled, end tired of demise
"Sir Roger," we were all peeped abed in lie
' dining-room waiting for midnight, whoa,
,to ea old makee, the "devil's knell" wee tolled
the church, and Me Squire dispensed
welled ale to all those who alum to with Wm
hie a merry Christmas. My brother stood upon Mae
Mae hearth, watch in baud; prusuirtly the time.
keeper was thrust into Me puckus, sod he cromeed
the room. There wee • general hash.
hoes grew gram. Lips quivered Ind eyel=t
for in the Ikea, memory woke up ; end the ghouls
of the peel mom troops( by, "M. 1.11421. "180
=;l4said it wee bard to kosow whether odd
was a time kr meth or malaise
" Mai I clang Man I" eine the belle, sad
Modred voice, mew the freely air, eleging the ell
carol :

" God rost 'you marry, paths" lei nothing yet!
dismay ;
Samosairsr, Christ our Saviour, was lora en Cbrinmeg
day."
The children orowdad to the bay window, and
tinning to another I fiend it airamay oinempimd.
Mark and Ina mooed Share ; be 111111 whimpering in hen
ear, and half bid by a shawl, 1 iaw hie arm around
bor.

—is 1 sat by my bed-room ere au hoar after,
a light tap at my door wok... from my draining.
Ina mum in, her long light hair floating in golden
ripples over • blue dressing-grown.
" May I coon and warm myself, Aunty r a.
mid; 'the fire bad gone out in my room, and
lam so cold." She gave a pretty 1.0.6 shiver, as if
to verify the mairtam, though the warm hoe ebo
wzed to mins rather oostradioted her words.
nestling down upon the kwarth-rag,
clasped her hands round bar know Proses* ohs
mid, but wittimit taming round, "To. like Mark
Amberly, Aunty." 1 aoquiesond, and ail west as,
—"8o do 1, and, Wet it hinny, bo says be liked
me, and—"_

Then soddenly the was kneeling by me, sad under
• cloud of hair, and amide* • shower of kisses, I was
listening to her secret, how Mark had asked her to
be his wife, but bow he had first settled it all with
his father and bare; and that he was to go to India
until he got his promotion, when he might leave the
army and marry her.
Next day the party broke up. Souse to their own
homes to mews guests, and some to join other
parties. Mark went to India ia ffeburary ; and
during the year, although I beard constantly of or
from Ina, I did not meet her. So that when
Christmas aims again, and I taw her as the Hall,
I was struck with an alteration; what humid hardly
tell. lthe hod grown handsomer. Every One saw
and maid that, and yet no one hinted at other
°hangs. Yet from the moment she oases up to me,
and looked at me with her great grey wistful eyes,
my heart chilled, sod • fear I could not define mine
over me. Nor was my anxiety lemma when, as
we were talking of Mark, Ina began to cry passion.
and rushed out of the room. wen
something wrong, and mng hor that evening
from the drawing-room, I went to look for bar.
Opening the morning-room door I sew Ina. Bhe
was sitting at the wiodow, but not alone; • man
was beside her, bending ioadly over her. There
was no light save that of the moon, so I did not
recognise hint, nor did 1 tarry to maks the attempt;
to tell the truth, I was indignant with bar; and
closing the door with • bang, I marched off to the
drawing-room. People were seated here, there, and
everywhere, so I could not make out who it wee
with Ina, though I tried hard that night and next
day to discover who it was had made my pet so
miserable. We were all buoy that day, Ina as hard
at work as any of us; but when midnight came with
its bell ringing and carol dinging, I missed her, and
with • feeling I °mild never withstand or explain, I
went to the little room. There she was. This time the
window was open, and the man, for he was there
too, was standing by her, his arm round her. I
beard her murmur something in a sobbing voice, and
saw her lift her hands above her heed and wring
them. Then, traitor as she was, I could play the
eavesdropper no loner, but hurried away, and when
I got to my bed-room a little later I sat down and
cried : of coaxes it was foolish; what bed I, an old
maiden aunt, to do with the perjured faith of an
heartless girl, or the broken heart of a too easily.
duped lover As I sat them before the dying fire,
with the tears still wet upon my fain, I became
conscious of • sound resembling waves break=
I listened; the waves' beat grew louder, I
bear them distinctly, and so too could I hear the
wind and storm bowling loader and louder; it
broke against the windows of my room, nay, in the
very room itself. I shuddered as the blest passed
over me; I felt Ow oold spray dashing in my hoe,
and grasped the chair as I tried to shriek, to cover
my ears, and hide my eyes in the pillow, but in
vain. I had no choice but to look upon the stormy
ma whole a ship lay tossing helplessly. I saw the
spars washed overboard. I maw men stroggliag in
the pitiless waves: the faces and streaming hair of
women, and owe the white fans of • lithle child.
Then the darkness became so intense that only when
the lightening flashed could I distinguish the wreak,
although the thunder of the tempest was curdling
my blood. Suddenly the winds and water,water,o
their war, and there came • milm so deep that I
heard every throb of my heart; and eel sat wonder.
inc what was coming, a gentle wind rustled past me,
• hand touched my faoe, and Mark Amberly's voice
cried, "Comfort Ina."
After that I seemed to faint, for when I recovered
coneciousnees the tire and candles were out, and the
dull grey morning was 'alining into the room.
Gradually I began to °onset my thought., and as I
undressed and got into bed, • feeling of horror
settled down upon 0211. 1 had never been • believer
in the supernatural, and now tried hard to convince
myself that 1 bad been dreaming I wait determined
to treat it as a dream, sod, laughing at my folly,
persistently kept down my fears, leaving next day,
without saying a word to Ina. Our Maws. •
cold one, for my heart was full, and I new the
slightest demonstration would overtime my self.
control, and give my sensible resolutions to the
winds, hc. With a cold kiss and mutterred "you'll
write, of course"—we parted.
A fortaight after 1 saw Mark's promotion in the
Gazette, and the following poet brought • letter from
Ina. "Mark," she said, "had left lodia, =min
home round the Cape to shake off the 'fleets of •
slight attack of fever.
Tb• letter fell from my heed. I saw it all Dow—
sed the cold drops stood upon my forehead, as 1
seemed again to bear the sad voles crying, "Comfort
Ina." Mark was drowned. By some mysterioue
power, I had men the wreck ; and love, Amager
than death, had brooOt the dying man with hie
message of love. His WA thought had beau dine ;
and Ina, what of her What would she feel when
she knew that at the very tints the was false to
him Mark was in the jaws of death—and such •
death I. . . .

'r.l wretched. 1 'kola not write. I dare not
see her. I went away by myself where nous of my
people could get at me, and compel me to tell (as I
felt I must) my terrible secret. Weeks passed, I
grew ill with anxiety, and at last went to London to
consult the shipping agents, hoping against hope.
They told me the ship was due at the end of the
month, but that there baying been rough weather
she might have been delayed. So leaving orders to
telegraph the first intelligence. I went back to the
village where I had pitched my tent.
" A month overdue now, and people all the offke
getting anxious," so wrote my sister, and I put
away t d letter
her an sill waited.
—. td
. . . .

"'Two months overdue, • hops dying ; Ina is in •
strange way, and keeps talking of you. May ars
oome— so wrote my brother„lna's father, and
before I oould mower yea or no, Ina maw. Sloe
rushed into my room one afternoon just at mark
end stood before we crying,

" What ham happeord, ;fusty ? Why will yow
not tall ; h.hu beau owe of twice sad bid me
oome to you for oomfort. What is it?
" Poor child," 1 laid, how eau I know r
" Tboo why did be tell me to come ? Why look
at me as you dtd at the Hall, Dearly driving me
mad?'

I told her, and was frightessik he aim 'Mai
from her boom with the cry at • sod mama, aad
then fe/I sighing and shivenbsi ars the Pawl
"It was Mark, Aunty. I fat Mat aloe Ns, and
you only law by= I was ware samething had
happened, though I MM. dare okay soy and he
always told me to Doan to yos for Sionifeet.' "
Lying in my &TOW III& h4lOOll to my instenon/
the story of the wreck, which elm, i
only too woe, for when a year had pissed, a malt
mune so the agents and reported him..!!.. the saki
survivor of the Halberd's arew. Thi puthwb
wookod hot had come as apon the mocafagafth.
Mod December, and she foasdered at spilt
Christmas-ave.—From Warne'. Chriebans Anima'

Ws sedentead that Mews. Badge sad Baas, d ate
Raid Berkshire Sled Zsaddialtdost, &ease. brae
reesivad fl o 1 stusettoonaset that the jams tie
Paris Universal Raltildtiett have awarded thetta
elver add for their eolleetioe ta peep 9,
iasisded medusas d gnaws of Weir ova growth,
, sampliss el grass seeds, NI also at Bettaa's Mew riles
farm, prim, sad Sewer see&

• Sword damson ia Northambirlaad ars knows is
pima