The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-11-15 00:00:00

CHAPTER xxvlL

WARNED.
What the years mean; how time dies and is not Slain;
How by: grows, and laughs and cries, and wanes again—
These were things she came to know, ant t.ke their
theasnre.
IT was certainly beyond any question a strange
fatality that made Leonard Grant start on his
journey to the other side of the world on the very
day almost the self-am c hour, indeed—that saw
the man for whom he sought set foot once more
upon the shore of England; for it is hardly worth
while to attempt so much of mystery as to conceal
the fact that neither Doctor Sampson nor Pounceby
had erred in their recognition of the whilom Alick
Wood.

They were, however, each in fault as to tho
identity of his companion —a fact which the sharp
eyes of Mr. Pouneeby would have dote,teil at once
had he seen the supposed Carrie Bradley; but the
probability in favour of the Doctor's assertion
being correct was so great that—nearly for the first
time in his life—Pounceby accepted it without
hesitation, when a very slight amount of investiga-
tion would have satisfied him to the contrary.
Still, his mistake was not without excuse. Dr.
Sampson had told him that he saw Alick Wood and
Carrie' with him, and having personally satisfied
himself that the first part of this assertion was well
founded, he jumped rather hastily at the conclusion
that its sequel was equally so.
In point of fact this was not the case.
_ _ .

Mr: Clarence Woodville —to use the florid-sound-
ing name which our young adventurer had assumed
—may be regarded from either point of view which
seems best to those who take any interest in his
fortunes. First, as he called himself the victim of
circumstances in being forced by hard fortune to
forego what good resolutions he had made to reform,
or—and this is probably nearer the truth—as an
unprincipled, selfish scoundrel, whose only objection
to actual crime lay in the consequences that attach
thereto. So far, indeed, as his nature would permit,
he had at one time loved the girl who had trusted
herself so entirely to him; but as he grew older the
boyish affection faded, and he neglected, even ill-
used her at times, till gradually they became more
and more alienated.

Not that Carrie shared his feelings in this respect.
From time Immemorial women have borne, still
bcar, and will for over bear such wrong, going on to
the end in blind love and patient submission to th-ir
wrongers ; and there was one all-powerful motive
which for a long time prevented any absolute rupture
between these two.

On her side, all-enduring love; on his, interest.
He could not afford to openly quarrel with and
leave her, for Carrie brought in no mean share to
the common stock. In the earlier portion of this
hist, ry it has been shown that Aliek Wood pos-
sessed a great liking for the theatre; and accident,
almost immediately on his arrival at the ant:po,les,
afforded hurt an opportunity to indulge his youthful
longings, and gratify the darling ambition that he
had long cherished to become an actor.
The means by which this result was brought abee it
have -eo parth.ular interest in themselves to warrant
any such interruption fts their telling would invol, e.
Enough to say that it was only in a very humid*,
capacity—as a super, indeed—that he made his first
appearance on the boards. But actors were at a
premium in Australia in those days. The company
was limited in number, and Aliek Wood, sharp and
intelligent, soon attracted the notice of the stage-
manager. Promoted to speak a few lines, he
acquitted himself so well that he was regularly
enga.,!ed, and soon blossomed into Clarence Wood-
ville, leading-man at the very theatre where he had
made his first appearance carrying a banner.
But if his success was great, that achieved by
Carrie was still more surprising and pronounced.
A fair actor, and nothing more. Alick—or rather
let us use the name he claw to adopt—Clarence
Woodville was utterly destitute of that "divine
fire" which can alone elevate a man above his fel-
lows, and which from her very earliest appearance
lifted Carrie at once into the highest ranks of the
profession she also had chosen. :More on her ac-
count, therefore, than his, engagements were eagerly
pressed upon the two; and almost at a bound they
fts
their
inredi
eetxnhpteemfeotsrae
tleivooemns
sfp, lirtntt ed
the
an idnp
even
espenos position tomi
no
moderate
ffe far t
ee
meansxd ce exceeding
i logyi
luxury.
But there are some naturegthat are never content,
and Clarence Woodville's was one of them. Ex-
travagant in his habits, recklessly profuse when his
personal gratification was concerned, the income
which but a short time back he would have looked
upon as absolute riches soon assumed less glittering
proportions. He saw men on every side of him
scattering gold in reckless profusion—successful
aVers. lucky cold-diggers—and env' theis

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!TOM

command of the yell.6* dross, felt aggrieved that
he could not launch out into like lavishness of ex-
penditure, and fling money right and left as others
did.. By and by, indeed, he had a prospect before
him in the shape of what reward he might extort
from Leonard Grant as the price of the proofs that
were necessary to establish his position but
"while the grass grows," &c. and meanwhile an
unlooked-for chance opened a dazzling vision before
the eyes of Mr. Clarence Woodville that promised
him a future of luxury and ease without the trouble
of working for these thugs.
There was only one drawback to the scheme, in
that some degree of danger attached to it; but that
seemed so slight—if the plan was only carried out
carefully—that he determined to risk it. For all
his profession of honesty, he was ;at heart a rogue,
and, although he had a wholesome fear of conse-
quences, was troubled with very few scruples as to
what means he employed for making money so
long as that end was attained, and in the present
instance success seemed almost a matter of
certainty.
What was the scheme upon which he founded such
hopes may be told in a very few sentences.
Unknown to Carrie, he had been for some time
carrying on an intrigue with a girl who was half
companion, half lady's maid to one Madame
Despard. This lady died r .ther suddenly, and
having led a very secluded life and cultivated no
acquaintances, besides having no relations living,
or likely to trouble themselves about her (the '
actual truth of her origin being that she was one
of those earlier inhabitants of the colony who had
arrived there at Government expense as a convict,
and been assigned in service to M. Despard, a '
prosperous hotel-keeper, who was won by her !
handsome face and figure to make her his wife),
there was nobody to interfere and prevent Laura.
Desmond from taking possession of her dead mis- ,
tress's effects. There were not many, it appeared
at first sight—much less, indeed, than was to be
expected from the fact that M. Dospard had cer-
tainly died with the reputation of being one of the
richest men in the colony, though his widow had
lived in an almost miserly fashion.
What had become of the old Frenchman's money,
however, was soon disclosed to Clarence Woodville
when he, in concert with her late companion, came
to ransack the desk and read what letters had been
left by Madame Despard. From these they learned
that before his death M. Despard had invested a
large sum in the purchase of an estate near his
native city of Rouen; that his widow had since
regularly agent transmitted to an aent there the bulk
of her income to be invested in French securities, all
the vouchers for which were duly remitted to her:
and that she had left behind her, to say nothing of
the chateau and grounds bought by her late
husband, a fortune amounting to nearly two millions
of francs!

The two conspirators learned more than this.
They learned that Madame Despard had, some
twenty years before, in the first year of her mar
riage, given birth to a child --- a girl—who would
now, it she had lived, been just about the age of
Laura Desmond. That child had died, however,
in infancy but there were the certificates of its
birth, baptism, and—burial.
Abrilliant idea occurred to Clarence Woodville.
Could not the last be suppressed, and armed with
the two former, with the knowledge they both had
of the whole subject and the deceased woman's
history, Laura Desmond assume the identity of her
who would, if she had lived, inherited so much
wealth ?"

And he found a willing coadjutor when he broached
this idea to Laura Desmond.

It was a daringly devised scheme, and prospered
apparently without any fear of detection when, in
pursuance of it, Clarence Woodville quitted Aus
tralia, leaving Carrie to her fate, and accompanied
the impostor to France to prosecute her false claim.
Prospered for a time, in spite of the fact that strong
efforts were made to upset it by a certain.M. Michel
Despard, a cousin, who would have succeeded to the
whole property but for the fraud that was being
practised.
And that it was a fraud M. Michel was abso-
lutely convinced—though, to speak truth, he would
have been equally so had it been otherwise—but
the proofs aaduced were so overwhelming, the
case so entirely without a flaw, that though he was
naturally averse to resigning without a struggle the
riches he had so long regarded as prospectively his
own, wisdom showed him the folly of contesting
the gjaim, and induced him to welcome his new-
found cousin with an affection of goodwill that
by no means blinded that young lady to his real
sentiments. _ _ _ _

But what he thought mattered little. A few more
days and the matter would be finally decided in her
favour, and then for a life of luxury and enjoyment,
which Clarence Woodville had of course arranged
to share, and the details of which they were
discussing one morning at breakfast, when the door
quietly opened and a woman entered the room so
noisrles=ly that it was some minutes before its
former occupants saw her.

(To be continued.) a