The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-03 00:00:00

unobtrusively, not as if she were go!ng to be married
—all that trousseau buyinc; would de) afterwards; but
providing such things as were absolutely necessary.
Cuthbert went away, and roamed about the Continent,
like an uneasy ghost, returning when his uncle came
back to Havre, with news of what was going on in
London. Mr. Ingram reported that news ot Helen's
death, as everybody thought, had reached the Jarvis's,
and that Mrs. Churchill and her daughters were at
Campsie House. Horace Gaylord was at Milford,
very quiet, but behaving in a fashion that was
slightly eccentric, to say the least of it.
'They have had news from the French coast,' the
old gentleman said. 'From what I can gather, Mr.
Jarvis went to Biarritz, and searched for you him-
self; but you seem to have made a very succEssfuJ
departure. No one knew anything about it.'
And yet I did nothing but walk straight out of
the town,' Helen said, the rest was accident. I spoke
to no one, except one man on my road, and I missed
my way, and was taken up by a cart—l was almost
beside myself with fright; that man seemed to be
calling me all the way I went.'
And you would have gone to him?' _ _ .

'I must; I could not have helped myself. Oh! Mr.
Ingram, save me from him ! I have no faith in my
own strength, no belief in my own power ot avoiding
him.'

'He may call as much as he likes when you are my
boy's wife,' Mr. Ingram said, quietly. ite shall rue
the day he ever interfered with you if he does. He
shall rue it any way. We'll bring that black business
home to him, somehow—and then '

Oh don't said Helen, shivering at the possibility.
Don't speak of it. I have no proof. I shouldn't
have spoken of it; please forget that I have said any-
thing about it.'
You are not the only one that suspects him, my
dear,' Mr. Ingram said, gently. I think, from what
I hear, that the web is closing round that gentleman
pretty surely. Put him out of your head and be
happy; if we can make you so, you shall be.'
c Has anything been discovered?' Helen asked.
'Have you heard anything?'
Nothing definite. But this much I did hear: That
the authorities at Scotland Yard are on the alert, and,
"from infoimation they have received," are pretty
well prepared to put their hands on the right person;
and I expect that the right person will be—Mr. Horace
Gaylord.'
_ _ _ _

rlt is horrible!' Helen exclaimed. 'I wish I could
believe him innocent. But I know—l know—'

.Don't, my child,' the old man said, as she burst
into bitter weeping, for she was weak and easily over-
come still. What is to be, will be; it will not be
your hand that will bring it home to him, unli se his
wickedness to you has anything to do with the retri-
bution that must come. Try and forget the past, and
make a future for yourself, in Cuthbert's devotion and
my love as well. You are to be my son and daughter,
you know
'1 he question arose where the marriage should take
place. A wedding in Havre, where there were so few
English residents, would never do, if they wanted to
keep it a secret. Helen's presence was almost un-
noticed in Mrs. Hansard's household. She went out
very little, and if the town knew that a young lady
who had been shipwrecked was staying there, it was
as much as it did. Cuthbert's appearance had been
equally unnoticed; they had neither of them come in
the guise of shipwrecked folks wanting anything, as
is generally the case.
They would go into Germany, they decided at
length, and be married in some Protestant church
there, and finally fixed upon Cologne, as being big
enough for them to live in unnoticed; and thither
they went, meeting with very few people in that dull
season of the year. The Rhine tourists had not com-
menced crowding the railways, and the steamboats
and the old city was quiet and dull enough. They all
took up their abode in an hotel that Mr. Ingram the
elder knew very well, and from thence, attended only
by the landlady, a motherly, cheery woman of English
extraction, Helen went to her wedding, feeling as if
she were walking in a dream.
It was difficult to believe that she was actually Cuth-
bert's wife when the quiet ceremony was over; and
her husband took her in his arms and kissed her with
a ratifying kiss of ownership. It seemed to her as if
she must wake somewhere and feel the dreadful
oppression of Horace Gayford's pe:secuting influence;
and she almost fainted when at length they were out
in the open air once more, and Cuthbert was handily,
her into the carriage that was to take them back to the
hotel. _ _ _

What is it, my darling?' he asked. You are so
I don't know?' she murmured. 'I have been
feeling all the time as if that man was at ay
elbow. Do you think he can harm me now, Cuth-
bert ?'

'He must kill me first, darling,' was the ear nest
response, and the young man folded his bride in his
arms. 'You are mine now, and nothing but death shall
ever part us more.'
'I shall feel safe now,' Helen said. 'Cuthbert.'

Well darling.'
When I was drowning, I think I knew that you
were alive, somehow. I seemed to be near you—l
think I called out your naxte the very last thing that
I remember.'

'And I yqurs. Captain Tregellis told me that I
only spoke one word while I lay on board the Mary
Jane, and that word was your name. Our hearts
were tcgether, you see, though we were so far apart.
We must see Tregellis, Helen, when we go to England.
If ever there was an angel in a rough guise, he is one.
He told me his story just before we picked you up.
It was a tale of bitter disappointment. He knew I
was coming home to you, and, somehow, I think he
was afraid I should share his fate, and find something
between me and my happiness when I landed in
England-'
And you found me in the sea instead,' Helen said,
nestling close to him. I hope you will never live to
repent it, sir.'

CIJAPTER L.

FOREWARNED, FOREARMED.

'There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper,
That steal the colour from Bassa.nio's cheek.
afterrl on A G
the visit
aYnrR Odof
Philseemed wentpo
hatobovo
au
see
e. lie ke a
He
on could o
uad neither
ithrdreamet
in
- emissary-
in a
tr Ee E
eA
from
r so.
11.,
nor slee
Scotland Yard in every stranger that passed the house.
He knew that ho was watched; he felt sure that Mr.
Jarvis was in some way acquainted with his every
movement; and he felt certain that the mysterious
Mr. Stone was observant of all that had happened to
him.
He was continually meeting him, hardly face to
face, for the eccentric stranger always avoided that,
but seeing him at unexpected turnings and on the
opposite side of the road. He could find out nothing
about him, except that he was a friend of Mr. Jarvis,
and very quiet in his habits, fond of natural history,
and a good deal about with Barney Grubb. He went
so far as to question the boatman one day, not long
atter his nocturnal adventure in the wood; but
Barney knew nothing but what all Hillford knew,
apparently.
Mr. Stone frequently visited the ferry-house. He
was an affable gentleman enough—not particularly
old, that Barney could see. If Mr. Gayford happened
to be passing some day when he was there, he could
easily see him. The boatman looked his questioner
straight in the face as he answered him, and had
evidently nothing to conceal. If Mr. Stone was really
a detective, as Horace Gaylord suspected. he hid his
identity perfectly.
To a man living with the sword of Damocles hang-
ing over his head, as it were, and the knowledge that
his guilty secret was in the possession of one person,
at least, in the place, the presence of this unknown
individual was obnoxious in the highest degree, and
he could not think of it without a shiver of appre-
hension, which was not lessened when one day the
postman brought a letter in a man's handwriting
ne did not know.
It was brief and to the purpose, only a few lines,
a cramped and evidently disguised hand.
'The lawyer means you misch:ef. Go, before it is
soo late. Everything is known in Scotland Yard. In
...Air days from now all will be blown.'
Horace Gayford turned the letter over and over,
but could find no trace of a clue to the writer's
identity. It had been posted in London, at the
General Bost Office, and the writing might have been
that of any half-educated man in the kingdom. It
had no sort of individuality about it. "The lawyer
means me mischief, does he?' he said, as ho sat over
the fire, shivering with unspeakable terror and dread,
atter he had read the myslerious warning. Now is
the time for me to act, then. If lam to come down,
he shall fall with me. No mischief shall come to me,
but it shall touch him as nearly. I have asked no
mercy at his bands. He shall beg for it at mine, and
not for himself, for Hush, Horace Gaylord, the
walls may have ears. Not a word. For tour days.
I can accomplish all I want in one, and then, Hadder-
wick Jarvis, you may do your worst, the worst you
dare do. I defy you.
If words and thoughts could have killed, Mr.
Jarvis would have been a dead man. There
blow
rlelowweads
murder in Horace Gaylord's heart, when he thought
hoifshyimou,nags
osuoruesiansitnhteortehheawdoobdee, nanwdhsetnruchke
which had well nigh sent Barney Grubb to the
allows.
tiv,rlbeondaytisituhkc•iargi
thott
hhiech'7rerri
ehtl
e dsafe,ep
shoefnGhi ret o had's Hs or' el
en,
alrnodnahtehheasdhandidodwenohtieweltortehee,shihmesewiforneg,
nainnd. emueerhgaedd
intended the boatman to bear the brunt of his crime,
when he had procured a buit of clothes exactly like
those he wore in his daily work, and a cap so exactly
the same as the fur oddity that Barney loved to adorn
himself with, that even DWI Donovan was deceived.
But Nemesis had been on his track. The hiding place
of the clothes had been discovered; and the very air
seemed full of suspicion of him.
He had Iceit his prestige in Hillford. Since his
return, it seemed to him that everybody looked coldly
on him, in Bpi e of the fortune he had inherited. There
was something, he could not tell what, in the manner
of his former friends, that made him feel out in
the cold, as it were. No longer the popular preacher,
Lie had no infatuated female following to sound Ids
praise. His successor had won his way to the hearts
of the more sensible part of the congregation, and rho
others bad drifted away to preachers afLer their own
hearts elsewhere.
Ugly stories had got about respecting him, after
the excitement of the murder and his sudden absence.
No one quite knew how. But there were th.ngs