The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-10 00:00:00

. SATURDAY, DEC. 104 1881

CALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
NOBLER THAN REVENGE.

' What shall you do ?' asked the younger man, when
they were fairly out of Mrs. Churchill's premises.
'lt will be a mercy if I do not kill him,' was the
answer that came from Mr. Jarvis's set lips: 'I should
like nothing better, the hound.'
'lt may be that lam mistaken,' Mr. Stone said. '1
don't mean in the fact; Miss Jarvis is there; I saw
her go in. She may have thought that you were there,
and have come after you, but the expression on her
face startled me; she looked like a sleep walker, and
she was ghastly pale. She was impelled by some
power that she could not resist, the same power that
made Barney Grubb turn round and stand like a
whipped schoolboy before his enemy. I Ithink I was
right in coming to fetch you.'
'Right, my boy; I am eternally obliged to you.
You may have saved my girl from—ah, I cannot
speak of it. Thank heaven you were on the spot and
knew where to find me.'

Mrs. Brown came to the door at their hasty ring,
and was amazed to see them, and both of them look-
ing so troubled and eager.
. Mr. Gayford ?' Mr. Jarvis said; is he In?'
'Yes, sir, he's in, but-,
'But what?'
'He's engaged.'
'Who with?'

• A lady, sir.'
'I thought as much. I must see him, no matter
who he is engaged with. Show me to his room,
please; I will announce myself.'
• I musn't do that, sir, Mr. Gayford-'
'I will answer to him for my actions,' said the irate
lawyer; let me pass, if you please.'
He pushed her aside as if she were nobody, she told
her husband afterwards, and striding past her flung
open the door of Horace Gaylord's sitting-room. It
was empty! The gas was burning, and the room was
in some disorder, but there was no one there.
'Show me his other room,' Mr. Jarvis said to the
wondering landlady. 'Where is It?'

• It's here,' she gasped, throwing open another door,
•up those stairs; but he isn't there. I • have come
straight down from his room. I was setting it to
rights when you came to the door.'
• But he is in the house. Have you heard him go
out?'

'No, that I haven't,' the woman said, looking
bewildered, as indeed she felt; 'me and Brown have
been in our parlour all the time since the young lady
came, and we have never heard them move. Brown
did not like it; her coming here, I mean. We did not
know who she was; and-'

No, of course not; but they must be found, have
you no idea which way they went?'
• 1 had no idea they were out of the house at all,'
said the perplexed Mrs. Brown. That comes of
having all the locks oiled and set to please him, till
they move of themselves almost, and never make a
bit of noise. Maybe he'll be back in a little, sir, and
the young lady too; they can't have gone far.'
Heaven knows where they are gone,' the father
said, but wherever it is he must be found. Beep
this matter to yourself if yoa please, till we have dis-
covered something more definite. It may be nothing,
and it may-'

He broke down, utterly unable to control his voice
to speak quietly. He knew very well what it meant,
and he understood now the meaning of Horace
Gayford's words when he threatened him with the
vengeance that should be so hot and heavy. It was
through his child that he was to be tortured, and he
cursed the handsome black-hearted roue in his bean
with all an outraged father's bitterness. All they
could find out, and it was more than two hours before
they discovered even as much as that, was that the
two had certainly gone to London. A cabman, who
was not to be found for a long time, had taken up a
lady and gentleman on the other Bide of the river,
and driven them to a little station some two miles
away, and from there they had taken tickets for
London.

Mr. Jarvis telegraphed to his wife, and started for
London, to be completely baffled when he arrived
there. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and the two had
walked away from the station, and left no clue to
where they were going.
Weary and dispirited beyond measure, Mr. Jarvis
drove home, and told his wife what had happened,
and what he had done. He commissioned Mr. Stone
to do the same for Mrs. Churchill; but that eccentric
personage avoided going to Fernbank himself, and
sent a note instead, saying that one of Mr. Jarvis's
daughters was unaccountably missing, and he had
gone to London to follow up a clue to her where-
abouts.

Mrs. Brown firmly believed that wicbcraft was at
the bottom of the double disappearance. It was im-
possible, she declared, for anyone to get out of her
house without being heard, even with the noiseless
locks, and she had been listening, while, the young
lady was there, in the hope of being able to discover
who he was, and what she wanted.

Examination of Mr. Gayford's room showed pretty
plainly that be meant going away, if not on that
particular evening, on some early date. His papers
were burned; his things, for the most part, taken
away or packed up; and Mrs. Brown remembered,
with a sudden shock, 'like cold water running down
her back,' she said, that he had paid her up in full
rather before the time when his rent was due. He
had offered her the money, and she had demurred,
saying it was not due; but ha had said something
about taking it while she could get it, and she had done
so, little thinking he was giving it to her in lieu of
notice.

Whatever his motive was, or that of the companion
of his hurried departure, he was gone, and Hillford
was to know him no more.

CHAPTER Lll.
TIDINGS.
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard. What's done is done.'
—SHAKESPEARE.
Mn. JARVIS had never been so at fault in his life, nor
so thoroughly stricken down by anything, as he was
by this unexpected and sorrowful event. Most men
would have put the matter into the hands of the police
at once; but he argued that to do that would be to
publish to all the world his daughter's indiscretion,
perhaps her shame. He thought to himself, with a
shudder, that that man was capable of anything, and
she had gone to him openly and willingly.
wifea t Itl a
swta
what l
aonn
dgh
ea
if
tt, ef
erawrmea
edi naiagnhrt r
rwt
ihobelnea
chkt eansokrwe al
et%
dh:
edt e
uhwohhmai eat
he had kept from her before what he knew
of poor Phyllis's illness. Mrs. Jarvis was not
so irate as he expected, she felt too deeply to scold or
reproach. She • only said that it would hate been
better if she had been told; a mother'ucare might
have counteracted the evil influence that had been
creeping over their child. ,
$ I have been remiss in my duties myself,' she said,
with tears that made her husband feel something more
like love for her than he had ever felt before. 'I have
been too wise in my own conceit, and thought I was
guiding my house and family aright, when really I
was drawing too tight a rein. My girls were afraid
of me, and did not take me into their confidence.'
It is not too late to win it,' Mr. Jarvis said, gently.
'I was not in their confidence either, or this dread-
ful thing would not have happened. Heaven grant
Phyllis is safe. That man is capable of anything.'
'Even of murdering her?'
No, no, not that, I hope and pray,' the lawyer sale,
taking her cold hand in his and caressing it; for she
was sobbing hysterically. He swore to be revenged
.on me when I accused him of having beguiled Helen
away in some mysterious fashion. I can understand
hbw he did it now: Big I don't think that even his
bitteresc'enmity would lead him to murder. What
we know of was done in madness, I know that. But
this has been planned deliberately, and don't think
the hangman entered into his calculations in connection
with it.' •
But what can we do?' Mrs. Jarvis said, weeping
bitterly. Where is Phyllis?'
With him wherever he is. Curse him! We can
do nothing to-night. I did not want the story of my
girl's weakness and folly sent all over London,. or I
should have gone to Scotland-yard at once; it would
have been .useless—they are gone out of England,
probably. I will set about a search to-morrow. We
shall have tidings of them from somewhere. The
villain I He must be made to do her justice, poor, de-
luded child!'
Hedderwick I You surely would not have him
marry her?'
'.What else can be done?'
But think of it. You say yourself that he is the
man that murdered poor Frank Hatherleigb, and that
the authorities are only waiting a fitting opportunity,
and the completion of some evidence, to arrest him.
Did you not tell me as much as that; or have I dreamed
It?'
$ I did tell you, 'my dear.'
And yet you would give him our Phyllis?
I shall have ho alternative. He is not arrested
yet, and may never be. It has to be proved that he
did the deed, when it is it will be time enough for us
to worry ourselves about it,'
'I don't understand you, Hedderwick. You are
strange and unlike yourself to-night. Is there any-
thing to be told that I have not heard. Is the child
dead?'
No, dear, no, don't think that; she is safe. I am
sure of it, as far as personal safety is concerned. I am
all, erwilehl talk e
overwrought,
Frank gh w. T
startled,
aatnhderfieuill ofhaenix anxiety,
That
will
iilsl
gheotms
home
some rest.
Ibeshbalrolungehttgtoa
tlieghbteds.omstaym.
moment, if it is the will of her wicked tormentor.'
may
ycoamilde
Overvrraught and worried he must have been, in-
deed, to lay his head on his clasped hands and burst
into tears. His wife had, perhaps never realised how
great the strain upon him had been in all this time of
trial and anxiety, and she did her best to comfort and
cheer him in a way that surprised him. She had long
come to feel what a gentle, generous nature she was
helping to harden by her self-righteous pride and stern-
ness, and she had been wonderfully gentle and yield
big of late with her children and himself.
She had sympathised with him sincerely in his
trouble about Helen Ramsay, but this was a thing
that touched them both, their own child; and though
she hardly believed in the secret power that could
make a girl like a reed in the hands of an un-
scrupulous man, she knew what love could do,
and she knew now, too late, that her quiet gentle
Phyllis, had loved this handsome hypocrite ever since
they had made his acquaintance.
It has been my fault,' she said to her husband
with sorrowful tears. If I had not tried to make
the girls choose as I thought would be for their happi-
ness and their good, she would never have given a
thought to him and his wicked face. Idrew the reins
too tight. and they have manned?

'I was to blame, too,' Mr. Jarvis said. 'I ought to
have seen what might happen; but I was blind. I
saw his pursuit of poor Helen, and resented it for
Frank's sake. I little thought what would come of
It; this is part of it all. He has stolen Phyllis to be
avenged on us, and the poor infatuated girl thinks it
Is all his great love for her.'

She did-think so, and she was not enlightened yet.
Horace Gayford had made up his mind what to do.
He would marry Mr. Jarvis's daughter, and then let
him have his son•in-law arrested if he would—the
shame and the disgrace would belong to him then,
and stick to him for evermore, whatever was the end
of it. The train whirled them away in the darkness
—not towards Norwood, as poor Phyllis saon found
out, but to London. She was under the spell stid, as
he intended she should be; and, though she begged
him with tears to take her back, she was amenable
and content to do his bidding. •
He soothed her with gentle words, and talked of the
love that he did not feel; fanning the flame that bad
been her destruction till the poor girl thought that to
be his wife would be the most enviable state on this
side of heaven, and was quiet and acquiescent in the
plans he laid down for her. He offered her no insult,
but he combated her arguments, and was aid to her
entreaties to be taken home.

' Why did you come, little one?' he asked, if you
did not want to stop with me?'

She looked at him beseechingly—but there was no
response in his eyes—they were turned upon her with
a look that was at once loving and terrifying, and she
was as a reed in his hands.'

You know why I came,' she gasped. You know
—I could not help it. I had to come—you—'
Nay, I did nothing.' he said, affecting a stern
manner that made her shiver and shrink yet closer to
him in the corner of the carriage where she sat. 'I
was not expecting a visitor when they told me a lady
was there, and my little Phyllis walked in. Having
come to me, child, you cannot draw back: and you
don't want to.'

His eyes were on her again, and she gasped out,
• No; she didn't; she never wanted to leave him: he
had made her love him, and she could not help it,'and
a great deal more till he stopped her with an
effort of his powerful will, and made her feel again
what an abject, unwomanly thing she was, and what
a terrible mistake she had made in leaving her home.
She was in his power as completely as a bird is in the
power of the serpent that is presently going to devour
It and has it under its fascinating eye.
Arrived in London, Horace Gayford walked quietly
away from the station, and completely out of its neigh-
bourhood before he took a cab and conveyed his com-
panion to an hotel in the north of London. He was
going on in the morning to the Continent; but it was
no part of his plan to make straight for London-
bridge; he was going to get to Dover by a circuitous
route, if, indeed, he favoured that way of getting
across at all.

Be bestowed Phyllis in the care of the landlady, and
betook himself to his own room—not to sleep, for he
was fearful of his prey escaping him—fearful, too, of
being overtaken and arrested. He must manage to
put the sea between him and England, and then they
might do their worst. Phyllis would be powerless
when once they were across the sea, and he need not
fear her trying to get home: he could always prevent
that.

Chance aided him, as it often aids the wicked; and
mistaken for someone else, they travelled without the
slightest suspicion being aroused as to who they were,
and Mr. Jarvis and his emissaries sought in vain for
them. The affair was kept as secret as possible; but
it got bruited abroad somehow that Mr. Jarvis's
daughter had eloped under very peculiar circum-
stances, and that the companion of her flight was the
fascinating young clergyman who had been so popular
in Hillford before the mysterious murder of his young
cousin.

Nothing certain was known, but people talked, and
Mrs. Brown, gossip-lover that she was, could not help
letting her tongue run a little. Mr. Gayford was gone
sure enough, she admitted, but he bad given her no
notice, and she had no doubt he was comingback ; she
had made up her mind that be should not, but she
did not tell everybody so. He worrited her so
lately,' she said to herself. There had been a young
lady to see him,' she told the gossips, but she could
not say that they went out together; she did not see
them.' Her inuendoes only added fuel to the fire that
was heaping up about the memory of Horace Gayford,
and helped to bring about the catastrophe that was so
Imminent.

People came to her house and asked questions, and
gavG her no peace of her life, as she told her husband
when he came home after his day's employment was
over; and one of the most tiresome wag Phil Donovan,
who made his appearance half drunk and very abusive,
and demanded news of the parson.'
'I want to know when he's coming back,' he said.
I've business with him.'
If I knew, I wouldn't tell you,' Mrs. 'Brown
retorted. 'He doesn't want to see you, I know that.
Oh, yes, he does,' Mr. Donovan said with tipsy
gravity. He's very fond of me, is Mr. Gayford.
You tee I was in the wood that night and saw a good
bit, and another night when you thought he was safe
in bed, and he saw the ghost. Oh, it was glorious
fun, that was—not the ghost—l wouldn't see that
again for a fortune. But the best of it was, I had to
help him home that night, he was drunk with fright ;
if he does not come back soon I'll go to the police, I

'Mr. Gayford won't thank you for that. He won't
want his affairs made town talk.'

• No, I dare say not. But they ain't his affairs;
they're my affairs—they're everybody's affairs. If he
won't pay me, they will at Scotland Yard. Why,
there's a big reward still offered, I know, and I mean
to get it.'
flow can we stop his mouth?' asked Mrs. Brown,
In terror, to the first person she chanced to speak to
after Phil Donovan had uttered such dangerous words
and that person happened to be Mr. Stone, who was
sauntering down the street and stopped to speak to
her.

le will stop it himself If we let bim alone,' that
gentleman replied. 'Don't trouble about him, Mrs.
Brown. If he gets talking such nonsense as he has
been favouring you with to the police they will soon
quiet him. I suppose you have heard nothing from
Mr. Gayford.'
'No, sir.'

She stood looking after him as he went down the
street, and then she went into Horace Gayford's room
—all swept and garnished now for another lodger--
and sat down to think.

Is the world turning upside down?' she said to
herself,' or am I going mad? That's it. It must be,
or why did that man speak to me with a dead man's
voice, and look at me with a dead man's eyes? There's
witchcraft in the world still, I'm thinking, and it's at
work here in Hillford.'

• While Phil Donovan was workir4, the mischief that
was to recoil in a summary fashion on himself if he
had known, Mrs. Churchill had gone over to Norwood
'devoured by anxiety to hear what had become of
Phyllis. She found more distress there. What Mr.
• Jarvis had predicted had come to pass—or, rather,
'was to come to pass—and they were all powerless to
prevent, it. A blurred and hastily-scrawled bit of
paper had come from the missing girl, without date
or anything that would lead to her discovery, stating
that she was to be Horace Gayford's wife as soon as
the marriage could be accomplished. It was no use
trying to trace her, she said, she was going faraway;
but the certificate should be sent to them as soon as
the marriage was over.
• A curious note, not one word of it breathing the
spirit of gentle Phyllis Jarvis. It had been written
under the spell which held her, and was as stiff as if
a statue had come down from its pedestal to pen the
few lines.

What shall you do?' Mrs. Churchill asked, when
It had been shown her. 'Oh, if we bad only known.
•If Henrietta had only told us that day in Hillford
whempoor Phyllis was so ill, we might have been on
our guard. Surely—surely some vengeance will over-
take him for this and the rest. How many fair young
lives has he not blighted already? Heaven must be
just and punish him.'
• And in punishing him our poor girl will be
punished, too,' Mrs.- Jarvis said, sadly. 'There is
nothing we can do now but to make sure he has
married her, poor' misguided child—and Mr. Stone
has offered to go after them. He seems to think he
can find them.

Why Mr. Stone more than anybody else?' Mrs.
Churchill asked. • How can he find them I"
'I don't know. Mr. Jarvis seemed to have great
faith in what he could do, and he is going to let him
go. I don't understand his ,reasons quite for not
going with him. He feels so much more certain of
Phyllis's safety than I can. r wake up in the night
sometimes from horrible dreams of that man, and
fancy he is murdering her. My husband says. 'have
patience.' How can I have patience,. when my child
is in such a strait, and I can do nothing?'
All the mother was roused in Mrs. Jarvis by the
catastrophe that had befallen them. She would have
welcomed her erring child with more love than she
had ever shown in her life if she had returned then.
She could not understand her husband's action in the
matter. He seemed lukewarm, she thought, and now
this strange despatching ci Mr. Stone on a mission
which she could not help thinking he should have
undertaken himself.

He told her it was all for the best. But he had been
going to set off to the Continent when her received
the letter with the odd news of Helen Ramsay, and
now he would not go when his own child was in
peril. She must wait, but the Waiting was very
hard.

weeks*
had*
passed*
by since Helen's
A good *many
wedding day, and still she bad not made known the fact
of being alive to anyone in England. There was more
than one reason for her silence. Mr. Ingram coincided
with her wishes on this point, and believed that it
would be better for them to take a lengthened tour,
and let a little time pass by before they came home.
Their honeymoon was passed in dread and doubt.
Helen, after the first day or two, drooped suddenly,
and was so ill for a time that they almost feared for
her life.
All she had suffered, and the shock of her wreck
with the fishermen, combined to prostrate her, and for
some weeks she was hardly able to think or act for
herself. One haunting thought remained with her,
and retarded her recovery considerably—the recollec-
tion of Horace Gayford and his baneful influence over
her. Once or twice there was a recurrence of the actual
terror and shuddering, as if she were conscious of his
calling her, and the terrible impulse forcing her to go
to him.
' It named into wild delinurn. and she begged

Cuthbert with shrieks and moans to keep her away
from the man—to let him believe her dead, if
possible. •
Of course we will,' Mr. Ingram said, when Cuth-
bert wrote to him in dismay at her serious illness.
They think she is dead—l know that much—let them
think so a little while longer. It will right itself in
time, and then you can explain everything. They will
be too glad to see her to blame you or her for any-
thing she does now.'
Helen was better—a pale, weak reflex of her former
self—when Mr. Jarvis's correspondent saw her with
her husband in one of the walks of the Englischer
Gent been
at Munich. They had bn in Italy, and were =
travelling alowy northwards, seeing everything of in-
terest on the road.
Not many days afterwards they were at Bingen,
making for England, with all their plans arranged for
telling their friends there what had befallen tbem, and
anticipating with delight the joy that they knew their
presence would bring about. They were at one of the
pretty hotels overlooking the Rhine, trifling with their
supper after a day of sight-seeing and invigorating
hillside rambling when Helen suddenly grasped her
husband's arm, with a stilled scream.
What is it, darling?' he asked, alarmed at the
paleness of her face and her unmistakable terror.
' There ! there!' she gasped. There, in the
moonlight. Be is there, Cuthbert; I can never
escape him.'
She pointed to the path below the terrace, to where
Horace Gayford, with a lady on his arm, was standing
looking up as if he were gazing straight at hpr
and her husband.
(7c be continued.)