The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-01-23 00:00:00

CHAPTER LIII.

GEORGE INGESTRE S SECRET.
RE went in search of Catherine instantly, and found
her in a small room at the side of the large ball,
fainting in the arms of the baroness. Tie lifted her
1113 in his own without a word, walked down stairs,
and placed her in the carriage which stood waiting at
the door.
Maclaine Bernstein followed with Cleland, and they,
too, entered, much against the master's wish. He
stood over her, as though he expected every hand
Would be raised to snatch her from him, and he
breathed a sigh of infinite relief as the horses started
forward at the word "home."
The unfortunate lady did not remain long uncon-
scious, but when she saw on whose bosom she lay,
Whose arms embraced her, she shrank with almost
abject terror from him.
"Baroness, save me !" she implored, and then
'wrung her hands, and sobbed hysterically.
The usually calm woman had lost the even balance
of her mind—her grief was beyond control—her utter
rnisery beyond silent endurance. She wept most
Wildly, roost mournfully.
The tears fell from Ingestre's eyes as he beheld her
suffering.
"Oh, my own Catherine! my darling! my best
love !"
He called her his, and appeared to have no idea she
Was no longer so, for he turned fiercely on the
baroness when she remonstrated with him for carry-
ing her back to Redfern with him.
"And where else can she go, madam? What other
home has she, pray ?"
And when Cleland attempted to draw Catherine's
ligid hand from his grasp, ho asked her how she
dared, and thrust her away.
"Redfern at last !" and he bore her out of the
carriage, into the little room lie called his own,
stretched her tenderly on the sofa, and turned round.
to bolt the door on all the rest.
Upon the threshold of that door stood the man
Philippe de IVsimont.
• George Ingestre started back with a terrible oath
•nPen his lips.
`` Who, in Heaven's name, are you?"
The man only smiled, and came further into the
' thpra, his dark eyes fixed intently on Catherine.
"Look at me," he said to her; "look at me well and
earnestly, and answer this question : Catherine
Franchi, have you forgotten ?"
Her white face could become no whiter, but her
°Yes distended, and she raised her trembling hands, as
if to shut out a dreadful sight.
"If a dead man can come to life again, you are
Fernando Ponti."
" Yes, I am Fernando Pond," echoed the man with
4c,staile ; "but I was never dead—never out of this
"03 ; and I have never loved another woman than
You. I love you now; and I have come to save you
'rum that man."
That man was George Ingestre, who had moved
from Catherine's side at her first exclamation, and sat
OWn near the table, I],s head supported on his hand.
pits face was ashy white, and a clammy sweat had
I.lrst out over his head and features.
It is coming," he muttered; "it is coming!
.tighteen years now, and it is coming to light ! "
" Catrina," continued the creole, "for years now I
.;ra've never once lost sight of you and yours. Un-
Vlown to yourself, you have been watched over and
vrotected by me; your movements regulated, and
actions influenced indirectly by my will. When
You came to England, a year ago, it was through my
aligenoY you entered the house of George Ingestre, as
it'e.„,llCall him,. I was the author of that letter, and I
Who received your monthly journal—received
ti)131130,.. se of my own. Shall I name it? It was,
iriTz; to discover whether you would penetrate the
. 4..0f tkat man's life, whether—"
cried Ingestre, starting up; " stop ! Now
why God has rescued you from the grave;
Re has permitted the deadinan to walk the earth
it is to denounce the crowning guilt of a
Q'ltY life to expose the lie that has given me name..

wealth, and position, instead of the heritage of shame
that was mine by rights. You have come to expose
it; do it. Yet, wait one moment; Maxall and my
girl shall know it—all the world shall know it. While
the iron is hot, let it strike."
He walked out into the hall, and called Maxall. He
was there, utterly brazen and utterly shameless, look-
ing defiant, insolent, and fully determined to see the
end of the affair. Cleland, the baroness, and Lina
were walking up and down the hall, wondering when
that door would open.
Ingestre stood on the threshold, and called them all
in. He looked calm, and there was a half smile on his
lips.
"Cleland, Maxall, and the rest of you, come in
here; I wish you to know something this man has
walked out of his grave to tell the world. Come !"
They followed him in, all wondering what strange
tale was to be heard next.

"And now say your say, Fernando Ponti—fiend,
ghost, or whatever you are!"
The man turned to Catherine, and said:
"Are you willing to hear what I have to tell
you?"
"Say what you choose; I think I have no wish of
any kind left."
"Then I tell you this man, who calls himself
George Ross Ingestre, is an impostor. George Ross
Ingestre died of the small-pox, in Jamaica, eighteen
years ago; and this is his elder, and illegitimate
brother, Edward Maxall."
"True, Catherine; true, my own love! I am
Edward Maxall, and your husband George is in his
grave! I never saw you before—l never loved you
before you came into this house. You have received
no such injuries as you imagined from me. That devil
there put it into my head, Catherine, to bury poor
George, and take his name and inheritance. He urged
upon me, by what right had I to suffer for the wrong-
doing of my parents? for George had no heir but his
brother, and I could not claim a thing, for the stain
that was on me. You tempted me! fiend! you laid
the dainty bait! You said we were both so like—the
same height, the same make, the same in everything
but birth--and there the younger had the advantage
—we were both knocked down with the small-pox,
and who would know which lived and which died of
the two? And I consented, in an evil hour—l consented
to rob my dead brother of his name, and give him
mine instead. And, Catherine, that is the tale I have
to tell. Can you love me in spite of it?"
The poor lady rose from her seat, and looked at
every face in the room. All were alike astonished and
confounded, but not one exhibited a doubt of the truth
of what they heard. She wrung her hands, and, look-
ing at the baroness, murmured something in a hoarse
voice. .

The kind lady heard the words and interpreted
them.

"She asks for her children."

Then Fernando spoke again.
"The boy did not die of the disease, as you were
told. There he stands, Catrina ; that youth is your
son !"

She was clutching the baroness's hands for support,
but when she heard this, she flung them away and
walked up to Ingestre.
"Is this true? Is that your brother's son ?"
"Yes, Catherine; as I stand here, that boy is
George's son."
She cast her hands up in a gesture of utter
despair.
"Then God has given me a murderer for a child!
His will be done. I am a wretched woman !"
"Wait, wait one moment," broke in a sweet .voice
—it was Lina's, who stood pale and shivering close to
the door—" do not believe one word that wicked man
says, unless it is confirmed by some one else—some
one else who will be here presently—some one else
who is here now I"

And she opened the door wide at the s^und of
rapid footsteps striding up the stone-flagged hall.
Ingram Ingestre, booted and spurred, hot and breath-
less, entered without ceremony, and closed the door
after him.

"Am lin time, Lina? I have ridden hard. What
is it?"

"You are in time, Ingram Invstre," cried the
girl," to say all you know of that man yonder—of
his--"

"Of his plottings, disguises, and all the rest of it?
Very well; I can do that. I have not tracked him
like a wild Indian these last three months for nothing.
When and where shall I begin _ _

"Begin by letting my poor mother know where my
brother is—who he was. Tell her, pray tell her, or she
will believe that creature to be him."

And she pointed to Maxall, who seemed half dead
at the words which had fallen from Catherine's
lips.
"Mrs. Ingestre, your son did not die of the small-
pox, as you were told," said Ingram, bowing respect-
fully to Catherine. "Nor," turning to Ingestre, "did
you bring him to England as you supposed. The little
George Ferdinand, the son and heir, was stolen by the
creole Ponti, and brought up as his brother, for the
purpose of future revenge upon the parent. You have
all seen and know the poor fellow—he now lies at
rest in a churchyard two miles out of Naples; he died
of a broken heart, I believe, but in ignorance of what
I tell you. He who was the true heir of Redfern is
dead, but his sister lives—there she stands !"
He pointed to Lina, who had walked up to
Catherine's side.
Then followed a dead silence. Edward Maxall
turned his bloodshot eyes on young Maxall, and the
creole, with folded arms, stood by the window and
smiled.

Catherine alone remained an imago of mute and
frozen despair.
"And now for you," said Ingram, glaring at the
figure leaning so carelessly in the recess formed by the
window, "Doctor Creusa, Count de Resimont, Ponti,
or by whatever name you call yourself, I warn you to
look out, for I know what you are."
Here the man started a little—just a little.
Ingram was on the point of bursting forth again,
when Ingestre as we will still call him) arrested the
furious tide.

"For Heaven's sake let the man go! open the door
and let him go! Who cares now who or what he is?
Catherine will die, she will die, if you do not all of
you go away,"
And he walked up to the door and threw it wide
open.
Maxall was the first to rush out, but no one thought
of him or his flight just then.
"No, no; I will not have it so !" cried Ingram. " I
have worked like a horse to find out all that fellow's
knavery, and now I am determined you shall all hear
it. First and foremost, the man is one of a secret
society, or, rather, he is the secret spy of a certain
order, of whom Dr. Riga is the head. Riga was in
Jamaica when Ponti was executed for the attempted
murder of my cousin there. He did not die, for he had
a quill in his throat; and Riga restored him to life, on
condition he should take a horrible office upon him-
self, which had been vacant two years then. This is
simple truth. A holy father in Naples swore it to me,
thinking I was about to enter his church. He told
me that, and gave me also a list of the sickening
duties the fellow had to perform—the knavery, de-
ception, and trickery his whole life had to practise, in
order to render him worthy of note in his abominable
profession; for if his abominations are even so
much as suspected by the world, he forfeits his own
life. There, there, Madame Bernstein, stands your
beloved Doctor Creusa, who frightened out of you the
secret of Lina's birth. There, Mrs. Ingestre, stands
the false friend, who, by a forged letter, took from
you name, children, and peace. There, Edward
Maxall is the man—the demon, rather—who held
your secret, and meant to make a trade by the hold-
ing. Ali! it has cost me almost life itself to find out
all his subtleties—all his complicated machinery—his
wheel within wheel of secrecy and mystery. But,
thank God!" he exclaimed, wiping his heated brow,
"thank God! I have:done it, and saved you, as far as
lay in my power—saved you, poor child! from his
dreadful clutches."

Here he took Lina's hand, and pressed it between
his own.

"That demon wanted to kill her, poor little soul!
wanted to make her his wretched dupe and tool, as he
did the poor boy; but-- Au!"
The cry was wrested from him by a feat of dexterity
suddenly practised by the creole, who, in the flash of
a moment, flung the window wide open, and leaped
down on to the laNi n below, a distance of at least
twenty feet:
_

The horse Ingram had ridden was standing at the
door-steps, cropping the grass. The man dashed at it,
seized the reins, and mounted. Then he rode off,
bowing gravely to the faces at the window.

Ingram rushed out after him, opened the hall door,
and.fled across the park, bareheaded, but in a con-
trary direction to that the man had taken.
fugestre laughed hoarsely.
"If they come to a hand to hand fight, I'll back the
Englishman to win. The creole is a coward."
Lina clasped her hands tightly together, and her
face became a leaden colour.

" If Ingram Ingestre is killed, I shall feel like his
murderess, since I first set him on the track of that
bad man. God forgive me for it'!"
And she went up to the baroness, and laid her head
on her bosom. Madame Bernstein put her arms
round her, but staggered beneath the weight of the
girl, for she had fainted.
Then all was confusion for an instant. The baroness
was alarmed, and Ingestre had to lift the girl to the
sofa, and there support her, while they applied re-
storatives.

While -Cleland, the baroness, and Ingestre stood
round the fainting girl, that forlorn woman, Catherine,
rose up to leave the house for ever. No one saw her
glide from the room, no one guessed her purpose;
and, unperceived, he left the house, and stole away
like some guilty creature, beneath the avenue of
wintry elms.