Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-06-14

ted away. At this point in the unhappy
mans history, my real connection with him
began. The morning following his death
there came to me, through the mails,
letter reading something in this wise:
"LARRY PENRHYN-I believe you to be an
pers into your keeping, feeling sure that the
secret they contain will be safe with you, ana
THAT you will protect from all painful know
ledge the being whose life they so vitally con-
Germ. (Signed) HALsTEAD SCoT.'
eNow comes the most singular part of
the story. The papers inclosed were a GER
tificate of marriage between Halstead Scot
bonds to the amount of thirty thousand
dollars, registered in the name of Gabrielle
Scot, and the necessary directions for find
ing that person.
1.-TWO days later there came to me an
other letter, written in a cramped,. old
fashioned and feminine style, from which,
as opened it, there fell out printed slip
cut from some newspaper, and giving an
account of Scots unhappy end, The letter
itself was scant of words and ceremony,
and briefly stated that Scot had informed
the writer that in case of his death 1 was
to act as Miss Gabrielle'S guardian, and re-
questing earnestly that 1 would see my
ward at my earliest convenience, and this
letter was signed-Patience Wyndham.
"Fortunately for my curiosity and the
exigencies of the case, l could get away
from town just at that particular time, and
as there really seemed no way of decently
abandoning the trust without betraylng
the dead mans confidence, I started off at
once.
"It was romantic little country place at
which I found them, with mountains all
around the half-hundred of houses the
nj, fbo thQt
the village, and near little waterfall, that
was waterfall, not because some fellow
with an eye for picturesque effect had built
a dam across it's course, but because there
was en- abrupt descent in the rock at that
point, I found Miss Patience Wyndham's
house.
81 had fetched her letter with me, and
upon sending it in with my name, was
Immediately admitted to the presence of a
stately dame, whose attire was copied from
some Quaker ancestress, and whose very
countenance and manner bespoke her
name-Patience. She asked me a great
many questions about Halstead Scot, which
1 could but answer with the meager, un-
pleasant truths that formed my stock OF
knowledge respecting the man, and then
it came her turn to talk. She told me that
years ago, when she was but eighteen, her
mother died, leaving her at the head of her
fathers household. In one year after her
father married again, and fifteen months
later both he and the new wife had gone the
way of all flesh, leaving Patience, at twenty,
three months old to care for, and an income
that only, with the strictest economy, could
be made adequate to their needs.
sWell, for twenty years this woman, put
ting her youth and everything that is natu-
raj to it under her feet, was mother, sister,
everything to Gabrielle, who grew from
babyhood into lovely girl, doing only her
duty with unconscious heroism, and giving
me the record as if it were something scarce
ly worth the telling, only that it was neces-
sary to explain.
Gas I said before, the child grew up to be
a lovely girl, fair and graceful, pure and
pense now for what at first must have been
all sacrifice, in this only thing of kindred
blood left her.
cat length there came a young lawyer
one summertime to fish and hunt in that
quiet country place, and before Miss Pa
tience quite came to realize the danger the
heart of her sister-child was won from her,
and the couple were married.
s'To make long story short, this young
lawyer was Halstead Scot. Six months he
spent happily with his young wife, then he
went away, and, although he wrote her oc-
casionally, he forbade her always to join
him, and so the fair, frail creature faded day
by day, until the hour when her baby came
struggling into life, and then shut her weary
eyes forever on world wherein she had
grown so sadly tired-wherein she had
learned the bitterness of untitled graves, and
death that renders not unto dust-and Pa
tience Wyndham was once more left to till
the mothers office to worse than orphaned
child.
Fifteen years passed, and, stirred by
feeling of remorSe, by a remembrance OF his
old romance or what not, Scot came once
more to the little village under the noun
tains. He refused to see his daughter, and
told Miss Wyndham enough of his own ca
reer to satisfy her that it was Wisest So. but
the week following his visit, pure white
monument, in form ofa broken column, was
erected over his wife's grave, and every six
months during the remainder Of his life
there came regularly certain sum of money
to Miss Wyndham for the support OF the
young Gabrielle.
''This was the whole Of the story, as that
sweet old saint told it to me, and naturally
I grew extremely anxious to see the child OF
romance, over whom l was so singularly ap-
pointed guardian.
'"'The child does not know her fathers
history said Miss Patience, and L could
wish She might remain always in happy ig-
norance of it, and then the child came in.
'sShe was fair-haired, slight, blue-eyed,
graceful, shy, with nothing of her father
about her in appearance or characteristics,
and after a few days l came home, not I'm
love with my ward, as you suspect, put
thinking her a pure, innocent child, wonder
fully born of such a father, and really not
dissatisfied with my guardianship:
Gin fact, my charge was no burden to me
while Miss Patience lived, and the thirty
thousand dollars made all clear for the III,
ture, 1 imagined, with mans wonderful
understanding of a woman's needs; and SO
for three years, placidly the time went on
then there came a note from Gabrielle her-
self, announcing the serious illness of her
aunt, and 7 went hastily away into the
country.
"I found Miss Wyndham dying; her noble
sands of life were almost told, and there will
be few whittier robes in heaven than that she
wears She had no fear for herself in that
passing away only a great thought, reach
ing out into the future for the young girl
whom she must leave alone in world
where her sanity eyes had seen much nelth-
er good nor true.
II promised all that I could and while
the dying woman seemed to trust me, she
understood better than how little equal to
the protection Of a young girls life an un-
married man can be, and was but half salts
fed when the final moment came.
"Poor Gabrielle was distracted she clung
to me as brother. | pitied her, but l
myself more, because she took no thought,
and did, of the future which now loomed
I'D before me like terrible problem, to
which the thirty thousand dollars offered
not the slightest cleW of solution.