Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1885-08-28

name through the dirt She should rue un.
til her death the day on which she refused to
do his bidding.
When Beatrice got away from this storm
of words, she walked back home with a buzz
ing in her head Once inside the door she
tainted.
Three days afterwards she read that Maui
rice Hervey had been brought before the
magistrates on a charge of forgery, and
committed for trial. She found means to
send him message, asking if he had money
to pay for his defense. He sent back word
that he should plead guilty. He really did
SO, and as the forgery was a crafty, premedi-
tated, cruel affair, the judge very properly
sent him to penal servitude for five years.
His wife as she read the sentence gave a
groan of relief.
Now the weakest part Of her nature, a part
no doubt inherited from Sir Maingay, showed
itself She let things drift. To a girl just
past 10 five years seems as inexhaustible as
five hundred sovereigns would seem to
schoolboy. The remembrance of her secret
marriage haunted her like the remnants of
CHASTITY dream. Five years, Five long years!
Surely something must happen before they
were spent. Something did happen!
What were her feelings when the truth
first came home to hera When she knew she
could cheat herself nolonger? When no mag
mary ailment would account for her condi-
ton? When in plain words the fact that she
was to bear the burden common to woman
hood was forced upon herr Then Beatrice
prayed that she might diel
Even then she would not go to her friends
and tell them all. Still those long c:ncer-
tain years stretched out before her. If she
could only conceal this new trouble as she
had concealed her marriage, there was pesce
peace for years. Sarah was told what she
already guessed, and upon hearing her mis-
.tress wishes simply set shout executing
them.
The child was born, and none save the
mother and her maid knew the truth. Hard
as was the task, it was no harder to Beatrice
than to others who, without the aid and
faithful service at her command, have
concealed what tt revealed meant ruin.
The elder woman arranged all. She left
her mistress as a servant leaves; she
prepared place, and when the time came
Beatrice found her grief ightened by all
loving woman can do for another in such
plight Of course there was deceit-deceit
seemed to have forced itself into the girls
ife There was q long visit to pay some
where, visit from which Beatrice returned
shadow of her former self. But none
knew, none even guessed the cause.
Until the child was born Beatrices prayer
was that both she and it might die Can
sadder, more pitiful prayer be framed by
woman? The truth could then be told to all.
The early death would be the full expiration
of her folly. The few who loved her would
forgive and pity her. But her prayer was
unanswered-death never even threatened
mother or babe.
The child was born, the tiny head nestled
on the mothers breast, and a strange new
feeling awoke within her-the overpowering
instinct of maternal love. Her thoughts
which had once been, in case the child lived,
to hate it for the fathers sake, turned topure,
sweet affection for the innocent, helpless
little being. So far from wishing it dead
she would not now have wished it unborn.
When she returned to her home she left it
with many tears in Sarah's charge,
For years she saw it by stealth, saw it
grow more and more the picture of perfect
childhood; loved it and worshiped it more
each time she saw it, and at last, when she
returned to her fathers house, and felt that
her visits to her treasure would now per-
force be less and less frequent, a wild crav-
ing to have 1t with her always, to see it
every day, every hour, awoke in her passion
ate heart.
Then came the second quarrel, and the
new home And even as she settled to go
down to her uncles' the nucleus of the daring
scheme for regaining her boy framed itself
in her brain, and was eventually shaped into
form and acted upon with perfect success.
But the five years were passing, passing.
At the end Of them stood what Beatrice
shrank from pioturing, convict who would
come and claim h3c yVita RQatrlca had in