Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1885-10-25


time gone out without her. snd she said
she would 90 down to the school-room
and correct the French exercise, task
which generally stood over until the
evening. / went down, too. not to the
school-room, but to the kitchen, whence,
about ten minutes later, strolled out
into the garden and round the house.
Under Mary's dressing-room window |
paused, hearing yoice--voices.
son your word and homer, before
Heaven--not to please me, not to make
me think any better of you--remem-
bering might have sinned just so, had
] been 80 tempted, and that know 1t
and feel it, and would do the same by
you then as | am doing now--bearing
all that in mind, you still say the
same"
"Still the same-always the same
so help me Heaven!"
The voice was Nine. Laure's, but
there was something unfamiliar in the
sound OF it which, for the. moment,
puzzled me. | knew afterward what 1t
was that in that, my last hearing OF
it, the foreign accent had gone out OF
it.
She took her leave Of absence for the
afternoon earlier than was customary
before dinner-haying, as my sister in
formed me at that meal, long. way to
90. She had, indeed, long way to
60 but it was not until late that eve
ming, after the girls had gone to bed
and I was beginning to get uneasy and
angry at her protracted absence, Mary
ventured to tell me the truth. Then,
with her arms round my neck and tears
in her soft eyes, she conided to me
that Nine. Laurie had left us, never to
return.
"And, oh, Esther, how am | to tell
you the rest?" she cried, with such a
distress in her sweet face as | had never
seen there before. How am to tell
you so as to make you believe her, and
not take her for the dreadful thing they
say she is? For, Esther, it was her
husband whom they found murdered at
Wyvenhoe tits upon her head they have
put a price, and she is as innocent
YOU would be as sure of it as | am,
could you only have heard her AS
innocent as | !"
$50 on !" l said staring at her in
my horror and bewilderment, as if she
herself were some strange thing meant
to scare me. For Heavens sake go
on Tell me how she got here-what
| brought her to us -
She ran away" Mary said. 4" That
night, after he beat her, while he lay
down stairs, as she thought, in drunk
en- sleep, she let herself out Of the
house and ran away. 1t was moon
light, and she made her way on foot to
the nearest station, five miles off, and
took the first train after daybreak to
some place down in Kent, where she
fancied the one friend who was likely
to help her was living. She spent the
whole day in fruitless search for him,
and that night she slept at an inn.
She had scarcely any money, and only
one hope left, and that was to get to
London and interest some charitable
person in her behalf. In the carriage
she got into the next morning there was
a French lady, who was coming to teach
in a ladies' school near London, and
there was gentleman who was kind to
them both. 1t was his wife who was
here this morning. When he ex-
changed into the smoking-carriage he
ran back to them with an evening paper,
and in it she read about her husbands
murder and her own flight, aud what
people thought Of her."
"And just as she grasped one horror
there came the other, and the woman
she had been talking to, sitting near
her, was killed under her eyes !" |
exclaimed. "Apd you, my dear, in
nocent Mary, believe her story. She
would have come out Of such an expe-
:ience, had she ever come out of it at
all. raving maniac !"
My sister laid her hand on my arm
and looked, with mingling of triumph
and entreaty, into my face.
sis it not Just that that proves it,"
she exclaimed. "If the strength that
was given her had not been given of
Heaven, how could she have gone
through it? Would it not have seemed
as if she must have been crushed ?
There she was, with no one to 20 to-,
no one to whom she dared to tell her
story, without money, without friends,
ard suspected of murder "
"And there lay the dead woman
whom nobody would be likely to recog-
nize, and whose par she thought she
could play. The woman who was equal
to that. Mary, was equal to what went
before"
"You think SOP" she said. "Oh,
Esther, am glad didnot tell you be-
FORE"
:" How long have you known your
self?" | asked her.
Ever since the day she was brought
home in cab, more dead than alive"
my sister answered. "She startled me
by her strange talk when she came in 4;
but it was when you told US about the
dress at tea, was seized with a pre-
sentiment Of the truth. 1t was in the
parcel you had sent home from Dem
yer's-thatv very dress-andnot knowing
whose it was opened it. She was on
her way to raise money on it," she
added with blush at having to name
such a thing, "when she saw that ter
rible placard, and never got any fur
Their"
"And you went up to her and told
her you knew"
Eyes," Mary replied, quietly.
And she told me-the truth"
"And then?"
"Then | saw she must go. But |
wished, if l could, to save her from
desperation, and | did not see my way.
The coming Of that lady to-day precipi-
tated matters in spite of me. l saw at
any moment she might be discovered,
and she felt it herself, too. Tomorrow
morning, all we'll, she will wake in Bel
gum"
There was no need to ask whose mo-
ney had taken her to Belgium. For a
few days every ring at the bell startled
us with the fear lest it should be a
| :x.,.., "a.