The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-10-24

gzrden ana tUun0 tnG mouse. OnQGl Hary's dressing-room window paused hearing a voice-voices.
 aOn your word and honor, befor,
 hesyen-not to please me, not to make me think any better of you-remember ing might have sinned just so, had been so tempted, and that know it and 6eI it, and would do the same by you then as am doing now-bearing all tha, in mind, you still say the same." "Sull the same-always the same-so help me heaven!"
 The voice was Madame Laure's, bu, ,here was something unfamiliar in the sound of 1t which, for the moment pug. red me. knew afterward what it 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-having, my sister in- formed me st that meal. long way to
 go She had, indeed, long way to go but 1t was not until late that evening,
 after the girls had gone to bed and l was
 beginning to get uneasy and angry at her
 protracted absence, Mary ventured to tell
 me the truth. Then, with her arrs round
 my neck and tears in her soft eyes, she
 confded to me that Madame Laure had
 left US, never to return.
 And oh, Esther, how am to tell you
 the rest p she cried, with such a distiess
 in her sweet face as l 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 1t was her husband
 whom they found murdered at Wyven-
 hoe; it is upon her head they have put a
 price, and she is as innocent-you would
 be as sure of it as l am, could you only
 have heard herl-as innocent as p
 "Go on l" said, staring at her in my
 horror and bewilderment, as if she her
 self were some strange thing meant to
 scare me. For heavens sake, go on l
 Tell me how she got here--what brought
 her to uS!'
 "She ran awav," Mary said. " That night after he beat her, while he lay down
 stairs, as she thought, in drunken sleep,
 she let herself out of the house and ran away. 1t was moonlight, and she made her way on foo, to the nearest station, i've miles of, 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 a truitless
 search for him, and that night she slept at an inn. She had scarcely any money, and only one hope lef:, and that was to get to London and interest some charita- ble person in her behalE In the carriage she got into the next morning there was French lady, who was coming to teach ID ladies school near London, and there was gentleman who was kind to them both. It was his wife who was here this morning. When he exchanged 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, and 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 eyesl' 1 exclaimed. And you, my dear Mary, believe her story. She would have come out of such an experience, had she ever come ou, of Ii at all, raving maniac"
 My sister laid her hand on my arm, and looked with mingling of triumph and entreaty into my face.
 " Is it not just that that proves it P she exclaimed. "lf the strength that was given her had not been given ot heaven. how could she have gone through il? Would 1t not have seemed as if she must have been crushed ? There she was With no one to go to, no one to whom she dared tell her story, without money, with. out friends and suspected of murder"
 And there lay the dead woman whom nobody would be likely to recogniz., and whose part she thought she could play. The woman who was equal to that, Mary, was equal to what went before"
 "You think so ?" she sad. ooh, Es- ther, l am glad did not tell you before I" <" How long have you known yourself?' asked her. Ever since the day she was brought home in the cab, more dead than alive" my sister answered. "She startled me by her strange talk when she came in but 1t was when you told us about the dress at tea, 1 was seized with present. ment of the truth. It was in the parcel | you had sent home from Dsnyer's-that very dress and not knowing whose i. vas l had opened it. She was on her way to raise money on it," she added Fith blush at having to name such a hing, "when she saw that terrible pla- l ,ard, and never got any fsrther"
 And you went up 10 her and told her 1ou knew?' Yes" Mary replied quietly. And he told me-the truth"
 And ther?"
 Then l saw she must go. But l | wished, if could, to save her from des- 'eratiop, and did not see my way. The 'oming of that lady to-day precipitated matters iu spite of me. saw at any mo- nent she might be discovered, and she cit it herself, too. Tomorrow morning, Ill we'll, she will wake in Belgium"
 There was no need to ask whose money lad taken her to Belgium. For few lays every ring al the bell startled us 'ith the fear lest it should be a prelude