The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1888-09-01
A Man Believed to Be Murdered Re-
turns After Ten Years.
8. F. Bulletin.

ter tn8n one Wnlc0 occurred at the
residence of Miss Effie Wellesley.
back in the country some two miles
north from here, to-day, when her
former sweetheart, Harry Lynton,
whom she had mourned as dead for
ten long years, suddenly appeared
to claim her as his bride.
In1878 Efhe Wellesley, then sweet
sixteen, was said to be the prettiest
girl in Fayette county. Her father
was wealthy, owning, beside the
large farm on which he lived, ex-
tensive and valuable tracts of coal,
lumber and oil lands, and also hav-
ing an interest in several steamboats,.
OF course his fair daughter did not
lack for suitors from many of the
best and wealthiest families of the
county, but of them all she chose
Harry Lynton, the son of a poor
coal miner, who followed his faith
er's vocation, and had no other
prospect than that of doing so all
his life, though possessing natural
intelligence far superior to that of
most men of his station. The lines
of caste and class distinction are
not very closely drawn in the rural
society of this region, and the young
people met at a picnic, where they
Immediately fell head over heels in
love with each other.
When John Wellesby-a man
noted for his violent and ungovern-
able temper-discovered Effie's pas
sion for the poor miner his anger
knew no bounds. He ordered the
young man from his house and
threatened to kill him if he ever
again found him in the society of
his daughter, while he commanded
Miss Etfie to Immediately transfer
her affections to young man OF
wealth and social position who had
been vainly endeavoring to win her
smiles.
The lovers were not to be so cas-
lily baffled. They arranged clan
destine meetings and spent many
happy hours together in grove OF
grand, old forest trees near Efie's
home at times when John Wellesley
believed his daughter to be sleep
ing the sleep of happy girlhood in
her cozy room above his own. Well
knowing that her father would never
relent, Effie at last consented to an
elopement, but before it could be
carried out an unfortunate accident
marred ALL Her father discovered
the truth. His suspicious were at
length aroused, and looking into
his daughters apartment one night
after she had ostensibly retired, he
found it unoccupied. Sallying forth
in search of her, he came upon the
lovers in the grove. A dreadful
scene ensued. Wellesley taun ted
the young man with the inferi-
ority of his position, and charged
him with wishing to marry his
daughter that he might live with
out labor upon his father-in-law's
means. Lynton spiritedly resented
these insults, and the elder man
finally struck him a terrible blow
with heavy cane, and he fell, ap-
parently lifeless, to the ground:
Believing that he had killed Lyn-
ton, Wellesley seizsd his fainting
daughter, bore her to the house,
laid her upon the couch, locked the
door upon her, and telling his wife
what he had done and hastily col
lecting a few neeessaries, he mount
ed his best horse and fed. Nothing
was heard from him until about a
year ago, when letter was received
from the superintendent of a charity
hospital in Montreal, where he had
died a poor outcast. The letter in
closed his will, in which everything
he possessed vas left to Ef6e, who
had continued to reside at the old
homestead with no companion save
widowed aunt and the hired help
who carried on the farm, her mother
having died soon after Wellesby'f
flight.
Nothing had ever been seen OF
heard of her lover since that fata
| night on which her father struck
him. She believed him dead and
that her father, before taking flight
had returned to that dreadful spot
and buried the body Of his victim
but all this she and her mothel
kept locked in their own breasts:
So to-day, when, as she sat witt
her aunt on the piazza, a tall
bronzed man entered through tn
garden gate, came up tho grave
walk, stood before her and gazee
intently into her eyes, she though,
for moment that it was her lover
ghost and not the real Harry Lyn
ton that she saw, for in the matur'
man Of thirty years she Instant.
recognized her boyish admirer Q
ten years ago, to whose memor.
she had been 80 true through al
that long decade.