The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1888-08-03

his master
It was even more mutilated than it APP
peared at first sig.-. the double webbing, Of
which the seat was composed, having been
apart, nor had the rifling of this strange re-
pository been so complete as to leave any
doubt as to the purpose to which it had been
turned.
AS turned away from it, sickened at q
discovery which showed me only too plainly,
the connection between my own narrative
to the unhappy being before me and the fate
which had overtaken him, the woman Min
chin broke into tears and lamentations.
"If had only left it where it was! If
had let things take their chance If had
only seen the end of it,"
It was not without considerable difficulty
we got my poor friend home, and the verdict
pronounced upon him by the medical men,
whom we lost no time in calling in, was not
more favorable than I anticipated. His
reason had sustained what they had little
doubt would prove to be fatal shock, and
the sudden violent arrangement of the ner-
vous system threatened his life. The genuine
pity and distress of the old servants spoke
well for them and for their master, and while
he lay, as he did lie, for many days between
life and death, there sprang up between them
and myself a certain mutual respect and con-
fdence.
It was from Lisa heard as much as there
had myself seen, and Of the catastrophe
which had befallen Van Deckermann.
According to her, he had been confronted,
as had been the previous night, by the ap-
partition of his father, and had arrived thus
at last in his own proper person at the secret,
the calculation of which had been for years
the object nearest to his heart
1t appeared that in telling us-my wife
and myself-the story of his early life, he had
stopped short at what was at once the saddest
and the most striking part of it. 1t was not
30 much in the bare fact of his cousins death,
but in the terrible circumstances accompany
ing it, there had lain the overpowering
anguish of which we had been per-
mitted glimpse. Old Van Deckermann,
growing more and more miserly and SUSPECT
GUS of all around him as the years went on,
had at last, after emptying the house of
every servant it contained by succession Of
similar charges, accused his niece of the
theft Of large sum of money, and had posi-
lively gone the length, in what would appear
to have been an access of insanity, of giving
her into custody. The evidence was insuf-
fcient, but the disappearance of the money
was proved beyond doubt, and the fact
that She had only the day before her arrest
posted letter to Andrew Van Deckermann
at the Cape seemed to give certain coloring
to the theory advanced by his father that
the robbery had been committed on his be-
half. Had the truth as to the young mans
position been known, it must have been seen
at once how untenable was the argument
had made nc condolences, and the poor thing
had not the strength Of mind to wait for that
redress of wrong which time must inevitably
have brought her Whether open or closed
to her, within her uncles doors it was i'm
possible that she should enter again, and
she found refuge from her unmerited shame
and sorrow where so many had found it be-
fore her, and have found it since-in the
river!
The old man never recovered the shock OF
her death, though he persisted to the end in
his belief in her guilt, and he died miserably
only two days before his sons return. For
long time past he had become strange in his
ways, and had turned night into day. wan
dering about the house at all hours. so that it
was scarcely surprising that, left to itself as
it was after his death, the place should have
come by the uncanny reputation of which its
master had spoken.
OF one thing I was left in no doubt, al
though never had it from his own lips, and
that was the superstitious horror with which
its owner himself regarded the house; but
that horror was dominated, as the event
proved, by still stronger influence. That
his fathers uneasy spirit haunted the scene
of his cruelty and injustice he was fully per
suaded, and he had confded to Lisa more
than once his further conviction that by
some means yet-natural or supernatural
the charge brought against the poor creature
who had fallen victim to it would be
cleared up. He had employed me as his tool,
and, hopeless of my following up the clew I
had found, had worked himself up to the re-
quired pitch and gone, heaven only knows in
what state of mind, to surely as strange an
encounter as ever man contemplated
What he saw can only be matter of sur
mise; he lived for year or more, all his
faculties restored to him. but minus any
memory, and quite tractable and gentle.
NV own belief is that the missing notes, the
hiding place of which have no moral doubt
was discovered to him that night, must have
been secreted there by the elder Van Decker
mann himself, under the influence of SOM
nambulism, though that he was a somnam-
bulist l have no evidence to show. All l
know is that the face saw was the face of one.
At Mr. Van Deckermann's death it was
found that by a will, made some months be-
fore his fatal visit to it, he had bequeathed
the Cedars, with other more desirable prop
erty, to me. To the best of my belief, its
supernatural history had come to an end with
the catastrophe of which this is the record,
but the terms on which it was left to me were
happily unconditional, and terrace OF small
houses. given up to the most prosaic associa-