Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-06-29

uIalf, LnHC having recovered rom ms surprise, he paid no further attention to her.
 He did not see the girl suddenly turn. cast upon him the intensest firelight of thcse flashing eyes. nor hear her awful threat.
 "The blow Is falling, Roger Darrel, and it shall be tho hand of the despised gipsy that sends the poisoned dart to your heart. Pain and trouble-thcy shall come to you through Barbara Merriles!"
  One afternoon-would shc ever forget it?-while Carol walked in the forest, her l thoughts upon the strange break that had come into her life, she became conscious of the fact that she was no longer alone, | that some one stood leaning against q tree just in front of her.
 With start she looked up, and her eyes fell upon strange girl.
 There was no mistaking what she was, for, although dressed much different. and in much more costly apparel than all the gipsies, Carol had ever seen, as ii she was of foreign blood, there was the un- mistakable gipsy stamp about her faco and peculiar costume.
 Although Carol been a trif1e surprised and startled at first, she had quickly got over that, and was about to resume her walk, when the gipsy girl addressed her. Such glowing black eyes had surely never been seen before. They lit up the whole bro wn face and at times made it seem actually beautiful.
 "Stay, child of the house-dweller. Be not in haste to leave mo. l have como here with the purpose of meeting you, for have something to tell you," she said, in tho strangest voice imaginable. It was like the cooing of dove, yet with a vein easily traced in it that grated like the clashing of cymbals, or the weird | notes of her native castanets.
 "Something to say to me2 Of whom would you talk?" asked Carol in surprise.
 "Of Roger Darrell"
 The three words went like an arrow homo to the heart of the pale lily, and tho black eyes, quick to sec the startled look of pain, took upon themselves q glow that one could easily. imagine was satisfaction.
 Carol saw this, and it served to give her a fictitious strength. She divined now that something terrible was about to be made manifest, and while her soul sickened with apprehension, she assumed a brave front.
 "What would you tell mo of Roger Darrel. girl?"
 ''Has it ever occurred to you that this lover of yours has a secret? There Is something in Roger Darrel's past that will chill your blood with horror-a skele- ton that he has tried to bury these many years, but which will not be kept under ground. An he has deceived you as he deceived me. Soft words blind tho eyes. To you he is all that Is good and noble to me, all that is bad He is devil! l "What mean you? For Gods sake, speak, girl. Don't you see I am stifling?' gasped Carol, one white hand grasping her perfect throat as though she was al- most unable to breathe.
 wicked gleam came into the gipsy' s orbs.
 "Listen to mo, then, daughter of the house-dweller, and I will tell you of his infamy All this Barbara Merriles can Iprove. The man you love, the man who has wooed you with soft, honeyed words, and whom you believe to be the soul oi honor-that man, Roger Darrel, has a wife living shut up in a mad-house. Carol Richmond shrank back appalled,, as those horrible words, uttered in q sib- liant whisper by tho gipsy girl, smote hel ears.
 There was something so blood-curdline in their significance that her very heart seemed to cease beating, and lie like leac , within her. She would have fallen but
 for the support the tree gave her. As for Barbara Merriles, she stood , there watching her victim with the re , morseless gleam of a pitiless tigress ir . her eyes. One could have thought, from !, the keen satisfaction she seemed to ex , hibit in thus lacerating the heart of this , fair girl, whose face was like the pal' :, blush of the delicately-tinted rose, tha !, she had a cause to hate her, and yet the, had never met before.
 For fully a minute Carol was unabl !, to say a word, and hor blue eyes had al l most shut, for she was on the very verge f of becoming insensible. There was f ringing in her ears, and yet she coul' ! plainly hear the usual noises of tn r woodland, the hoarse croaking of tn . tree-frog, and the shrill-voiced cicada , while the innumerable insects hummet e and droned lazily in tho warm atmos {: phere, gathering at those points whe re the bold sunlight, entering through rift
 in the foliage above, sent long goldel