The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1889-10-10

HO6ERT 6ALLANTYNE."
The room where Dolly was sitting
was light enough. The handwriting
OF the letter was legible enough; but
! had it been traced in unknown char
acters or studied in a darkened room
its meaning could not have been less
Ineligible. What was Jacks secret,
and what the heavy risk he ran? What
this mysterious suggestion regarding
the employment of arsenic? And who
was the intended victim whose death
must be guarded from the attendance
OF suspicious circumstances? mo. l!
No. 2!'' "Your beautiful heiress!'
Then suddenly the whole truth stood
disclosed in revelation surprising in
horror the widest of Dolly's previous
apprehensions. She saw it all at last,
and realized herself to be the object of
the detected conspiracy! No wonder
now at the alteration in her husband 8
manner. No wonder at his restless
nights and his moodiness and irrita-
bility.
''Your beautiful heiress!" How dare
her husband allow the use of such
terms! And about a woman, too,
whose claims TO good looks he had al
ways denied.
Your beautiful heiress, indeed!"
Strange that at such time these
words should rivet the attention of
their reader almost to the exclusion of
every other consideration; that at the
moment of the discovery of deliber-
ate plot against her own life. Dolly's
mind should dwell less on the awfnl
nature OF the contemplated crime than
on the motive for its commission!
The idea that Jack should plan her
death with the object OF marrying her
former rival seemed by far the darkest
feature In the terrible revelation. For
the meaning of the allusion was easily
unprecedented. ''Your beautiful heiress''
could have reference only to the girl
whose partially for the attractive
Jack Rivers had been notorious.
Ka:e Argent. indeed, with her hand
some lace and fortune, had been a
seriously disturbing element during
Dollf's engagement, and her existence
had not been forgotten. And thus in
the first transports Of pique and jeal-
ousy she real horror of the situation
was overlooked, and the discovery ac-
cepteJ rather with indignation than
alarr.. But not for long.
BY Che time that she had restored the
letter to its envelope and replaced it
among her husband $ other correspond
ence. she fully realized the danger of
her position. And what should she
do? She had no friends in London
whora she could confide in. She had
only few shillings in her possession,
and. 10 any case, she shrunk from the
ideaos presenting hcrsclfat her fathers
hous': as a runaway wife.
What should she do? Should she
make her discovery public, and throw
herself on the protection of the police,
or Should she conceal her knowledge
of her husbands intentions, and await
somO more favorable opportunity of
escape? Something, at any rate, must
be done. But what is this-this strange
sensation which seems first to numb
her heart, and thence to r.diate
through every nerve and pulse? Dolly
was awake and perfectly conscious of
her surroundings; she was sitting in
her own room, among her own familiar.
furr and ornaments. She could
sec the sunlight on the wall playing
witt. the shadows of the laburnum
leaves. She could hear the tick of the
clock, the loud chipping of the spar
rows at the windows and the distant
roa: of the street traffic. She could
sn,e1l the faint perfume of the mig
norette in the flower boxes on the sill.
Blu: she could neither stir nor speak.
No movement resulted from her fren-
zie'l efforts to rise, and when, in agony
at the discovery, she tried to call for.
help. no sound followed. Though
acutely sensible of the horror of her.
position and of her own helplessness
and danger, Dolly sat dumb and motion
less; and by degrees the senses of sight
ami hearing. hitherto clear and ac-
curate, became dim and distorted. The
we]l-known objects surrounding her
took strange and fantastic shapes, and
the customary sounds assumed new
and unnatural meaning. Dolly was no
longer in her own room in the little
lodging in the borough. Those bios
SONS which surrounded her were not
the counterfeit flowers of chintz and
carpet, nor that monotonous hum tho
roll of distant wheels. They were real
flowers, and they fringed the margin of
a bright river that glided by to the
cadence of its own soft singing. And
along its banks walked Dolly, and
Jack was with her; but how sadly
altered; he moved silently at her side.
There was no caressing Touch, az
look of love in his eyes. no
tone Of tenderness in his voice;
and at every step he seemed
to force her nearer to the rivers brink.
Then the aspect of the river itself
changed, and its ripples seemed to ut
ter sounds of warning and woe. The
lights that had flecked it's shadows dis
appeared, and the flowers that had
edged its margin dropped and faded.
The stream once glittering in its. own
brightness, and borrowing further
beauty from tho earth and sky, grew
murky and opaque. Strange shapeless
monsters seemed to writhe and wallow
beneath its surface; and still Jack
pressed closer to her side, till the
narrow pathway crumbled under her
feet, and she fell headlong into the
depths of the rushing torrent. Then
suocesded an unreasonable period of
tspid transit through ssethine waters