Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-11

her friend and guardian. That she had loved
him. and loved him with an innocent, unselnsh
affection, seemed to him undoubted.
81 beg your pardon for waylaying you, Mr.
Pennycomequick," she said, in timid voice;
one white hand lifted with an uncertain shake
in it, touching her lips. But ! very much de-
sire to have a word with you in private before
you go upstairs to Mrs. Sidebottom."
81 am at your service"
She led the way into the breakfast room,
recently cleared of the meal. She went to the
window, and stood between the glass and the
curtain, with her left hand entangled among
the cords of the Venetian blind. In her nerv-
business it was necessary for her to take hold Of
something. Her delicate fingers ran up the
green strings and played with them, as though
they were the strings of harp on which she
was practicing, and, strangely enough, Philip
felt within him every touch; when she twanged
cord some fiber in him quivered responsive,
and was only lulled when she clasped the string
and stopped its vibration.
A faint tinge rose in her white face to the
cheekbones and temples, touching them with
more than color, an apparent inner light like
the Alpine glow after sundown on the white
head of the Jungfrau. As she spoke she did
not look at hilip, but with eyes modestly low
cred on the ground, or out of the window look
ing sideways down the street.
What 1 wished to say 70 you, Mr.. Penny
comequick, will soon be said. 1 shall not detain
you long. L am sorry to differ from Mrs. Side
bottom; but cannot share her conviction that
the body found last night is that of your uncle"
You do not dispute that he is dead?''
mo-" she sighed; 81 think there can be no
question about that"
''Or that he was last seen on the canal bank
at no great distance from where the discovery
was nader"
'No," she said, and her fingers unconsciously
played on the blind cords the time of the
melody in Chopin's "Marche Funebre."
why do you say noF'
"Mr. Pennycomequick was full dressed when
he went out-that is to say, he had on his great
coat and his boots and-in fact it was not pos
sible that he could be discovered in the condi-
tion in which the body recovered from the
canal was found"
TT is, of course, difficult to account for it.
but not impossible. My aunt declares that she
went up to the bedroom of my uncle the same
night, found the bed disturbed, and the dress
clothes. or some of them. on the chair. She
concludes that he pulled on his overcoat and
went out half-dressed, and he got caught by
the water somewhere in some place of temper
airy refuge, and saw that his only chance of
escape was to strip and swim. That he drew
the cold till the proper moment came for him
to make the plunge-but she concludes that he
never did start to swim, either his courage
failed him, or the flood rose too rapidly and
carried him away before he had removed the
overcoat. This may be an over-ingenious ex-
PLANTATION, nevertheless it is an explanation
that accounts for ALL"
Not for all-the body is not that of Mr.. Pen
nycomequick." Salome spoke decidedly, and
as she spoke her hand gripped the strings
hard.
Philip stood by the table, resting his hand on
it. The morning light fell strong on her face,
and illumined her auburn hair. Philip took
occasion to examine her countenance more
closely than had been possible before. She
was like her sister in build, in features and in
tone of color, indeed strikingly like her. but in
that only-certainly, Philip thought, in that
only.
All at once she looked up and met Philips
eyes.
"No-a thousand times, no." she said. "That
is not uncle. He was brought here because
Mrs. Sidebottom desired it, and is convinced of