Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-12

The woman e face suddenly flushed
| and then grew pale.
''From Lady Gilmorel' she repeated,
as if in great confusion and surprise
"Yes; the poor lady has been very i'll
nigh unto death-and she has repented
and confessed the great wrong that she
and you did to her innocent son.
half cry broke from Mrs. Brewster s
pallid lips, and she grasped the back of a
chair near her as if for support.
"I-I-do not understand, - she fall
tered out.
''Yes, my daughter, you understand
too well!' said the priest reprovingIy
and solemnly; "'the young man have
just seen is no son of yours; Is, in truth,
the eldest son of the late Lord Gilmore,
and for twenty-four years you have
carried on a base deception. -
"It-was my LADY, gasped Mrs.
Brewster
eyes, she yielded to vain and fool
ish temptation, and it has recoiled upon
her own heart with great bitterness.
The son for whose sake she robbed her
first born has married against her will,
and altogether led life far from credit
able to him. But she has repented of
her sin, and l pray my daughter that
you also will confess and repent having
aided her in a grevious wrong?"
Mrs. Brewster seemed quite overcome.
She was a strong and healthful woman
of her age, but she now sank down on a
chair as if unable to stand.
"What did she say?" at length she
faltered out.
Then Father Hayward told her the
whole story; told her of the little empty
coffin in the family vault at Wrothsley,
which bore the name of Gerard Clifford;
and how this had been opened in the
presence of himself and a magistrate;
and he told her, also, that Lady Gilmore
had written n letter to her, with her
poor cramped hands, of which he was
the bearer.
"Aud have one for her son, also, -
he continued; ''and she wishes him to
go to her at once, so that she may bless
him, and learn TO love him before she
dies.
Mrs. Brewster sat pale and silent as
the priest detailed the overwhelming
evidence of the fraud she had assisted to
commit.
"Can they, - she asked at last, "do
anything to me?''
illegally you could be punished; but
the young man who unjustly bears the
name of Lord Gilmore, would have no
chance of winning it against the direct
evidence of his mother and yourself. "
''But if 1 did not give mine?" said
Mrs. Brewster slowly.
'My daughter you are old, answered
the priest sternly; "dare you face the
inevitable moment of death: the awful
judgment beyond the grave, with lie on
your lips, where no lie will indeed avail
you?''
Mrs. Brewster was visibly moved by
these solemn words.
"DO not hesitate between good and
evil, - went on the father earnestly;
for long years have you lived q life of
sin and deceit, but you have time to re-
pent and be forgiven. Cleanse your con-
science of this great burden, my daugh-
ter, and when you lie on your deathbed,
be able to look up at the Holy Symbol of
our faith, not in fear and trembling, but
in faith and trust.
Still Mrs. Brewster hesitated. For
tweuty-four years she had carried this
secret in her own bosom, and spoke of it
to none. She had confessed to her priest,
but like her lady this sin had never
passed her lips. She was fond, too, of
her adopted son, and from his delicate
babyhood to mis- stalwart manhood had
watched over him with the most devoted
care. 1t was like rending all her past
life IN twain, to give up the child she had
reared even TO his own mother.
''They will take him away from me,
they will take his love away was pass
ing through her mind, and the thought
was full of bitterness.
TO BE CONTINUED,