Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1891-03-14

room into his sitting room, SIT.
There was a door by my bedside
which was always locked, and for the
key of which I had always been going
to ask, thinking it was another cup
board. Through this door Mary had
escaped. How thankful was, now that
it had not been cupboard. It turned
out that Mrs. Swatman occasionally
used the door when Burnett was away
and / was engaged, and that in this
instance, the laundress having called,
Mrs. Swatnan had gone in that way,
and had happily been in time to release
the terrified Mary from her embarrassing
predicament.
| blessed Mrs. Swatman, and did not,
as l had fully intended, give her good
blowing up for admitting Mr.. Bruce
when she knew that / was engaged.
She did not know, by the way, that l
was "engaged' in the common accept
ance of that term. | blessed her there
fore, and Furthermore presented her
with a sovereign, which made her happy
for the rest of the week-honest old
descendant of Cinderella that she was!
Next morning by the first post | had a.
letter from Mary. She had been "ter-
ribly frightened" poor darling; she had
not fully realized the improperly of
coming to my chambers until her father
had come upon the scene and she had
felt the dread of discovery. | must
never again ask her to be so foolish and
wicked" she said. In my answer prom
ised not to be selfish any more, acquaint-
ed her with her fathers plans and pointed
out that if were successful we might
perhaps hope to approach Mr.. Bruce.
In about a fortnight l received my in
structions and proceeded to hunt up the
Berkshire registers; and a more weari-
some task never undertook. In some
cases the registers were well enough
kept and were easy of access; in sonle
they had been sold as waste paper or
were altogether imperfect; while in
few instances they were SO ill cared for
that they had become well nigh value
less, and one | found in a decayed
old box in loft over the wears
COW shed. At Abingdon and more espe-
cially at st. Nicholas the registers had
been admirably preserved, and it was
here that spent tho longest time, but
failed to find the least trace of what
wanted, and not word either of Dali
rymple Bruce or OF Tryphena Maddans.
Once at Bray and again at Wallingford
I thought was upon the track, while at
Cookham whole colony of Maddams
appeared to have been born, married and
buried, but not Tryphena among them
all. At st. Lawrence. Realing, there
was q record of the marriage in 1898 of
certain Theodosia Maddams to David
Bruce, and this bothered me good deal
until discovered that Theodosia was
the widow of one Hezekiah Maddams,
"butcher of this towne." After a Ia
borious and painstaking search l came
to the conclusion that | was on the
wrong scent. and l returned to London
in gloomy and detected mood.
But Mr.. Bruce was very kind, and not
only thanked me heartily for the trouble
had been at but marked the genuine
ness of his satisfaction by presenting me
with check considerably larger than |
was entitled to or expected Mary, who
had taken the deepest interest in the
investigation, told me one evening when
I.was dining at their house that she felt
certain-she could not tell why-that
should yet, somehow-she could not tell
how-unravel this Gordon knot; nay,
that it was to be the means whereby we
should attain the fulillment of our hopes.
7 4, al hoo n,-r oh ,rrhf lNs,
right, but confessed to some skepticism
on the point; for which unbelief receiv-
ed the most delightful scolding from
Mary; and "You are not to laugh at me,
sir! will not be laughed at" (Oh, the
way she emphasized that ''notro 1T is
very rude of you to laugh at me, and
you shall do penance!'
Seeing that Mr.. Bruce was nodding
over his book did penance, though per-
haps not just in the way that Mary had
anticipated. 1t was very rash act on
my part. but the temptation was ire
sistible, You have never seen Mary or
you would understand. Mary blushsd
horribly and was both scared and in
dignant; but l pleaded eloquently for
absolution and finally appeased her. AT
parting she said:
"You will see, Charlie, you will find
the thing out. Depend upon it. Women
know things, you know, that men don't
know. Well, Illnow-I don't know how
know, but l do know that you will
discover this Dalrymple Bruce's mar
riage I'm as certain OF it as l am that
we-well as of anything. So good
night, and be good boy and don't con-
tradict. Mol not one, declare!' (Alar-
ums, excursions.)
The first news that greeted me on my
return to my city chambers was that
Mrs. Swatman's mummiiiel assistant,
Mrs. Crump, was seriously ill. OF
course l lost no time in seeing that she
had proper attendance, and any little
comfort that the doctor might think good
for her. The doctor gave poor account
of her. Few men i'll chambers ever know
anything of the inner life of their ''laun-
dresses" and from what learned of Mrs.
Crumps surroundings l should say their
ignorance was bliss.
In u wretched room in a disreputabie
looking building in squalid court OIL