The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-07-31
By Lilly TinsleY,
tCorYR1GH1, 1899, BY TrLorsoN & soN.I

caused the complete change in his behavior
to the hunchback
Leonsrds appearance struck the Rat as
suspiciouL Upon reflection, however, ne
felt that il the lad had anything more than
a vague idea that all was not right In the
affair, he would not have came alone.
He knew that bis action, to be OF use,
must be prompt His first thought was TO
demand outright before the lad the girls
freedom.
But could he depend on the lad to snp-
port himl Perhaps not, and so he endeaV-
ored first TO test him.
He saw plainly that his cousin would not
play long, and he hoped when the game
broke up to sign to the lad 60 seek the girl,
and by his aid to slip her away without any
| fuss.
On the morrow he would be far away
with his child. Had be not been so alb
sorbed in his own plans he might have
guessed the hunchback's, though he would
have hesitated 10 ascrlbe 70 MIN a treacn-
cry. blecker than that which he had already
shown. AS it was, be was taken by sur
prise. Nothing but the accumulation OF
horrors around hun could have aroused
him to the coup by which be saved both
himself and Royal 1t was followed by a
reaction.
At the time be had worked, not thought
Afterward the very recollection, made him
shudder, iron as his nerves were. The
thought that the man he hated was dead,
that bis death had saved the man he had
wronged from justice added yet greater
awe 20 the majesty Of death. But worst of
all was the memory Of the horrible details !;
how he had lifted the distorted figure, ter
rible in the stiffness Of death, in the arms
which in boybood had often performed the
office in play and love; how he had stripped
it in the silence and darkness of its rough
digger clothes, and had hidden the poor
naked body in the great London river
which hide so many such dark secrets.
And then for the living man to take to
himself the likeness Of the dead, to crook
his limbs as he had done in boyhood, that
he aud his playmate might be as equals, to
hide and profit by his death, to don the
clothes still warm from his body, still wet
with his life-blood, to use the tools Of his old
trade, the false hair and beard, TO add the
last touch Of all, the strap around the jaw,
that the hideous fraud might be complete
in every detail, was unspeskably horrible to
him.
Certainly the task could not have been
better done. So little of his features were
visible under the shaggy hair that even
without the family likeness between the
cousins, recognition had been next to i'm
possible.
Yet was the act evils Think what the
man had suffered, think how he had brought
good for his child's sake.
And then the terrible part which be had
played to the girl. He understood Royals
mood too well not to feel sure that he
would not stick at a second crime to hide
the first. To have tried conclusions with
him would without doubt have led even 30
worse consequences than those which the
sight-destroying liquid entailed. He had
had no real hand in the murder, and there
was his child waiting for him in that little
German town, alone In the great wicked
world II he was taken from her. 1t was
the old story-a little wrong that a great
good might come.
All the horrors Of that night the remorse
which in that short hour of silence which
safety was won, was gnawing at his heart,
all sank into significance before the supreme
anguish of that moment when the unveil-
ing Of that face in the moonlight filed his
mind with an instructive knowledge Of the
truth.
For the moment In his terror he had fan
cied il was the ghost of the girls dead
mother risen up TO him, because in taking
the dead mans likeness he had died himself,
but the idea passed as quickly as 1t came.
Even then he could not, would not believe
the voice which spoke within him, not even
when the white Scared face revealed liv-
ing likeness TO his dead wife. not until on
the little white nersvless hand he saw the
token by which he must know his child, in
spite of the years which had changed her
from a baby-child into almost a woman,
And with tho knowledge came the re-
membrance Of the dream In which that
same little white ringed finger had beck
oned him to fly from his sinful life forever.
Ahi II he had but needed In tina.
But now 1t was-too late.