The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-06-12
Now FIRST PUBLISHED
CHAPTER xxx,

more readily since the firm had need of his
services in their London establishment. He
was hidden, as soon as the urgent private
affairs which took him away should be ar
ranged, to enter upon an employment which
would cost him some two months OF time.
He went to his work sick at heart. but
lutte. Life was savorless, havorless, without
color He did his duty doggedly in spite OF
all and in the meantime, an event was pre-
pairing which set him in position perhaps
unique in the history of mankind. posi-
tionseo terrible and strange, that whilst it
lasts@ it made the sorrows he had already
endured seem trivial in comparison.
To the amazement Of everybody about
him, Hetheridge began to mend again.
Mind and nerve were alike so blunted, that
the shock of actual discovery and denuncia-
ton came upon him with infinitely less
effect than might have been predicted. He
had swooned in Mrs. Kedwood's grasp and
had lain long unconscious, but on his return
to d knowledge of the things around him,
his medical men discovered to their surprise
that there had been 70 second paralytic
seizure He was shaken and weakened, and
it might be that his recovery was indefin-
itely retarded, but the symptoms to be most
dreaded were but little aggravated. Sir
William Keppell gave it as his opinion that
his patients fail upon the lawn was due to
vertigo induced by overexertion, and the
suburban practitioner respectfully followed
in his train.
hetheridges mind, during the weeks that
followed, affords a curious study. He re-
membered everything that had passed, and
from hour TO hour and from day to day he
expected the open denunciation of his
crime, but how it had come about that he
had been recognized after all that lapse of
years, he did not guess. He had been
washed and dressed day by day by his at
tandants and had not seen his own image in
a glass from the moment when that damDlng
likeness t. his old disguise had begun to steal
upon him. Had he been in full possession
of his faculties, his instinct of caution
would have taught him better than to per-
NIT himself to return to the similitude of
the false Andre Dom, who had murdered
Elice Redmond's husband. But his thoughts
were all clouded and underlined. They had
no distinct and definite boundary, and they
melted, as it were, one into the other, chang
ing contusedly, SO that whilst he peered
dimly at one idea. be would find himself
suddenly confronted with another which in
no way re:embled it, and perplexed him
Win LLt SLIduBGUbSS u lL5 dhbtCLs III u
sense, this mental condition YVES favorable
TO recovery, for it robbed all bis sensations
of their poignancy and gave his shattered
nerves repose. Nothing seemed TO matter
very much to him. The worst had hap
peued already. The unseen image which
had so long haunted him had at last de-
clared itself, and in that instant he had
tasted the pains Of hell. All the punishment
his undetected crime had brought him the
slow years of unrepeutant dread the re-
morseless accusation of the ghost that
tackled him, had seemed as If gathered into
one appalling and overwhelming avalanche
of agony. There are things, for the express
sion of which the human vocabulary is in
adequate, and the EXTREMIST words after all
express no more than averages. The stupen-
dous force of the blow which struck him,
the earthquake rending of the soul with
fear in that swift point of time in which it
fell, the hideous and instantaneous rout of
every vital force within him-all these
things one properly indescribable They
are outside the realm and sway of words,
and even the imagination conceives them
feeby.
He learned by and by in a dim uninter-
ested way that he was ruined. That mat
tered as little as anything and everything
else to him. The visits of Sir William
Keppell ceased without explanation on the
side of that expensive physician, or Curl
osty on Hetheridge's When, after a space
of five weeks, the walks about the lawn
were resumed, he found that two of his SER
wants had discharged themselves and had
taken flight in search Of an unbroken mas
ter. Jessamer came to see him and had an
interview in which he set forth the irremedi-
able character of the crash. Hetheridge
heard and understood, and accepted the UNI
Outstanding with an indifference which
looked astounding to any one who had not
a. l. L., IA IL l.
pers were in the hands of a firm of ac-
countants, and his creditors were awaiting
their report and the sick mans recovery.
The failure had carried widespread ruin
with it and a dozen firms had gone down
like SO many houses of cards. Jessamer
was full Of it all, and it possessed him with
a sense of Importance and personal merit
which he had never felt before There had
been no such panic in the financial world OF
London for the past five years, and Jessa-
mer enjoyed all the dignity pertaining to
it and experienced none OF the attendant
pains and penalties. He swelled in a sort OF
awestruck exaltation, and savored his own
importance with a relishing nostril His
employers indifference had to Jessamer's
mind something almost impious in it. He
seemed careless of his own dignity. To be
the supremest bankrupt of that decade, and
TO have no pride in 1t
One or two local tradesmen had hurried
freely in with petty claims which were not
even heabites when compared with what re-
manned Of the gigantic figure they assailed
They sued in the county court and con-
joined together to put a man in possession
but Jessamer dismissed him with bis claim
and with a scorn 80 lordly that the man
shrank away abashed. Jessamer visited
these presumptuous tradesfolk and rebuked
them to his own great enjoyment. Die
these yokel intelligences presume Il
imagine, he demanded, that a man, a maj
who had failed for two millions sterling
was to be harried by their like. He haC
never cared tor Hetheridge the man, but b.
had esteemed Hetheridge the financier al
ways. Now, in the grandeur of his fall b.
would, had his employer shown a prope
spirit, have revered him like an emperor
AS Hetheridge's bodily strength returned
his mind cleared and his troubles and ter
rors became more real TO him. 1t was as /
with every ounce of strength he gained al
shoulders. For three months he had BEEF
free Of his phantom. but now it began t
visit him again end to take its old place a
his shoulder. He thought with an iDoon
celvable dread OF the possibility of it's re
appearing before him, and he would hav
flown to the uttermost ends of the cart
rather than face again the accusation OF il
gaze. He chung TO life with a desperat
tenacity Whatever day of life he coul
secure meant respite from an imaginar'
something which must necessarily be wors
than what be had endured already-tha
ugly physical hell which is the bugbear o
ignorant and ignoble souls He had put it