The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-11-26
CHAPTER XIV.

Miss Bethune set out accordingly,wi with
out saying anything further, to see the
invalid. She took nobody into her conf
denCe, not even Gilchrist, who had much
offended her mistress by her scepticism.
Much as she was interested in every I'M
usual chain of circumstances, and much
more still in anything happening to Dora
Mannering, there was still stronger i'm
pulse of personal feeling in her present
expedition. 1t had gone to her head like
wine; her eyes shone, and there was a
nervous energy in every line of her tall
figure in its middle-aged bonyness and
happiness. She walked quickly, pushing
her way forward when there was
any crowd, with an uncon-
sciouS movement, as of strong
swimmer dividing the waves. Her mind
was tracing out every line of the supposed
process of events. 1t was such a strange
story as occurs seldom in the almost end
less variety of strange stories that are
about the world-a story of secret mar
riage, a secret birth, a sudden terror of
discovery.
The young woman who had given her
self foolishly and hastily to an adventurer
was an heiress, if she continued to please
an old uncle who had her fate in his
hands. 1t was the news of his unexpected
approach which brought the sudden crisis.
The husband, who had been near in the
profound quiet of the country, fed, taking
with him the Child-and after that no
more.
The marriage was altogether unknown.
except to GilChrist and a couple of old
servants in the small secluded country.
house whore the old little tragedy had
taken place, and the young wife who had
never borne her husbands name. came To
life again after long illness to find every
trace OF her piteOus story, and of the fate
of the man for whom she had risked SO
much, and the child whom she had
scarcely seen, obliterated. The agony
through which she had lived in that first
period of dismay and despair the wild
secret inquiries set on foot with so little
knowledge of how to do anything of the
kind, chiefly by means of the good and de
voted GilChriSt, who, however, knew still
less even than her mistress the way tC
do it.
The long, monotonous years of livine
with the old uncle to whom that forlorn
young woman in her secret anguish had
to be nurse and companion; the liberty
so long desired; but still no clew. no
knowledge whether the child on whom
she had set her passionate heart existed
or not. The hero, the husband, existed
no longer in her imagination That first
year OF furtive fatal intercourse had re-
vealed him in his true cOlors as an ad-
yenturer, whose aim had been her for
tune. But why had he not revealed him
self when that fortune was secure2 WHY
had he not brought back the child
who would have secured his hold over
her whatever had happened2 These
questions had been discussed between
Miss Bethune and her maid till there was
no longer any contingency, any subtility
OF things or theories possible, which had
not been torn to pieces between them
with reasonings sometimes as acute as a
mothers wit could make them, sometimes
as foolish as ignorance and experience
suggested.
They had roamed all over the world in
quiet quest after the fugitiyes who had
| disappeared so completely into the dark
ness What wind drifted them To Blooms
bury it would be too long to inquire The
wife Of one furtive and troubled year, the
mother of one anxious but heavenly
week, had long ago settled into the angu
lar, middle-aged unmarried lady of Mrs
SimcoN's first floor. She had dropped all
her former friends, all the people who
knew about her. And those people whC
once knew her by her Christian name
and as they thought every incident in her
life, in reality knew nothing, not a syll.
able. Of the brief romance and tragedy
which formed its center. She had de
veloped, they all thought. into one OF
! those eccentrics who arc sometimes to be
found in the loneliness of solitary life
odd as were all the BethuueS, with some.
thing added that was especially her own.
BY intervals an old friend would appear
to visit her, marvelling much at the Lon
don lodging in which the mistress OF
more than one old comfortable house had
chosen to bury herself. But the BeUhunes
were all queer, these visitors said: there
was bee in their bonnet, there was a
screw loose somewhere. 1t is astonishing
the number of Scotch families of whom
this is said to account for everything
their descendants may think or do
This was the woman who married along