San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-10-10
CHAPTER X
BERYL'S RUSE.

Before going into her dear old friends
rooms Beryl walked up and down the
long, broad corridor for some minutes,
plunged in the deepest thought
She was half bewildered by the ra-
pidity with which these terrible events
were c%rowding one upon the other, and
it seemed to her almost impossible that
barely two days had passed since she
had had the interview with Pierre Tur-
rian which appeared to have precipitated
all the trouble that had followed.
Out of the chaos of violence and mys-
terry and death it was with the greatest
difficulty that she could evolve any
coherent plans and ideas.
Holding the secret key to Lola's ac-
tions and her connection with the
F~renohman, Beryl did not for the mo-
ment believe in Sir Jaffray's theory of
madness. Whatever she might be, Lola
was NJ more mad than Beryl herself.
Yet the girl shuddered at the alterna.
tive belief which this necessitated.
She recalled the story which Pierre
Turrian had told at the dinner table
and the incident which he had after
ward denied-that Lola had in truth
thought and sought to kill him by
stamping ON his hands when he hung
helpless clinging to the rock ledge at her
feet.
If she could do that
If she was mad, it was only in the
sense Of being goaded to momentary
madness Of passion in which she might
have driven this dagger into her perse-
cutor's heart, as she had before crushed
his fingers in her paroxysm.
1t was an awful deed; but, knowing
the man, Beryl could not bring herself
to say it was at all an impossible thing
for Lola to have done, and her feeling
for the unfortunate victim Of this viii
lain's cruel cunning was much more
that of pity than of censure.
Nor did her pity stop short at the
commission of the crime.
If she could have gone to her now
and helped her, Beryl felt that she
would do SO c%heerfully. 1t was a fear
some deed to have wrought, but Lola
had been driven to bay.
Beryl had been glad thus to have an
opportunity of Tending off some of the
suspicion which had threatened her,
and she vowed to do all she could to
help her in any way.
The sin had been grievous, but the
punishment had been swift to follow
and terrible to bear, and so far as lay
in her power Beryl vowed that she
would tighten rather than increase it.
The question was, however, where
Lola had fed. 1t was clear that she
must have gone away during the night
after she had been seen by Sir Jaffray.
Her course up to that time was plaiu
enough to Beryl. The Frenchman had
manifestly begun to torment her in con
sequence of his failure to get Beryl her.
self out of the way. In the middle of
the interview between the two Sir
Jaffray had appeared and turned the
Frenchman out of the house. Then he
had written to Lola to meet him, and
she, fearing possibly some violence or
maybe moved by a desire for re-
venge, had taken her dagger with her.
They had met by the cottage, and in a
moment of passion she had stabbed him
and killed him. Then, when making
off, she had tried to leave the wood aud
had been frightened by the appearance
Of Sir Jaffray.
Owing to his trouble with the FESTIVE
horse, he had been unable to follow her
at once, and she had thus hidden and
managed to evade him, slipping out of
the wood in the darkness and away
probably to some railway station. That
the manifest reason of the conduct
which to Sir Jaffray had seemed like
the painless and purposeless wanderings
of a lunatic.
Beryl's heart bled as she thought of
Lola must have suffered during
the night and since the moment of the
deed by the wall of the ruined
In Ash Tree wood.
The girl went in to Lady Walcote un-
how much to tell her Of all that
had happened.
The old lady welcomed her warmly.
She loved the girl, and now in the time
If the sorrow and trouble which had
ON the house she was infinitely
glad Of the comfort of her presence.
"This is a sad house, Beryl," she
;aid after she had kissed her and made
ler bring a stool and sit close by her
knees, 81 have been sitting alone here