The Red Cloud chief., 1897-09-24
CHAPTER XXI,

. thiiN NN VI VIM
tsnued. but i've aye liked you because
/ was sure We had a stubborn will when
your conscience told you that the right
was on your side. If that man has
wronged Marjorie Amman. would you be
feared to face him and avenge her.
III he has played the william" an
swered Sutherland. deadly pale. but de-
termined. Il would hunt him down and
punish him, though | had to follow him
round and round the world"
AS the young man spoke, his face
wore an expression which few had ev-
er noticed there before; all the softness
and sweetness disappeared. the lines
d%eepened. the eyes hardened. aud the
entire aspect grew hard as granite. and
as unrelenting
81 was right" said the old lady, no.
ticing the change. "Ye have the Heth-
erington temper, Johnnie Sutherland.
Oh, that | were a man to gang in your
place! But you shall follow them with
the swiftness o youth and the keenness
o injured love-
4 few minutes later. Sutherland left
the Castle, fully authorized to bring
Marjorie back il possible. and armed
with ample means, in the shape of a
large sum of money. which Miss Heth-
erington thrust upon him.
Left to herself In the lonely Castle.
the lady retired To her private suite of
apartments. and there gave way to the
wild tempest Of her sorrow and de-
spair. Pride and self-reproach con
tended together for the mastery of her
heart; but love was there. too-the in
:ense love of maternity. which for near
ly eighteen years had been Pickering
secretly like a feeble fire.
Sitting in her armchair. her head ly-
ing back and her eyes fixed wildly on
Tie windows glimmering square and
the drcary prospect beyond, she fell in
to a troubled dream of the past.
Again she was a proud, passionate
girl, reckless In her corirgs and 60
ings, caring for nothing In e world
but the smiles of one man. and itdring
nothing but the anger of her savage
brother, In whom the tigerish blood of
the male Hetheringtons ran twice fiery
through lust and wine.
So naughty and unlovable had she
seemed. SO stubborn and capricious.
that only one man had dared to WOO
her-that man her fathers and her
brothers enemy. the enemy of all her
house. They had met in secret, and
she. with characteristic stubbornness,
had loved him better for the feud that
might have kept them asunder. And
ut last. In a wild moment of impulse,
she had placed herself at his mercy
and had loved him without Gods bless
ing or the sanction Of clergyman or
priest.
Then. to the terror and amaze of
both, came the knowledge that she was
about to become a mother.
Not till she confessed her situation
TO him did she discover that the hate
of her family was justified. and that
she had loved a villain; for almost
simultaneously came the news that he
was about to marry the daughter of an
English earl. She taxed him with IT,
and he scarcely took the trouble 70 de-
ny 1t. He could never. he said. unite
himself with one of her house.
How 1t came about she scarcely
knew; but n night, when she met her
lover and faced him with wild up
b~raidings a hand like iron was laid
upon her arm, and turning. she saw
her brother Hugh. The two men faced
each other; there were a few words
then a blow. and she saw her lovers
face livid and bleeding as she swooned
away.
Later that night. when Hugh Heth-
erington sought her in that very cham
Der where she was now sitting. he had
wrung the whole truth from her. and
hearing It, had struck her, TOO. with
his clinched fist IN the face.
AS she thought OF that time. she rose
feebly and looked into the glass. Yes
the mark was there yet: she would
carry 1t to her grave. Her worn fac,
went ghastlier yet as she remembered
what had followed. How her wild
brother left the place and was absent
for many days; and how. just after he
returned and drove her forth, she reat
in a newspaper that Lord Lochmaben
of the great Lochmabens of the Border
had lust died suddenly in his 35th year
somewhere abroad. There was nc
scandal; the world did not ever know
how Lochmaben persisted, but she
knew that he had fallen by the hand OF
Hugh Hetherington, In a due tough,
with swords on foreign soil.
All. the darkness, the horror, the des'
olation of the next few months NJ
one but her brother knew her secret
and he kept 1t well. so that all Tho
world heard was that the brother ant
sister had quarreled, and that h hat
left the Castle to dwell. temporarily a
least. apart. No one wondered. The
He%therington temper was well known
a by-word; II was as natural that sucf
a brother and sister should hate eacf