The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-09-24

CHAPTER VI.-rCo>r11rEn.,

CHAPTER VI.-tCoNT1 luEp.,
"FOrgivev!' Yes-shame on my weak
ness for saying SOL could forgive. /
could do more; l could persuade myself
that this s~trong-willed man had forced
her to fly with him perhaps half against
her wish. could believe that she was
unhappy, that she was penitent, that
she loved me still. could do more
than forgive, I could take her-I should
be forced to take her-again to my
heart; e. to trust her, and be proud of
her glorious beauty. Yes, l could do
this-after I had seen Eustace Grant ly-
ing lifeless at my feet. Weak as I was,
It could not be until then!
Where was he? Where was she?
Were they together? turned again TO
the letter. 1t gave me no information
as to the writer's whereabouts. The
paper and the envelope were plain;
the latter bore the London postmark.
- was creased, which told me it had
been sent under cover, to be posted in
London. Sent to whom? The receipt Of
this scrap Of paper worked a great
change in me. If l had ever been ap-
preaching that state in which a man &C
cepts the inevitable, it lifted me out of
1t.
It spurred me on to make fresh eXer-
lions to discover the retreat of the flu
gitives. That letter-the letter written
by her--I carried next to my heart day
and night. False as my wife had been
to me I loved her, and there were times
when 1 recalled her sweet face and maj
veled how evil could have lurked be-
meath such a mask.
left Herstal Abbey and took up my
quarters in town. There l should be
ready to start on the moment l heard
where Grant was to be found. But
somehow 1 was beginning to think that
our meeting would be brought about by
pure chance. London is the place where
oil chance meetings occur. There are
few Englishmen who do not visit the
capital, either at shorter or longer in
tervals. Something must bring Grant,
there; so 1 waited and hoped.
Chance, pure chance, brought about
what l longed for, but in the way | ex-
pected. I did not stumble across my
foe in the street; I & did not hear a chance
mention of his name, and so hit upon
some one who knew him. found Eus-
tace Grant in this wise:
This year a book, which at once took
the public's fancy immensely, made its
appearance. 1t was but a novel, yet a
work the depth and research OF which,
combined with it's pathos and humor,
arrested all readers attention. People
we're curious to know who was the au-
thor. The title page bore one OF those
names which strike every n as being
a nom-de-plume. Perhaps the book was
not the less read because a certain
amount of mystery was kept up as to
who had really written it.
Sometimes, not often, since that crush
Ing blow had fallen upon me, l read
what happened to come in my Way. This
particular book was one which came IN
nv way. l began to read it, and am
bound to say that the opening chapters
we're written by so mastery a land
that I at once experienced something
of the general interest which the tale
had called forth. But before had read
it half through, my interest and excite
ment were such as no author has by his
merits ever awakened in any reader.
gave a fierce cry of triumph. l threw
the book from me as if it were a rep
tile. l had found Eustace Grant!
For one chapter of that book con-
tanned an account of the hero's journey
ing through a part of Switzerland; and
the account was the same as Grant had
piyen his auditors on the night I first
met him, and hated and mistrusted
him. Several of the most amusing and
out-of-the-way incidents which he then
related, and which were sufficiently
droll and strange to impress them
selves on my memory, were in these
pages once more narrated. EuStace
Grant was the author of the successful
book. 1 thanked my memory, which
had in a second brought his adventures
back to my mind; and memory brought
back more thar this.
It brought back Viola, listening with
smiles on her face to her guardians (as
she called him) amusing recital. 1t
brought back the days when wooed
her; the day when I told her my love;
the day when she was mine, as l
thought, forever; the day, the black
day, when she led-when for hours and
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