The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1897-09-04

She teebly stretched her arms toWdrd her.
have been said, for I could see they
tried her firmness, I spoke of what was
necessary. Of course I took upon my
self all the arrangements of the funer-
al, but I had to ask her a question about
the death certificate.
II do not know your sisters married
name," I said.
"She was never married. - was the
unexpected reply.
My eye wandered interrogatively to
the wedding ring upon that delicate
finger, on which the needle had left no
trace. 1t had, indeed, done little work
of any kind. But Rebecca only shook
her head.
"Then I will give your sisters maid
en- name, Bent"
"She was not my sister, sir. She was
no relative at all. Put down Lester"
mo relative? Then, indeed, Rebec-
ca, you may say you have done your du-
ty to your neighbor."
my duty!' she answered with bitter
scorn and throwing up her great, gaunt
hands. SIT was I who murdered her."
1t was not till some days afterward,
when Lucy had been laid to rest in the
cemetery, that I heard from Rebecca
what she believed to be the story of her
crime. 1t was exaggerated, emotional,
and l am very sure represented the case
only as it appeared to a mind full of
remorse and self reproach.
l prefer, for truths sake as we'll as
hers, to give the facts as they would
have struck an unprejudiced observer.
Lucy Lester was the daughter Of a
tradesman we'll to do and who made his
money honestly enorSh, but he was a
Puritan and of the stlIctest sect Of the
Pharisees. His wife had died when
Lucy was still a child, and she was
brought up in an atmosphere of gloom
and dullness very unsuited to her char
acter, which was at once frivolous and
egotistic. Her beauty, of which she was
only too conscious, was pronounced by
the formal society with whom she mixed
to be a snare Gas, indeed, it proved to
beg, and every amusement to which she
naturally inclined was sternly forbidden
her. Rebecca, who had been her nurse
and when she grew up became her maid,
ly~mpathized with her young mistress,
to whom she was also genuinely at
tached, and made common cause with
her against her prosecutors, as she called
them though they included her parent
himself. He was very thrifty and kept
Lucy ''short" as to pin money, and Re-
becca who, as she told me (for she
spared herself in nothing), was Every
greedy of gain" on a very low scale of
wages. 1t vas a sad and rather sordid
story of severity and repression met by
duplicity and intrigue. What redeemed
1t was the disinterested though exagger-
ated fealty of Rebecca, which would
have horne comparison with that Of
feudal times. Except for her singular
beauty, there was nothing admirable in
Lucy, who indeed was proud, selfish
and exacting, but in Rebecca's eyes she
was perfection and a martyr, fit for a
prince, but with no choice of suitors
save of a commonplace and unworthy
kind, and who, never having seen a
stage play, had no notion of the desir-
ability of making a friend of the maid
of their mistress.
Presently, however, a lover appeared
of quite another stamp, but unhappily a
clandestine lover. Mr.. Power was one
Of her fathers customers, a gentleman,
as was understood, of good position and
who at all events gave large orders,
which were punctually paid for. While
calling ON Mr.. Lester on business he
CHANGED to catch sight of Lucy and be-
came at once enamored of her beauty.
Without the simplicity which is the
safeguard of her sex, she was absolutely
ignorant of that world with which she
painted to mingle. The mans air of fash
ion made as much way with her as his
protestations, and unfortunately the
lavishness which a man of his stamp
displays when bent on such a design
was taken by Rebecca al the sign Of q
generous nature. Without knowing
them Gas I think to be exactly brides,