Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1898-11-30
CHAPTER XVI.
LOREEN.


In a week, Lucetta had said, she
might have been able, had he been
willing or in a position to wait, to give
him a more satisfactory answer. Why
in a week? That she shrank from leav-
ing her sister so suddenly or that she
had sacrificed her life's happiness to any
childish idea of decorum l did not think
probable even. The spirit she had
shown, her immovable attitude under q
temptation which had not only romance
to recommend it, but everything else
which could affect young and sensi-
tive woman, argued in my mind the ex-
istence of some uncompleted duty of so
exacting and imperative nature that
she could not even consider the greatest
interests of her own life until this ono
thing Was out Of her way. Williams
rnde question Of the morning, "What
shall we do with the old girl till it is
oil over?" required to me in support of
this theory, making me feel that l need
ed no more confirmation to be quite GER
tain that a crisis was approaching in
this house which would tax my powers
to the utmost and call perhaps for the
use of the whistle which I had received
from Mr. Gryce, and which, following
his instructions, l had tied carefully
about my neck. Yet how could l asso-
ciate Lucetta with crime or dream Of
the police in connection with the serene
Loreen, whose every look was rebuke
to all that was false. vile or even COM
mon? Easily, my readers, easily, with
that great hulking William in my re-
membrance. To shield him, to hide per-
haps his deformity Of soul from the
world. even such gentle and gracious
women as these have been known to
enter into acts which to any unpreju-
diced eye and an unbiased conscience
would seem little short Of fiendlsh.
Love for an unworthy relative or rather
the sense of duty toward ones own has
driven many clear minded woman to
her ruin, as the police annals embodied
as they are for me in Mr. Gryce, would
show
That l have not as yet put into definite
words the suspicion upon which l was
now prepared to work is quite apparent
to me- Up to this time it had been too
vague, or rather of so monstrous char
acter, that | had felt ready to consider
other possibilities, as, for instance, the
possible connection of old Mother Jane
with the unaccountable disapFearances
which had taken place in this lane. But
now the very definite assurances had
been constantly receiving from the mo-
ment had set foot in this house that
something extraordinary and out OF
keeping with the ordinary appearances
Of the household was going on in secret
in some one of the innumerable cham
bers of that long corridor corresponding
10 my own, and which for very obvious
reasons l had as yet failed to find any
excuse for penetrating, was taking shape
in my mind, and l no longer affected to
deny to myself that everything l had
thus far seen and heard went toward es-
tablishing the fact that these young wo-
men held in charge prisoner of some
kind of whose presence there and per-
sonality they dreaded the discovery.
Now, who could this prisoner be?
Common sense supplied me with but
one answer-Silly Rufus, the boy who
within few days had vanished from
among tho good people of this seeming
ly guileless community.
Once settled in this idea, applied
myself to a consideration of the mean:
at my disposal for determining its truth
The simplest and perhaps the most sure
as we'll as the least satisfactory to ONT
of my nature would be to summon the
police and have the house thoroughly
searched, but this involved, in case
had been deceived by appearances-a
was possible even to woman of my ex
perience and discrimination-a scanda
and an opprobrium which would b
the last to inflict upon Althea' s childrel
unless Justice to the rest Of the worlt
demanded it.
1t was in consideration Of this yer.
fact, perhaps, that l had been PLACED