Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-03-16

sits now in his own quiet study, to bow
his face On his trembling hands while
great drops trickle and fall from his hid
den eyes, in the gratitude and relief Of
this most exquisite moment.
For half an hour he sits motionless;
then the entrance Of a fOotman arOuSes
him. The man stirs the fire and lights
the reading lamp, and places a salver of
letters and papers on the table by his
masters side. The sight of that pile
rouses Sir Edward from his revere. All
through this dreary anxious week his cor
respondence has been neglected and his
papers have been unread; and now with
a vigorous effort he draws up his chair to
the table and commences to look over the
accumulated pile.
The first letter he opens makes him
stare in bewilderment. 1t is from the
editor of the Ystradffelter Express, local
paper he had once refused to patronize,
to the great irritation of it's publisher,
and runs as follows:
Dear Sir-As received no answer to
my communication Of the list instant,
have published the item alluded to, and
forward copy of the Ystradffeiter Express
of the I'd of November for your perusal."
"What the deuce does the fellow
mean?' exclaims Sir Edward, in aston
ishment, as he re-peruses this epistle,
and still cannot imagine its drift.
Then it occurs to him that the best way
of solving the matter will be to look over
the papers. And he begins to search
among London weeklies and dailies and
Welsh Couriers and Expresses for the
special one to which his attention has
been directed.
| A short paragraph in which his own
name figures catches his eye. He reads
it, and then he sits gazing blankly at the
paper, reading over and over again those
few lines, and yet utterly unable to COM
prehend what they mean, so dazed and
bewildered does he feel; yet presently,
when the clouds clear off from his brain,
he finds himself studying these words as
though he had not gone over them half
a score times already:
eve believe, on good authority, that
Sir Edward Llewellyn, of Llewellyn Park,
is shortly to be united to Miss Mervyn,
of Mervyn Court, Ashbourne, Devon. The
young lady is guest at Llewellyn Hall
at the present time"
'"The internal Iiarsv' mutters the young
man, wrathfully, as he dashes the paper
to the ground.
It then suddenly occurs to him that the
letter alluded to may furnish some clue
to this mystery. Hereupon ensues an
other search, and at last the 1nissive is
found. This is it's purport:
'The editor of the Ystradffelter Express
will have much pleasure in inserting the
notice Sir Edward Llewellyn has for
! warded, unless he hears anything to the
contrary from that gentleman before go
ing to press"
"Hang it all, who has been taking these
liberties with my name? mutters the
! irate baronet Il must see into this at
once"
But he knows we'll enough that he can
not do anything until the following morn
ing, when he must drive into the town
and see the editor himself, and ascertain
how such an unauthenticated statement
came to be inserted.
"Of course it must be co1fradicted at
once" he says to himself. "Ah, me, my
darling, if it were only true, what hap
py man should be to-night!'
| At that same hour Denzil Charters sits
in his library alone. He has been alone
the whole day long, fighting with devil
worse than any DEATH" as the poet calls
it, the furious jealousy of a wronged and
self-deluded man.
A letter and newspaper lie before him
small things, insignificant things
enough, and yet they have been able to
wreck a mans life, they have rendered
him for the time being mad as any poor
wretch in Bedlam! The newspaper has
reached him directed in Yolande's hand
writing. The letter merely said that she
had changed her mind and accepted Sir
| Edward as her future husband. though
she would always look upon Denzil as a
| friend.
1t grows dusk. The light of the fire
burns low, the shadows fall broadly and
slowly and dimly across the darkening
room; but the man sitting there with
bowed head and tortured heart seems to
take no heed of time, to be utterly in
sensible to anything around, save only the
knowledge Of his own suffering freshly
| dealt by woman's hand.
| Yet suddenly, when the soft gloom is
deepest, he becomes conscious of some
other presence beside him, of tender
| voice whose soothing tones steal like mu-
sic to his bewildered brain, and rob it of
some Of the fierce dazed horror that has
made it burn with murderous passion
| throughout those wretched hours. He
does not question how it is that Pauline
should be there beside him now, weeping
passionate tears of sorrow for his sorrow,
whispering tenderest words of peace and
consolation in this terrible crisis of his
life. He may be mad or dreaming; he
neither knows nor pauses to question it.
He leans his burning brow upon the
temptress' breast, he listens to her sweet
soft whispers. Hating one woman for
her falseness, he clings to another for
her seeming truth. Ere two days have
passed they are married by special license
at Beechhampton Priory.
So the printed lie does its work fatally
well, while Yolande lies PROSTATE and un-
conscious of the fearful blow it has dealt;
and the man she has loved so dearly binds
himself in letters indissoluble to the trait
,ress who had deluded both.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Et1xxor3 lau-ol1x,a cots vorv little