The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-23

of the dagger She had herself flung
down in Agatha'S yard, and dreading
the encounter between this old man and
the lover she had been following to this
place, creeDs around the house and
looks into the first window she finds
open. What does she expect to see
Frederick brought face to face with
this desperate figure with its uplitted
knife. But instead of that she beholds
another old man seated at a table and
-Amabel had paused when she reached
that and" and Sweetwater had not
then seen how important this pause
was but now he understood it. Now he
saw that if she had not had subtle
purpose in view, that if she had wished
to tell the truth rather than produce
false differences in the minds of those
about her, calculated to save the Grim
inal, as she called him, she would have
completed her sentence. thus: Il saw
an old man seated at a table and Fred
erick Sutherland standing over him. y
For Sweetwater had no longer a doubt
that Frederick was in that room at that
moment. What further she saw, wheth-
er she was witness to an encounter be-
tween this intruder and James, or
whether by some lingering on the lat
ter's part Frederick was able to leave
the house without running across him,
was matter of comparative unimport-
ance. What is of Importance is that he
did leave it, and that Amabel, knowing
it was Frederick, strove to make her
auditors believe it was Zabel who car
ried the remainder of the money into
the woods. Yet she did not say so, and
if her words on this subject could be
carefully recalled, one would see that
it was still her lover she was following,
and no old man, lettering on the verge
of the grave and only surviving be
cause of the task he was bent on per-
forming.
Amabers excuse for handling the
treasure and for her reburial of the
same, come now within the bounds of
possibility. She hoped to share this
money some day, and her greed was too
great for her to let such an amount lie
there untouched, while her caution led
her to bury it deeper, even at the risk
of the discovery she was too ineXperi-
enced to fear.
That she should forget to feign sur
prise when the alarm of murder was
raised was very natural. and so was the
fact that a woman with a soul so
blunted to all delicate instincts, and
with a mind so intent upon perfecting
the scheme entered into by the muir
derer of throwing the blame upon the
man whose dagger had been made use
of, should persist in visiting the scene
of crime and calling attention to the
spot where that dagger had fallen. And
SO with her manner before her exam
iners. Battling as that manner was, 1t
still showed streaks of consistency,
when you thought of it tas the cloak of
a subtle, unprincipled woman, who sees
amongst her interlocutors the guilty
man. whom by word she can destroy,
but whom she eXerts herself to save,
even by a series of bizarre eXplana-
tions that could only make her little
short of ridiculous She was playing
with a life a life she loved, but not
with sincerity sufficient to rob the game
of a certain delicate, If inconcelVaple,
intellectual enjovmenL*
And Frederick? Had there been any
thing in his former life or in his con-
duct since the murder to give the lie TO
these heavy doubts against him? on
the contrary. Though Sweetwater knew
little of the dark record which had
made this young man the disgrace OF
his family what he did know was so
much against him that he could well
see that the distance Usually existing
between simple dissipation and desper-
ate crime might be easily bridged by
some great necessity for money. Had
there been such a necessity? Sweet
water did not know. but 1t was easy
to think so. And Frederick's manner?
Was It that of an honest man simply
shocked by the suspicious which had
fallen upon the woman he loved? Had
he (SweetWater) not observed certain
tell-tale moments in his late behavior
that required a deeper explanation even
than this?
The cry for instance, with which he
had rushed from the empty ballroom
into the woods on the opposite side of
the roadl Was it a natural cry or an
easily explainable one? THANK God,
this terrible night is Overt Strange
language to be uttered by this man at
such a time, and in such place, if he
did not already know what was to make
this night of nights memorable through
all this region. He did know and this
cry, which had struck Sweetwater
strangely at the time, and still more
strangely when he regarded it simply
as b coincidence, now took on all the
force of a revelation, and the irresist-
ible bubbling up in Frederick's breast
of that remorse which had just found
its full expression on Agathas grave.
To some that remorsc and all his 9TH
err signs of suffering might be explained
by his passion for the real criminal,
but to Sweetwater it was only too evil
dent that an egotist like Frederick
Sutherland cannot suffer for another to
such an extent as this, and that a per-
sonal explanation must be given for so
personal a grief. even if that explana-
ton involves the dreadful charge of
murder.
1t was when Sweetwater reached this
point in his reasoning that Frederick
disappeared beneath Mr. Holidays
porch. and Mr. Sutherland came up be-
hind him. After the short converse
ton. in which Sweetwatei' saw his own
doubts more than reflected in the I'M
easy consciousness of this stricken
father, he went home. and the struggle
of his life began.