The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-28

, for one thing she would die happy.
And though her strength and breath
We're fast failing her, she made me
understand that she was worried about
the labels, who had not come accord
ing to a sacred custom between them,
| to celebrate the anniversary of her
wedding, and prayed me to see the two
old gentlmen before L slept, since moth
| ing but death or dire distress N>uld
! have kept them from gratifying the
one whim of my fathers failing mind.
1 promised. and with perfect peace in
her face, she pointed to the dagger in
her breast
But before could lay my hand up
on 1t she called for -Batsy. L want her
to hear me declare before 1 Co., said
she, that this stroke was delivered by
myself upon myself But when l rose
to look for Batsy 1 found that the
shock of her mistress fatal act had
killed her and that only her dead body
was lying across the window sill of the
adjoining room. 1t was a chance that
robbed me of the only witness who
could testify to my innocence, in case
my presence in this house of death
should become known, and realizing
all the danger in which it threw me.
did not dare to tell my mother for
fear ii would make her last moments
miserable. So i told her that the woman
was too terrified to move or speak;
and this satisfied my mother and made
her last breath one of trust and con-
tented love. She died as l drew the
dagger from her breast, and seeing
this. 1 was seized with horror of the
instrument which had cost me such a
dear and valuable life and flung it
wildly from the window. Then 1 lifted
her and laid her where you found her.
on the sofa. That the dagger was an
old-time gift of her former lover, James
label, l did not know, much less that
it bore his initials on the handle
He paused, and the awe occasioned
by the scene he had described was SO
deep and the silence so prolonged that
a shudder passed over the whole as
semblaSe, when from some unknown
quarter a single, cutting voice arose
in this one, short, hooking comment:
''Oh, the fairy taller
Was it Amabel who spoke? Some
thought so and looked her way, but
they only beheld a sweet, tear-stained
face turned with an air of moving ap-
peal upon Frederick as if begging par
don for the wicked doubts which had
driven him to this defense.
Frederick met that look with one So
severe it partook of harshness: then re-
Stunning his testimony, he said:
1T is of the label brothers / must
now speak. and of how one of them,
James by name, came to be involved in
this affair.
when / left my mother, / was in
such d state of mind that 1 passed the
room in which my new-found father
sat sleeping, with scarcely so much as
a glance. But as l FASTENED on toward
the quarter where the labels lived,
some computations of pity for his desc
late state caused me to falter in my
rapid flight, so that l did not reach
the house quite as quickly as L might
otherwise have done. When / did, I
found it dark, as l might reasonably
have expected, but remembering the
extreme anxiety which my mother had
shown in their regard, even in her dy-
ing moments, 1 approached the front
door and was about TO knock, when /
found it open. Greatly astonished, I
at once passed in, and, seeing my way
perfectly in the moonlight, entered the
room on the left, the door of which
also stood open. 1t was the second
house l had entered unannoUnced that
night, and in this, as in the other 1
encountered a man sitting asleep by
the table.
Going up to him, 1 saw it to be the
elder of the two, John label, and, per-
ceiving that he was suffering for food
and in a condition of extreme misery,
l took out the first bill my hand en-
countered in my overful pockets and
laid it on the table by his side. AS
did so, he gave a sigh, but did not
wake: and satisfied that 1 had done
all that was wise and all that even my
mother would expect of me under the |
and fearing to encoun-
ter the other brother if / fingered. |
FASTENED away and took the shortest