Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-07-06

before, but could not resist. It was
scarcely lover and loved one. II
seemed rather the executioner and his
victim.
One night Miss Considine invited a
select few to witness the mysterious
unwilling of the picture about which
there had been such conjecture. A
sensation was expected. The magnifi-
cent drawing-room was ablaze with
light, a-hutter with expectany guests.
The yelled portrait occupied promi-
nent position at the lower end OF the
long salon, and thither pressed the
throng, the peerless belle conspicuous
upon the arm of the artist, Count Lud-
wig.
Both were pale, but the count smiled
right and left, dazzling. The beauty
was grave and silent, watching the
man upon whose arm she leaned fur
lively, and with a half-foreboding
look in her liquid black eyes. From
time to time she pressed one jewelled
hand stealthily upon her side, as If to
still the throbbing of the stormy heart
beneath, while she continually ques-
toned herself:
Why do l fear? What is this terror
that steals my very senses from me?
He cannot know"
At last Count Ludwig loosened her
jeweled fingers from his arm, and STEP
ping forward, drew the curtain with
sweep Of his hand.
There was an instants breathless
silence. An affrighted amaze seemed
to stop the beating of every heart.
Then broke forth exclamation and out
cry, and above all, like the death
scream of some dying animal, rose a
woman's shrek.
The picture was, first, a room, rich
in decorations of green and gold. In
the foreground, half reclined in a
cushioned chair, an old man, with
long, softly curling white hair. His
head had fallen a little to one side, his
eyes were fixed in a CLASSY, yet re-
proachful stare upon the exquisitely
beautiful face of a woman, whose
jeweled hands he grasped with dy-
ing clutch. Both his hands and hers
were b1ood-stained. Hers held sti-
letto-like dagger from whose glittering
point also blood dripped. There was
gaping wound in the old MATS side,
and the woman's face was that Of Miss
Considine.
When the appalled, woman, for
whose sole benefit this picture had
been painted, would have flung up her
frenzied hands to shut out the sight,
Count Ludwig caught them in an iron
grasp, and almost shouted in her ear
in his excitement.
mo, no, madam; you shall look, and
look, and look, till the sight blinds you
or kills you, | care not which. Do
you see him, false siren the poor old
man, who was kind to you-who took
you out of poverty to marry you-who
never harmed the most helpless crea-
ture? What had he done that you
should kill him, you murderess?"
Miss Considine had ceased to strug-
gle. The blanched whiteness of her
face and the startling eyes were some
thing awful to see, and the screams
that broke through her rigid, ashen
lips, curdled the blood to the heart.
'Shall I tell you who am" Count
Ludwig continued, without releasing
her, still compelling her to look.
Count Ludwig no longer. l am his
son-that Rudolphus of whom you
have heard, but whom you never saw.
When came home and found that the
poor old man who loved me had been
ruthlessly slain, | swore never to rest
until had found and given to justice
his murderess. For, madam, / never
doubted a single instant who she was.
You laid your plans we'll. You married
"a doting old man for his wealth, and
with your sorceress deSignings you in
duced him to disown his own children
and make a will which gave you all.
Then you contrived that he should
send the servants for holiday, except
that valet, who was hanged for the
murder Poor old George! He would
have died sooner than harm his mas
ter. You pretended to quit the house
yourself. But you came back in dis
guise and did the deed"
He paused. Miss Considine had not
uttered a sound for some moments.
The horrible ghastliness had not left
her face, but she had in a measure re-
covered her self-possession. Now she
spoke in an utterly changed but COM
posed tone.
You cannot prove syllable Of this
mad story she began, but he stopped
her. with eyes that seemed absolutely
to blaze with rage and menace. Draw.
ing swiftly forth a purple velvet case,
he lifted the lid and showed upon the
white satin cushion an exquisitely
wrought sandalwood bracelet. 1t was
stained with something which had
dried upon it, and changed it's color,
all except about third, to dark,
sickly shade, whose hue 1t was not
difficult to recognize.
Said Count Ludwig in an awed tone:
II found this among the cushions
of the chair in which my father was