Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-05-21


she was a child. He was the first to
break silence.
''The God of all mercy be with you,
Felicia in this dark hour Your moth
err
The bishop hesitated. Out of the
buried past he had during his hurried
passage from his friends house to this
house of death irresistib1y drawn the
one tender romance of his young man
hood. Not even Bruce knew that But
there had been time when the bishop
had offered the incense of a singularly
undivided affection upon the altar OF
his youth to the beautiful Camilla
Rolfe, and she had chosen between him
and the millionaire. The bishop carried
no bitterness with his memory, but it
was still memory.
For answer to the bishops unfinished
query Felicia turned and went back
into her mothers room. She had not
said word yet, but both men were
struck with her wonderful calm She
returned to the hall door and beckoned
to them. and the two ministers, with a
feeling that they were about to behold
something very unusual, entered.
Rose lay with her arms outstretched
on the bed; Clara, the nurse, sat with
her head covered, sobbing in spasms of
! terror, and Mrs. Sterling, with ''the
| light that never was on sea or land
! luminous on her face, lay there 80 still
! that even the bishop was deceived at
! first Then as the great truth broke
upon him and DR.. Bruce he staggered,
and the sharp agony of the old wound
shot through him. It passed and left
him standing there in that chamber of
| death with the eternal calmness and
strength that the children of God have
a right to possess, and right well he
used that calmness and strength In the
days that followed.
/ The next moment the house below
was in tumult. Almost at the same
time the doctor, who had been sent for
at once but lived some distance away,
came in, together with police officers
/ who had been summoned by the fright
ened servants With them were four or
five newspaper correspondents and sew
eral neighbors. DR.. Bruce and the
bishop met this miscellaneous crowd at
the head of the stairs and succeeded in
excluding all except those whose pres
ence was necessary With these the two
friends learned all the facts ever known
about 1.-THE Sterling tragedy, as the
papers in their sensational accounts
next day called it.
Mr.. Sterling had gone into his room
that evening about 8 o'clock, and that
was the last seen Of him until in half
an hour a shot was heard and a servant
who was in the hall ran into the room
and found the owner Of the house dead
on the floor, killed by his own hand.
Felicia at the time was sitting by her
mother. Rose was reading in the Ii
brary. She ran up stairs, saw her father
as he was being lifted upon the couch
by the servants and then ran screaming
into her mothers room, where she flung
herself down on the foot of the bed in
a swoon Mrs. Sterling had at first
tainted at the shock, then rallied with
wonderful swiftness and sent a mes
senger to call DR.. Bruce. She had then
insisted on seeing her husband. In spite
of Felicia she had compelled Clara and
the housemaid, terrified and trembling,
to support her while she crossed the
hall and entered the room where her
husband lay. She had looked upon him
with fearless face, had gone back into
her own room. was laid on the bed, and
as Dr.. Bruce and the bishop entered the
house she, with a prayer of forgiveness
for herself and her husband on her
quivering lips, had died, with Felicia
bending over her and Rose still lying
senseless at her feet.
So great and swift had been the en-
trance of grim death into that palace
of luxury that Sunday night, but the
full cause of his coming was not known
until the facts in regard to Mr. Ster-
ling's business affairs were finally dis
closed.
Then it was learned that for some
time he had been facing financial ruin
owing to certain speculations that had
in months time swept his supposed
wealth into complete destruction. With
the cunning and desperation of man
who battles for his very life, when he
saw his money, which was all the life
he ever valued, slipping from him he
had put off the evil day to the last mo-
ment. Sunday afternoon, however, he
had received news that proved to him
beyond a doubt the fact of his utter
ruin. The very house that he called his.
the chairs in which he sat, his carriage,
the dishes from which he ate, had all
been bought by money for which he
himself had never really done an honest
stroke of pure labor
It had all rested on tissue Of deceit
and speculation that had no foundation
in real values He knew the fact better
than any one else, but he had hoped,
with the hope that such men always
have, that the same methods that
brought him the money would also pre-
vent it's loss. He had been deceived in