Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1901-01-02

"lf you qUdnt mg life, will give 1t to you
1ritll ma O1cn hand"
gaze in which shock and some strange
and poignant agony totally incompre-
hensible to me We're strangely blended,
sne cried out:
No, no, Frederick! You don't know
what you are doing. If you want my
money, take it; if you want my life,
will give it to you with my own hand.
Don't stain yours-don't'-
Il did not understand her. did not
know until thought it over afterward
that my hand was thrust convulsiyely
into my breast in u way which, taken
with my wild mien, made me look as
If had come to murder her for the
money over which she was lowering.
was blind, deaf to everything but
that money, and, bending madly for
ward in state of mental intoXication
awful enough for me to remember
now, l answered her frenzied words by
some such broken EXPLANATIONS as
these:
Give, then! want hundreds
sands-now, now, to save myself! Dis.
grace, shame, prison await me IL l
don't have them. Give, give! And my
hand went out toward it, not toward
her; but she mistook the action, mis-
took my purpose, and, with a heart.
broken cry, to save me, me, from
crime, the worst crime of which hui
nanity is capable, she caught up dag
ger lying only too near her hand in the
open drawer against which she leaned,
and in moment of fathomless anguish,
which we who can never know more
than the outward seeming Of her life
can hardly measure, plunged against 1t
and-I can tell you no more. Her blood
and Batsy's shrek from the adjoining
room swan through my consciousness,
and then she fell, as l supposed, dead
upon the floor, and l, in scarcely better
case, fell also.
This, as God lives, is the truth con-
corning the wound found in the breast
Of this never to be forgotten woman"
The feeling, the pathos, the anguish
even, to be found in his tones made this
story, strange and incredible as 1t seem
ed, appear for the moment plausible.
"And Batsy?" asked the coroner.
| "Must have fallen when we did, for
I never heard her voice after the first
scream. But / shall speak of her again.
What must now explain is how the
money in Mrs. Webb's drawer came
into my possession and how the dagger
she had planted In her breast came to
be found on the lawn outside. When
I came to myself, and that must have
been very soon, found that the blow
l had been such Mortified witness Il
had not yet proved fatal. The eyes
had seen close, as had supposed, for
ever, were now open, and she was look
ing at me with smile that has never
left my memory and never will.
There is no blood on you,' she muir
INJURED. You did not strike the blow
Was 1t money only that you wanted
Frederick? If so, you could have ha6
1t without crime. There are 1000 or
that table and half as much again ii
the closet over yonder. Take them ant
let them pave your way to q bettel
life. My death will help you to remem
ber.' Do these words, this action Of
hers, seem incredible to you, sirs?. Alas
alas! they will not when tell you
and here he cast one anxious, deeply
anxious, glance at the room in which
Mr.. Sutherland was hidden-''that, I'm
known to me, unknown to any one llv
ing but herself, unknown to that goot
man from whom it can no longer b,
kept hidden, Agatha Webb was m!
mother. / am Philemon's son and no
the offspring of Charles and MARKETS.
| Sutherlandw