Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1903-06-25

tcnerished close to his breast, and the
disorder of his dress proved that they
had been thrust hastily back into their
place there by hand on which death
was already closing. Frank took
them out; but four days later, just be-
fore the coffin was nailed down, he
contrived to replace both the letters
and the portrait unseen on the dead
mans breast. He had decided from
the first that he would do this, but he
had thought about it and puzzles over 1T
good deal during those four days in
which he had carried the notes abort
with him. Such a feverish, desperate,
devoted passion as that which had
consumed the dead man, and laid his
energy, his strong will, and his very
| life at the feet of a brilliant but al
most heartless woman, was something
so foreign to his own more placid ma
ture, that it bewildered him, filled
him with pity and perplexity, and gave
him much food for thought. With all
his errors, this logged brute-nature
must be Judged with mercy; and as he
had lived and died for his terrible 10y
atty, his poor treasures, ill-gotten as
they were, might well be Above to
lie with him. So Frank thought as he
restored the packet, and almost wished
that it were in him to dare as much.
| In the meantime Lady Kildonan was
lying utterly unconscious both of the
death of her accomplice and victim
and of her condemnation, pronounced
! by her own lips a hundred times in
! the delirium of brain-fever Her hus-
band, who during these long days and
nights was scarcely ever absent from
her bedside, used to sit listening to
her and watching her with a grave,
intent face, which expressed no senti-
ment harsher than the deepest pity.
He would allow no one else to ap-
proach his wife except her old aunt
and Armathwaite; by means of this
precaution his own unremitting devo-
ton, and a story which he himself
llaboriously concocted to account for
her Illness, Lord Kildonan managed to
preserve her reputation, though he
could not silence all the whisperers.
| When the crisis of the fever was past,
and the sick woman's bodily health be-
gan slowly to mend, it dawned upon
both her husband and the young doc
tor, who had never exchanged a word
since the night of the accident except
upon the medical aspect of the case,
that her mental recovery was not pro-
portionately rapid. She would lie for
hours together awake and quite still.
with her eyes fixed upon her husband
in a sort of vague surprise at his pres
ence, with which mingled no shame,
no annoyance, no deep interest. Yet
she knew who he was, and replied to
his questions in voice which grew
stronger every day. but which ac-
quired no deeper meaning as the time
i went on.
At last she was well enough to get
up, and to sit in her boudoir by the
window, watching the birds flying from
bough to bough of the still leafess
/ trees in the park outside, the little
clouds sailing slowly across the sky,
and a hundred other sights of the mar
row stretch of wintry Landscape
which she had never before noticed.
Lord Kildonan, at first rather pleased
by the new interest she showed in the
nature about her, began after few
days to feel anxious concerning the
meaning of the change.
"She doesn't seem at all the same
woman yet" he observed to the doc
tor one morning, when his wife had
been babbling in childish way, as II
she had no recollection of the terrible
scenes through which she had lately
passed. "Or, is it clever device of
hers to bridge over the awkwardness
of our intercourse, until she is well
enough for me to accuse her and come
to an arrangement"
81 don't think Il Is that, Lord Kill
donan," said Armathwaite, gravely.
"And must strongly advise you to
give up all thoughts of coming to a
clear understanding with her yet"
The old Scotchran's face, which
seemed to have aged recently at the
rate of year for every day. wrinkled
up with anxiety and apprehension.
"Ye mean that her mind has not re
covered it's full powers YETI" he said in
low voice.
|, Eyes. You can see what power it is
that is still wanting-memory."
There was long pause, Lord Xii
donan staring before him, while
emotions of fear and hope and doub
, and wonder struggled within him. A
1 last he asked in low voice:
( "You think it will come back?"
S 1T is impossible to say. In tn,
q meantime"
"In the meantime" broke in Lor,
+ Kildonan, solemnly and with relief il
his tone, "she is just child again
n my poor headstrong, over-indulged
n spoilt child. Then II must no
tease her with questions just yet"
s. In spite of himself, he felt that
il great weight was taken off his mind b
d this discovery. During the hour
= when he had watched by his wife
r. bedside, and pondered with full know
is edge on the circumstances Of the d,