Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-10-04

went with him; as a law-breaker he could
nol remain In France. l would have accom-
panied their flight. but the hour of your
DlrIn was drawing near. 1t had been ar
ranged, therefore, that l should Join them
, a. later date Alas! never set eyes upon
me at irregular intervals, but after a lapse
| OF eighteen months his letters ceased The
yacht In which he was cruising from place
| and have no reason to believe that he
escaped watery grave
If thus certain of his death, why, you
! may ask, did I not Immediately make
! known the truth concerning the murder?
Fear for myself, love for you, were the
| motives prompting me to concealment.
Il was an accessory after the fact a per-
jurer likewise. and therefore amenable to
the law. You were babe of eighteen
| months. pretty and charming, the light of
| my life. To proclaim the truth meant inn
| and wfthal. disgrace upon our common
name. could not bear the thought of this
and, therefore, deaf to the voice of justice,
| l continued to keep the truth hidden.
But now, assured by the physician that
| have not many days to live. I dare not
die without making you the confidante OF
| my guilty secret.
This letter, signed with my name, to-
gether with your fathers correspondence,
which Is contained in my private desk, will
afford sufficient evidence of the innocense
| of Eric Marville.
ITO you, then, my daughter, leave the
| duty of clearing the memory of an injured
man. hoping that you will be brave enough
| to face the consequent ignominy "hlch
must forever rest upon our name.
| "THERESE ROCHEFORT.'
Lorelie laid down the letter with sigh
But l was not brave enough, she MUIR
INJURED.
Her father, Noel Rochefort, was credit
ed with having destroyed a brilliant
future by his chivalrous enterprise
of rescuing from prison a friend Whom ne
| deemed to be innocent; and, as the daugh-
ter of such. Lorelie, wherever she went,
found herself an object of interest ana
sympathy. almost a heroine. MUST she
now proclaim that her father, the supposed
hero was in reality a murderer, and one,
too so base that in order to save his own
neck he would have seensan innocent man.
and his friend, go to the guillotine!
She was sixteen years of age at the time
of her mothers death, and lovely in face
and figure; her friends fiattered her vanity
by averring that with her beauty and ac-
complishments she might win the love of
nobleman, or even of a prince! But what
nobleman or prince would marry the daugh-
ter of felon? Therefore, she resolved to
let the truth be hidden. If Eric Marville
were still living he was free; let him re-
joice in that fact; if dead, her attestation
of his innocence would do him no good.
True, she knew that Marville had left
son, who must often have felt shame at
the stigma resting on his name. But TINS
son would now be twenty-three years OF
age; he had grown up, she cynically argued,
accustomed to the feeling, whereas in her
case the knowledge naQ come upon ner
with a sudden and overwhelming shock.
She pictured the plying looks of her
friends, the gibes of the malicious for her
beauty had made for her many enemies),
and she shrank from facing the new stu
alton. No: let the unknown Idris Marville
bear the disgrace that of right belonged to
her And when, a month or two later, she
learned from the newspapers that this same
1dris Marville had persisted in fire at
Paris, she felt a sense of relief.
But retributiOn was to follow!
The day came when her life was in such
danger that she must have persisted but for
the providential help of a certain stranger;
and when that stranger proved to be none
other than the Idris Marville whom she was
wronging by Ter guilty silence, her feeling
of remorse was SO great that she was al
most tempted to leap from the rock into
the sea. To withhold the truth was pain
yet to declare it would be to earn Idris'
contempt. Every kindly word, every pleas
ant look on his part, had gone to her heart
like many thrusts of steel.
The irony of fate! She had married Wis.,
count Walden in the expectation of sue
ceeding to coronet. and now the belief
was gradually forming in her mind that
Idris was the rightful heir of Ravenhall;
Beatrice Ravengar, and not herself, was
destined to be the Countess of Ormsby
Oh if at the age of sixteen and follow
ing the dictates of justice, she had tried to
find Idris Marville, and finding. had given
him her mothers written confession, how
different her life might have been! Idris
then as he had been seven years later But
now? She was united to a husband whom
she felt to be worthless; a husband who
had ceased to care for her; husband
whose title of right belonged to Idris
Il am justly punished she murmured,
bitterly.
The remaining contents of the packet
drawn by Lorelie from the escrtoire con-
sisted of the correspondence mentioned by
Madame Rochefort in her inculpatory let
ter.
Arranging these missives according to the
order OF time In which they were written
the events that followed upon the flight
from QulaiX.
1.-THE PELAYO HOTEL, PAJAREs.
''25th April, 1875
The newspapers will already have told
you how admirably the rescue was MANNED
and carried out, so I need not dwell upon
that point.
There was. however, one awkward hitch
IN me arrangement-the death of Mrs.
Marville; but 1 am not to blame for that
Had Eric listened to me it would not have
happened; my intention was to proceed di-
rect to the yacht; he would turn aside to
take his wife with him; now he has no
wife.
Eric Marville is free, and hope you are
satisfied
THE superscription of this letter will
show you that we are no longer on board
the Nemesis.
"'What is Pajares? you may ask. A mere
hamlet on the northern slope of the Astu-
rian Sierras, so high up as to be almost in
the clouds; and the building dignifled with
the name Of hotel is but a miserable log
posada.
How we come to be here is soon told
ITO fly from Quilaix to the open sea was
an easy task; the difficulty was to attain
dry land again in safety; for, as our ro-
mantle escapade would form the chief topic
in all the newspapers, 1t was pretty GER
tain that at every port a watch would be
kept for our yacht. We feared putting into
harbor. But land we must-somewhere
We could not cruise forever on the open
main. How to land without detection was
the problem.
Chance decided our course of action We
lay becalmed in a wild rocky bay off the
Asturian coast. Anchoring a mile from
land we swept the shore with the glass
there was neither village nor human dwell
ing visible, not living creature in sight
1t was the very spot for purpose; and
as If to favor us still more a mist came
on. Marville proposed that we should go
ashore in the boat, and get rid of the tell
tale yacht by scuttling it there and then
/ was compelled to agree to this plan, for
1 could devise none better. 1t went to my
heart to watch the beautiful Nemesis sink
ing out of sight forever, but it would have
gone to my heart still more to be captured
by a French cruiser, and provided with
cell at Valagenet.