Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-01-23
CHAPTER XVIII.

Gwendoline kept her promise; she re-
pented her Jealous anger against her
cousin; she bitterly lamented those occa-
sions upon which she had felt a mis-
| cradle joy in the probing of his wounds.
She looked back, now that the blindness
of passion had passed away with the
passing of the dead, and saw herself as
she had really been-unchristian intol-
Grant. possessed py jealous anger.
She never knew that she had sent the
man she loved to his death. Iniexible,
to the last, Roland Lansdell had kept
the secret of that fatal meeting in Ness
borough Hollow. The man who had
caused his death was Isabel's father.
If Roland had been vindictively dispos-
ed toward his enemy, he would, for her
sake, have freely let him go; but no
very vengeful impulse had stirred the
failing pulse of his heart. He was
scarcely angry with Jack the Scribe;
but rather recognized in what had &C.
Cured the working of a strange fatal
| ity, or the execution of a divine judg-
| ment.
In spite of that, murderous threat ut
tered by him in the dock, in spite of
the savage violence of his attack upon
Roland Lansdell. Sleaford had not per-
| haps meant to kill his enemy. Mr.. Slea-
! ford had only intended to punish" the
''languid swelP' who had borne witness
| against him; to spoil his beauty for the
time being; and, in short. to give him
| just cause for remembering that little
| amateur detective business by which he
had beguiled the elegant idleness of his
| life. Isabeps father had scarcely in
tended to do more than this. But when
| you beat a man about the head with a
| loaded bludgeon, it is not so very easy
to draw the line of demarcation between
an assault and a murder, and Mr.. Slea-
ford did go little too far, as he learn
ed a few days afterward, when he read
of the sudden death of Roland Lansdell,
| of Mordred Priory.
The strong man, reading this an
nouncement in the parler of a low pub
lie house. felt an icy sensation of fear
that he had never experienced before
amid all the little difficulties attendant
upon the forging of negotiable auto
graphs. This was something more than
he had bargained for. This business
was murder, or something SO nearly re-
sembling that last and worst of crimes,
that a stupid jury might fail to recog-
nize the distinction. Jack the Scribe,
| med with Roland Lansdelps fifty
| pounds. had already organized plan
| of operations which was likely to re-
suit in a very comfortable little in
come, without involving anything so dis
| agreeable to the feelings of a gentleman
| as the illegal use of other peoples
names. 1t was to the science of money
| lending that Mr.. Sleaford had turned
| his attention; and during the enforced
| retirement of the last few years he
| had woven for himself a very neat lit
| tie system, by which great deal of
| interest, in the shape of inquiry fees
| and preliminary postage stamps, could
| be extorted out of supplemented bCr-
rowers without any expenditure in the
way of principal on the part of the lend
| err. With a view to the worthy carry
| ing out of this little scheme, Mr.. Slea-
ford had made an appointment with one
| of his old associates, who appeared to
| him likely person TO act as clerk or
underling, and to double that character
with the more dignified role of solicitor
| TO the Mutual Cooperative Friend-in-
need and F'riend-indeed Society; but af-
| ter reading that dismal para graph re-
| specting Mr. Lansdell Jack the Scribe's
| ideas underwent considerable change.
1t might be that this big pleasant me-
tropolis, in which there is always such
a nice little crop of dupes and simple
tons ready to fall prone beneath the
sickle of the judicious husbandman,
would become, in vulgar parlance. lit
tie too hot TO hold Mr.. Sleaford..
He obtained all information about
| speedily departing steam vessels, and
early the following morning. burdened
only with a carpet-bsg and the smallest
| of portmanteaus, Jack the Scribe left,
unhindered and unobserved, bound for
| Africa. And here he drops out of my
story, as the avenging goddess might
disappear from a classic stage when her
work was done. For him. too. a Ne
mesis waits, lurking darkly in some hid
den turning of the sinuous way along
/ which a scoundrel walks.
If any calm, calm despair" Such
a calm fell at last upon Isabel Gilbert,
but it was slow to come. For a long