Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-22

when the darkened sun and the uuaking
crust Of the earth seemed to the affrighted
imagination of men surely to portend the
coming of the great and dreadful day OF
the wrath of God John Hardys agents
were hot on the trail of the young woman
whom he sought.
Three weeks previously the old butler had
brought him list of the men left in hos
pital of the Duke Of Cambridge's own regi-
! ment, and as Hardy's eye ran down the
list, he saw a name which he had heard
which vas on the tip Of his memory, yet
which he had been unable to remember.
His eye lit up at the sight of It, 1t was
the name of the soldier John Brabant
There was nothing miraculous In the fact
that Brabant still lived; yet to Hardy it
seemed nothing less than genuine miracle.
Faith in the divine formed the groundwork
and rock-bed of his simple nature; and
| his eye continually searched for. and as
sumed, the stealthy. busy finger.
a day afterward he was able to leave
his bed, and at once he hurried, muffied up.
| in close carriage, to the Chelsea Hos
| pital, and the bedside of Brabant.
| Brabant. as 1t happened, was dying from
exhaustion as the result of an amputation,
and did. in fact die few days later. He
was, however, able to give the address of
| the villa at which the girl Seward had
been, Or was still (for he was not sure), a
servant.
To Hardy, the one thing OF paramount
interest in the world seemed to be to have
tniS GIRL whose Initials ne bore branded
on his breast secure in his own keeping.
He had the instinct to lock her away In
some castle of absolute safety, and feed her
every hour with his own hands, lest chance
or change should befal1 her.
That, at time when the earth was
travelling in deathbirth, all should depend,
one way or the other, upon London serv-
ant girl. was wonderously like the way Of
life. Things happen so-not with vigor
and rigor," as Mr.. Matthew Arnold very
well says, but in that fast-and-loose fash
ion. When fate is not freakish. she Is un-
like herself. The unprecedented Is the
natural, and may be counted upon Destiny
Is full of novelties.
That a nerve in this particular girl should
set a nerve In Yen How a-tinglins, and that
Yen HoWs tingling. spreading out beyond
all limit into transcendental rapture, should
infect whole planet with tingling-this
was nothing more than the launching of
battleship by the pressure of an electric
button, or the loosening OF an avalanche by
the rolling of pebble. In such surprises
both fate and nature abound
But Ada Seward was no longer at the
Pattison villa: all the Information which
could be gathered there was the fact that
she had brother bicycle-smith, resid-
Ing in Church road, Chelsea. to whom she
may have gone after suddenly leaving the
Pattisons But the brother declared that
she was not there: and either he could not
or would not. give any further details about
Ada to the agents employed by Hardy.
It became clear that about the girl and
her movements hung some sort OF mys-
with regard to her
Hardy commenced to seek her through
out England, advertising In every paper.
and setting TO work the best detectives
1t she were abroad? If she were deafi7
And II Yen How knew it--had secret means