Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1907-09-26

voice mao already betrayed her.

but how can that be? he Is moth
ing to us either. We did not know the
family. You heard Of the quarrel?
| And the young man was very seldom
| there, never once in our house." So
she still swerved instinctively at the
lie direct and despised herself more
than If she had told a dozen. The sit
uation was intolerable to her. She
was on the brink Of a rash confession
and such an appeal to Dafntree's mag
nanimity as should move a stone, when
he took the last word and left her time
to think.
"Miss Harding" said he earnestly, 81
care not a jot what you may think Of
this case on mature consideration. I
know how it appealed to you the other
night, before your great heart pulled
you two ways, as it is doing now. But
that's not the point. No; the point is
that you asked something of me, and
I mean you to know that what you
ask of me that you shall receive If it
Is in the power Of mortal man to give.
If I do not rescue this young fellow
from the rope, then it is not in the
power Of mortal mar to do so. But I
shall, never fear, and then you will
perhaps see that your lightest whim is
more to me than the commands of
God or a And that's all the re-
ward I ask"
She knew his fowery speeches and
what to allow for his habitual rhetoric.
On this occasion, however, he rang only
too true. Yet as she looked at him
pensively his eyes fell, as they had
sometimes fallen before. 1t was as
though, with all his passion for her,
there was a something sinister and dis
honest underneath, and he felt it when
he looked long enough in her eyes.
Claire did not connect honesty with
herself at present, nor did she view
the question at all from this point, but
she found herself specializing upon the
origin of the quarrel between Daintree
and his people, and she thought Of the
flowers that had come back to him
from his mothers grave.
Later in the evening she worked out
her wv position, shuddered at the
passing impulse to confess, which had
long since passed, put Toms life be-
fore her self respect and determined
to act better from that hour. So the
play went on before an audience of
one who had been taken behind the
scenes, but who now looked on with
eyes that saw rot, so absorbing We're
his w affairs. In very truth, how
ever, there was an audience Of two,
and but little was lost upon the unseen
onlooker.
Daintree meanwhile spent hours ev-
cry day with Mr.. Bassett, the solicitor,
or in waiting for him at his office. In
the evening he would return to Avenue
Lodge with the latest news of the pris-
oner Erickson.
One day he had been removed to the
prison infirmary. Not that there was
much the matter with him, but the sur.
geon was credited with a desire to re-
ward Erichsen's humanity toward a
fellow prisoner, who was said to have
died in his arms.
But another fellow prisoner he had
fought tooth and nail the night before
and Mr.. Bassett had q shrewd suspi.
cion that the real object Of the removal
was to isolate a desperate man.
However that might be, he was do.
ing pretty we'll in the infirmary, vas
said to be depressed, but not unable to
eat or sleep. Daintree reminded Claire
that the prisoner was having all his
meals sent in from a neighboring chop
house and who it was that had ordered
them. 1t was himself.
Erichsen was inundated with letters
Most We're from religious strangers
who took his guilt for granted and in.
dictated several only ways to that mer
cy in another world which was neither
to be expected nor desired in this. But
the one that had given him the great
est annoyance was thought to have
come from q near relative. for it was
very long, and he had torn it in many
pieces and then retorted in three lines
and given it to the surgeon to post.
Claire knew who the relative was
She had gone the length of calling al
Avenue Lodge IN her flight through
town to the continent, and her chief
lament was not that murder had beer
committed, presumably by Tom, but
that her name had been disgraced, bel
trust abused, her money spent in riot
and her life rendered uncomfortable In
her native land. The lady was TOMS
%stepmother.
There was another letter which he
seemed to expect every day and YET
not to expect. and 1t never came, but
they thought he must be in love
Claire considered 1t unlikely. How
could a lover have done such q thing
And had he ever written to any girl.
Daintree said he would inquire.
No friends had been to see him, nc
relations; but a noble lord, the same
who had incumbered the bench at the
Marylebone office, brought a party OF
friends and received payment in kline
for his ~insolent questions. The prison
er was reported to have asked him II
there were no hospitals where his lord
ship could see the legs and arms cut
off and listen to the screams; to have
.oooc,X,op1od bodily +orf,,roo nc 1ilyo1r