Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1907-08-29

not the only misfortune that had
fallen to a lot otherwise enviable
enough. Since the last general election
a little charge Of fragrant bribery had
found its way even to an assize court,
where it had indeed broken down, but
not In a fashion wholly satisfactory to
the accused.
An important witness had refused to
open his mouth, as some said because
he was we'll paid by Mr.. Harding to
keep 1t shut and endure the penalty. |
In any event the charge was not per-
mitted to be withdrawn, but the &c
ton merely dismissed to allow Of q
new trial, Of which nothing had been
heard up to the present time. But q
naked sword thus dangled over Nicho- |
las Harding's ruddy, hard head, whose
true temper the situation served to
prove. So far from resigning his seat
he returned to the house with a shrug
and a half smile and in the whole mat
ter continued to bear himself with
such modest gallantry as to remove
the %prejudices Of many who had at
first sided with the enemy.
Claire was not yet twenty-one. The
only child Of his first wife, Claire had
never occupied the place Of the young
er ones in her fathers affections, had
been consistently repressed in child
hood, but had since contrived to please
that critic by her clever management
Of an enlarged establishment. Indeed,
the girl had come home from school
very capable and shrewd and self pos
sessed, with an admirable drawing
room manner and even better Qualities
Of which Mr.. Harding would have
thought less, so they were carefully
hidden from his view, for Claire had
also her faults and was both s~ecretive
and polite in the home circle as a re-
suit of that early repression and injus-
t1ce. Given that cause and this effect
and some clandestine folly may be
counted upon in nine cases out of ten,
and Clalre's was not the tenth.
1t came about at Winwood Hall, the
Suffolk shooting box where the family
had spent the last three autumns.
Nicholas Harding had begun there In
characteristic fashion by quarreling
with the gentle, white haired parson
(who would yet be neither domineered
nor overborne by an interlop1ng Lon
doner) and by %forbidding his daughters
the church, glebe, rectory or any COM
munication with its inmates from that
day forth. A week or two later he
came full upon Claire and the rector's
idle son comparing notes in the lane,
and q pretty scene ensued. MIR. Hard
ing shook his stick at the lad, who
snatched It from him and snapped it
across his knee. Claire was imprisoned
under lock and key for four and TWEEN
ty hours, and young Tom Erickson
Skinned up the waterspout and sat on
her window sill while the rest were at
dinner. But this and succeeding incl
dents never came to the ears of Nicho-
las Harding. And partly in revenge
for the indignity to which she had
been subjected and partly by reason Of
those adventurous traits already touch
ed upon, the motherless and then all
but friendless Claire disobeyed and in
tr1gued thenceforward without q qualm.
The single page known to Nicholas
Harding was a thing of the past In his
mind. He never thought Of 1t now and
for the best of reasons He firmly be-
lieved that Claire intended to marry
an entirely different person, Of whom
he himself most cordially approved,
and 1t made him for the first time as
cordially approve Of Claire.
And Claire or q sudden OWNED 1t
all and saw (also for the first time) the
false position in which she had placed
herself and yet never regretted it, but
rather gloried in having the least little
thing to suffer for Toms sake.
Now, the other man in her mind and
In Nicholas Harding's, too, was the
stranger within their gates.
James Edward William, Sir Emilius
Daintree's son and heir to the baronet.
cy and entailed estates, was a melan-
choly, brooding bachelor little worse
than thirty years Of age. Unlike Mr..
Harding, however, he looked much
older, with his swarthy, saturnine
countenance and the white threads in
the coal black whiskers that curled
beneath his deep set chin. His lines
had fallen in very different places from
those Of Mr.. Harding. He had spent
most of his restless life abroad. His
soul had been burdened with a very
different temperament; he had that of
a poet, and his manhood had been poi
soned at the fount by one of those
wretched family quarrels which re.
dound to nobody's credit and of which
the outside world never get the rights,
1t was only known that Sir Emilius
and his son had not been on speaking
terms for years.
Such sympathy as is felt in these
matters was entirely on the side of
the son. The present baronet was not
a popular a His character was &C.
centric and his morals so notorious
that In many quarters the quarrel was
from the first considered creditable to
young Daintree. When, however, after
an absence Of eight years the latter
came home on leave from New South