The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-04-25


with the gentle. white haired parson
stwho would vet be neither domineered
nor overtorne by an interlopine Lon
donerl and By forbidding his daughters
the church. glese. rectory or any com
munication with its inmates from that
day forth. A week or two ~iater Ii
came full upon Claire and the rectors
idle son comparing notes in the lafe
and pretty sceue enSued. Mr.. Hard
ing shook his stick at the lad. who
sHatehed it FROM him and snappeds il
across his knee. Claire was imprisonet's
under lock and key for four and TWEEN
" hours. and young Tom E-ichseI
Skinned up the wa erspout and sat or
her window sill While the rest were N
dinner. But this AMI succeeding Incl
dents never cane to the ears of Nicho
las Harding. And partly in revengdt
for the inlignity TO which she had
been subjected and partly by reason Of
those adventitious traits already touch
ed upon. the motheriess ana then all
but friendIess Claire disobeyed and in
trigued thenceforward without qualm.
The single page known to Nicholas
Harding WAS thing of the past in his
mind. He never thought of it now and
for the best of reasons. He firmly be
lieyed that claire intended to marry
an entirely different person, OF whom
he himself most cordially approved,
and it made him for the first time as
cordially approve OF Claire
And Claire on 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 estafes, was 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 man. 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
Wales. where he was a magistrate and
man OF some Importance and more
promise In the young colony. and when
the old savage. his father. not only
still refused a reconciliation, but pub
Hcly cut his son on every possible oc-
casion. then-well, the Indignation
might have been greater had James
Daintree been himself Il more popular
man. But the truth was he had come
home morbid. sensitive misanthro-
pist, and this treatment made him ten
times worse. He was seldom seen by
his old friends anywhere. but he hap
pened TO make stanch new one in the
person of Nicholas Harding, whose
house, indeed, became the wanderers
home.
Claire's attitude will be readily APP
pretended. Daintree opened his bruised
heart to her, and she considered his
father the most aholninable old man
alive. 1t was at Avenue Lodge that a
parcel of faded flowers arrived for
Dai,,.Tee and drove him almost crazy
with rage and grief. lie had placed
them day or two before upon his 1
mothers grave. He burst into storm
of oaths and tears before tie girl. who
thought the worse of him for neither
Lady Daintree had died the year be-
FORE In fact, 1T was her death that
had brought tie outcast home for the
reconciliation for Which he pleaded in
vain.
He had the errrnnthv Of all who