Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-07-16

CHAPTER I.
Charteris* gave a last glance at the
room wherein he had suffered so
acutely; a suffering rigidly suppressed
during three weeks. Even now, when
he stood alone, d~isregarded by a few
officials and attendants, his face re-
tanned It's expression Of impass1vity,
the "callous Indifference duly chron-
lcled by the reporters. He had been
racked in this torture chamber, which
outwardly presented so Snug and
conventional an appearance, pulled to
pieces, branded, pilloried. And this
for the sake of a woman whom once
he had loved, but who had never low
ed him, as the evidence ~abundantly
proved!
Today the decree had been deliv-
cred; within six months it would be
made absolute, unless the Kings Proc
tor interviewed. Considering this, and
all 1t implied, Charters caught the
eye Of his chief inqujsitor, McAllis.
ter, X. c., hurrying off to the club
of which Charters was also a mem
Der.
The great man nodded genially. He
looked human. When his victim and
he next met-probably at a bridge
table-they would talk with enthusi-
assn about dry-fy fishing and deer
stalking. And the judge, that grave
and learned signor, so u~nimpeccable
of appearance, whose relentless sum-
ming up had presented a kinsman as
a BLACKBOARD and a bounder, would
no he, even he, the expression and
epitome Of Law human and divine,
ONE up to Charters in the paddock at
Sandown, or elsewhere, and as likely
as not ask for a-tip! On a race
course his lordship was no better than
anybody else.
An official delivered a telegram.
Ought to have reached you before,
sir" he said respectfully.
Charters caught the subservient in
Election, and smiled. Everything had
been taken from him except his in
come, His gold might be furnished,
but 1t remained gold. He tore open
the envelope.
Waiting for you at your fat.-Ed-
ward"
Edward Charters was his half
brother, the head of the family, u
man nearly twenty years his senior,
whom nobody, not even his wife, ven
tured to address as "Ted' or Tied
die" He lived at Saffron Charters,
In Suffolk, a moated Elizabethan
manor house; and he was said to
manage other folks business more
successfully than his own. For Ed
ward, Charters had enormous respect.
never warming into affection. In Ed
ward he acclaimed great qualities
devotion to what Edward conceived to
be duty. a cut and dried code of eth
les, a strenuous belief in himself, in
his family (Which had fourished since
the Heptarchy), in the Church Of
England, and in the Conservative
Party.
Their father-let us speak Of him
as the Squire-married: first, a lady
who represented some outlying COW
erts and a thousand acres of arabic
land, today much deprecated in value.
Her full length portrait hangs in the
hall at Saffron Charters; no stranger
looks at 1t twice. The Squire mar
ried his second wife-so said the Cos
stps-for love; but she also was an
heiress, the only child of a brewer.
She had beauty and charm, and we
shall see her portrait presently. The
squire's elder sisters, with many
shakings of early Victorian ringlets,
pronounced her pleasure loving and
frivolous, an amazing example of the
unexpected, inasmuch as her upbring-
Ing had been pu~ritanically strict.
Till she married, she, had never
been in a theatre or a Dllroom.
There was a story, toe, of an infatu-
alton for her fathers secretary, dis
patched to Timbuctoo. whence he had
not returned. 1t is idle to ask why
she married the Squire. a middle
aged man, stuck fast in Suffolk clay.
surrounded by a moat spanned by a
drawbridge, lifted every night. The
Squire, to be sure, was masterful-
a strong, handsome, rudy English
man; he bore a romantic name, and
he lived in an adorable house. I'm
happily, she died-perhaps Of disap-
pointment-shortly after Guy was
born.
The brewer left a large fortune to
his daughters son, a fortune which
doubled itself during the boys mi
nority.
Edward, it must be remembered, af-
ter his succession to Saffron Char
teris, remained a poor man, the poor
er because many-acred. Guy, owning
not a rood of land, was rich. Nor
would Edward accept a farthing from
Guy when that young fellow came
of age and offered to clear the estate
of encumbrances. And since, again
and again, money was offered and OBJ.
stinately declined. Edward and GUY
had been educated at Elton. Edwards
four sons were SEN to a less famous
and expensive school.
Guy put Edwards telegram into his
pocket, where it lay next to another
almost similarly worded:
T shall wait for you at my flat
Angela"
Edward was a man of few words:
Angela Tempest a lady Of many. GUY
decided to see Edward first. He
walked out Of the courtroom, alons
the s~tone-6agged passage, and into
the thickening fog of a bleak Novem
Der afternoon. Passing the small dool
to the right of the central entrance
the door through which, after noun
ing an interminable circular staircase
YOU gain access to the galleries, Guy