The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-05


 corner. his face distorted in a ghastly way to look like a sheer of derision.
 He was dead. And that sheer of de- rision that the fatal stroke had graven on his features might well have been de- rision at himself, who, by a solemn and awful judgment of Providence had won the dreams and triumphs of his lifelong hopes, to be blasted by them at the mo- ment of acquisitionl
 Judge Brandons death reused Long Ned to another effort in behalf of his captain. Bravely he risked his neck to apprise Lord Mauleverer of the identity of tho condemned highwayman. The nobleman's nasty examination of the trinkets con- vinced him that the tale was true It thrilled those digestive organs which stood proxy for a heart in him with as Tear an approach to horror as he could feel. He could not think of the prisoners mother, whom he had helped to ruin, without feeling some decided twinges of conscience. He ordered out his carriage, drove to thes Home Secretary and suc- ceeded in getting Lovett's sentence com muted to life transportation.
 Saved from death Lovett or Clifford sat in his cell looking little the less unhappy With the passing of the strain of his wild career and his final fight for life all the interests of the world had fallen from him and left him face to face with the over whelming knowledge that the one thing that was far more precious to him than life, the love of Lucy Brandon, was never to be his. He bowed his head to his fet- tered hands and stared into future far more hideous to his soul than even a feions death.
 Suddenly the cell door opened. A light step sounded on the stone floor. He looked up and Lucy was on his breast. Long Ned had told her of her lovers plight.
 Even in that moment when the rapture of holding her seemed to sweep him away from earth the highwayman's love re- mained greater than his selfish longing. Gently he tried to disengage her arms and coura geously he begged her to leave him to his doom. But Lucy Brandon chung to him sobbing: we are all that is left to each otherl Your father and mine were brothers! Let me at least be to you as a sister,"
 At last his fortitude forsook him. He surrendered to the wild joy Of the mo- ment Suddenly his eye brightened and became again the naughty. fearless eye of Captain Clifford His great form rose and
 
 shown in his face
 'So be 1t theni' said he. My bride! My bridel In one year from this day-I promise-I repeat-I promise!'
 Shortly after that meeting Lucy Bran don departed to an obscure town by the sea, and there, refusing all society, she continued to dwell until one day a letter with a foreign postmark came to her.
 Then she seemed to grow weary of her retreat She transferred her wealth (which had been vastly increased by her uncle's estate that came to her) to France. Then she engaged a vessel. One day she boarded it. It was observed by , the few loiterers that a tall. graceful stranger who had stood aloft wrapped in his cloak darted forward to assist her aboard.
 in England of Lucy Brandon; but Tn later years, among the respected and pa- triotic citizens of one of the new cities If America, there was tall, handsome, strong man, with keen and naughty eye, who had come there with his beauti- ful wife, Lucy. He was foremost in all works of helpfulness If 1t was asked who cultivated that waste, who procured the establishment of that hospital. who caused the erection of that enlightened , reformatory for young offenders, who ob- tained the redress of that public griev i ance-the answer was "Clifford!' And about the time that this stranger arrived in America the English papers began to print notices of curious restitution that had come to all the victims of the famous Captain Lovett, who had returned to each one what he had been robbed of or it's equivalent.
 And about the same time it was ru- mol ed that the same Captain Lovett had made his eScaOe in most daring ana singular manner after only a short so- journ in his place of condemnation. Next Sundays one-page classic will be Great Expectations" by Charles Dick 1 ems.