The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-04-24
the last three years.

for the last three years"
"Tell me, Christian, do you love me
now as deeply, as %fervently. as you did
when these shackles. as o call them,
were first woven about your
THE flight Of time renders it difficult
to gauge love. Muriel. If I ave not
had a strong, deep love for you /
should scarcely have
A cry of some one in great pain made
them both look round and stand still
for a few seconds to listen, but they
saw no one, heard no more.
"Who-what could it have been?'
Some animal, probably" suggested
Lady Muriel.
mo, l think it was a human voice"
Some child. then. down in the vii
lage; they are always s%hrieking n
making noise
Listen, perhaps we shall hear it
again"
But all was silence. save the twitter-
ing of the birds in the trees, the buz-
ling of the insects in the bracken, there
was not a sound to be heard.
And Lady Muriel and Captain Chris
tian went on their way to the House,
where they expected to find Bertha pre-
siding at the ) o'clock tea-tahle.
Whether they pursued the CONVERSE
ton that had been going on in the
copse Bertha never knew. As it was,
she had heard more than her bewildered
brain could stand. and having
given utterance to that bitter
heart-cry. she lost all consciousness of
what was going on around.
Six O'Clock passed. sever O'Clock, and
Bertha did not return home. 1t was al
ready growing dark. and the dressing
bell for the half-past seven dinner had
rung some time since.
Lady Muriel was growing irritably
anxious; she was fond of Bertha, and
would deeply have regretted n mis-
hap hat might have occurred to her,
nor was she in any very patient humor,
her late conversation with Christian
considered; only impatient, however,
not unhappy. She had too great a
credence in her own powers to think
for a moment she would not eventually
make Christian do as she wished: OF
course. she never associated Bertha in
any degree with the matter, or she
would not. talking to Christian, who
was writing in the study, have said
do you know Bertha had not come
back from Daleford yet, where she
went to see Patty Urske? l wish I had
not let her go. She must have fallen
in with some of the workers, and being
alone may rave had a fit of
ness, and taken refuge somewhere"
Bertha! my God" and before Lady
Muriel could say another word he was
out of the house, running down the hill
to Daleford by q sleeper but shorter
path than that Bertha had taken on
her way home.
Had he taken the longer one he would
have met her laboring along through
the copse with hating, stumbling steps
and a pallid, pain-stricken face, not
overcome, however, so much by physi-
cal as by mental agony: her sprained
foot hurt her as she tried to use it in no
limited degree, but what she expert
enced by this discomfort was as noth-
ing in comparison to what she felt as
she thought of the revelation that had
recently burst so Unexpectedly upon
her.
When the gathering dews of even
ing, by refreshing, had aroused her
from her faintness that had come over
her after uttering that cry, her first
idea was that she had been experience
ing a horrible. nightmarish dream;
then. thoroughly collecting her scat
tered senses