Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1909-05-27
Through a
WOr11an'S Heart.
By Sidney Warwick.
CHAPTER xxIv-(continued.)


Stephen was asking himself that
question now. He had not come upon
the tragedy until some ten minutes
after it had taken place. It was the
sound Of the distant shot, which the
wind brought to his ears as he stood
at the door of the rectory that had
made him run instinctively in the di-
rection whence the shot had proceed
ed. Finally he had come upon the
tragedy-Olive bending over the dead
man, clutching the revolver that
Thornton was examining now.
But it was Olive who had shot
Philip Hume?
assumption. He had remembered her
wild threats, her fierce, passionate
words as she told him in the vestry
of the church how irreparably this
man had wronged her. That and the
fact that she had stolen out, i'll as she
was, and had gone in the direction of
Hume's house all pointed to one thing
He had assumed that the revolver was
hers, that she had brought it with her
when she came to Wildfell-that it
could have belonged to any one else
had never once entered his thoughts.
How blind he had been, how ready to
assume that she was guilty?
Whilst these thoughts afshed
through his mind, Thornton wss
speaking to the inspector.
What is this thing doing at the
bottom of the river? Bonholt Hume
set such store by it. And look-five
chambers loaded and one discharged -
Freddy was saying, with signifi-
canoe of tone. And it's of the same
caliber as Lathoms revolver; takes
the same cartridge. 1t was because
the bullet that killed Hume fitted
Lathom's revolver that caused the
magistrates to commit him for trial.
Well, here's another revolver that
would take the same cartridge-you
compare that bullet with the bullet
from one Of these cartridges, inspect
or-and with one chamber dis
charged! What do you make of
that?''
One chamber discharged-bu not
by Olive. Stephen Ruthen felt him
self shaking all over in the rush of
tremendous relief at that thought. A
weapon that could not have been in
her possession when she stole out of
the rcctOry-how could she have fired
it?
And if Olive was innocent, who was
guilty!
It was Eonholt's revolver, Thorn
ton asserted. Stephen remembered
how, long before the tragedy was
known, Bonholt Hume had virtually
accused Lathom, as though he were
preparing the ground for suspicion;
it was Bonholt who had everything to
gain by Philips death; Bonholt who
had been so ineXplicably searching in
that locked drawer as though in some
way he had come to know that the ia
tai weapon lay there
Stephen Ruthen pulled himself up
in the midst of these thoughts. He
realized that his mind was leaping to
another swift suspicion that might be
dS DdS6l6SS DIS lie uOW believed HIS
suspicion of Olive to have been The
revolver might have passed out of
Bonholt Hume's possession long be-
fore the tragedy.
Thornton and the inspector we're
still talking in lowered tones; they
had walked away from the little
group of bystanders. Mechanically
Stephen kept pace with them.
you may take it from me that is
Bonholt Hume's revolver" Thornton
was saying And there are one or
two questions Bonholt has got to an
swer-for the circumstance of this
weapon being found here, with one
chamber discharged, has an ugly, sus-
picious look in connection with the
murder. He's got to tell us when this
revolver was last in his possession,
and If he can explain how it came to
be at the bottom of the river'
"You may safely leave it to the
chief inspector to make any necessary
inquiries, Mr.. Thornton" said the of
fcer, dryly. Certainly none can be
made of Mr. Bonholt Hume today, for
I saw him leave Fellsgarth this morn
;po bu train -