Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-04-30
Continued from page 5

A pile of legal looking papers had
been set beside 1t, and with them lay a
torn page of a newspaper whose ia
miliar caption gave her a stab of pain
Perhaps the news of the trial had
found its way across the ranges to
where the names of Stires and MORGAN
had been known. Perhaps every one
at Aniston already knew of 1t. was
reading about It plying her. She pick
ed it up and scanned it hastily. There
was no hint of the trial. but her eye
caught the news which had played it,
role in the courtroom. and she read It
Il the end.
Even in her own trouble she read II
with a shiver. Yet. awful as the fate
which Harry Sanderson had so mar
rowly missed, it was not to be con-
pared with that which awaited Hugh
for. awful as 1t was. 1t held no shame.
In a gust of feeling she slipped to
her knees by the n sofa the room
contained and prayed passionately. As
she drew out her handkerchief to
stanch the tears that came something
fell with a musical tinkle at her feet
1t was the little cross she had found
In front of the hillside cabin that had
lain forgotten in her pocket during the
past anxious days. AS she pressed 1t
the ring at the top gave way, and the
cross parted in halves. Words were
engraved on the inside of the arms-a
date and the name Henry Sanderson.
The recurrence of the name Jared
Ax1l -.,--.rs-@I 49,. H..-I l.1 l~1.z-A
it-an old keepsake of the friend who
had been his beau ideal. his exemplar
and whose ancient influence was still
dominant. He had chung loyalty to the
memeuto, blind In his constant liking.
to the wrong that friend had done him
She looked at the date. 1t was May
%. She shuddered, for that was the
had been killed. The point had been
clearly established today by the prose
cution. To the original owner of that
cross perhaps the date that had come
into Hugh's life with such a sinister
meaning was a glad anniversary.
Suddenly she caught her hand to her
cheek. A weird idea had rushed
through her brain. The religious sym
Dol had stood for Harry Sanderson,
and the chance coincidence of date
had irresistibly pointed to the murder.
To her excited senses the juxtaposi-
ton held a bizarre, uncanny sugges-
ton. This cross, the very emblem of
vicarious sacrifice! Suppose Harry
Eanderson had never given it to Hugh.
Suppose he had lost it on the hillside
himself
She snatched up the paper again.
"Who has been for some months on a
prolonged vacation"-the phrase stared
s~ardonically at her. That might carry
far back-she said it under her breath,
fearfully-beyond the murder of DR..
Moreau. Her face burned, and her
breath came sharp and fast. Why
when she brought her warning to the
cabin had Hugh been so anxious to get
her away unless to prevent her sight
of the man who was there, to whom he
had taken her horse? Who was there
in Smoky Mountain whom he would
protect at hazard of his own life?
Jessica's veins were all aire. A rec
tor murderer? A double career? Was
it beyond possibility? 1t came to her
like an impinging ray of light, the old
curious likeness that had sometimes
been made a jest of at the white
house in the aspens. Moreau and Prem
dergast had believed it to be Hugh.
So had the town, for the body had
been found on his ground. But on the
night when the real murderer came
again to the cabin perhaps it was his
coming that had brought back the lost
memory. Hugh had known the truth
In the light of this supposition, his
strained then, his present de-
termination not to speak, all stood
plain.
What had he meant by a debt of his
past that he had never paid? He could
W no debt to Harry Sanderson. If
he owed any debt it was to his dead
father, a thousand times more than the
draft he had repaid. Could he be
thinking in his remorse that his father
had cast him of, counting himself
nothing, remembering only that Harry
Sanderson had been David Stires' ia
vorite and st. James, which must be
smirched by the odium Of its rector,
the apple of his eye?
Jessica had snatched at a straw, be-
cause it was the only buoyant thing
a1oat in the dragging tide. Now with
a blind fatuousness she Rugged it
tighter to her bosom. One purpose
possessed her-to confront Harry San
darcN~ VU6n% v,o+faw fho11nh che
missed the remainder of the trial?
She could do nothing. Her hands were
tied. If the truth lay at Aniston she
would find it. She thought no farther
than this. Once in Harry Sanderson's
presence, what she should say or do
she scarnaIr ina ninad The hnrrify-