Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1909-08-31

room, but paused outside the door and
through q crack therein, looked back
at the mother and child thus left to-
gether.
She saw the girl rise on her pillow,
and with a trembling hand take from
her own neck an antique chain with a
cluster Of charms attached and wind
it round and round the throat Of the
babe, thus hiding under those shining
links the frightful birth mark. With
a passionate caress she then gathered
the moaning morsel up to her breast,
and shaking over it and over her own
face her floods Of magnificent hair, lay
back as silent and motionless as one
dead.
Hannah Duff kept to the kitchen for
the rest of the day, and consoled her
self with draughts from black bottle
which had become her sole companion
in the absence Of Duff and the boys.
AS night fell the sea began to roar
and the weather to thicken. Hannah
Duff, somewhat flushed and savage,
went to light the candles in the living
room, and found her patient sitting up
in bed, staring blankly out through
the curtainless window into the gath
ering darkness.
What" she asked, abruptly, has
become Of the doctor? have not seen
him for days."
Hes been called away on business"
answered Hannah Duff, "and isn't ex-
pected back at present. Do you want
him for anything"
II will tell you tomorrow" she an
swered, listlessly.
The Cape woman, coaxing the sput-
tering wicks into flame, looked side
ways at her guest.
II never seed the man yet" she said,
by way of consolation, worth mourn
ing over. It's plain you've been born
and bred lady, and rich one at that.
You've plenty Of friends besides him.
I dare say'
"Friends!" echoed the girl; mot one
Hannah Duff slept that night on a
settee by the kitchen hearth. Owing
to repeated draughts from the black
bottle, her slumbers were unusually
heavy. Undisturbed and dreamless
they continued till near midnight,
when she was at last aroused by the
piteous and prolonged screaming Of
a child.
She leaped up from her settee and
ran into the living room. A candle
was burning low on the mantel, and
by it's last flickering light she ad-
vanced to the bed and found it empty.
except for the bundle Of flannel that
lay kicking and crying among the pill
lows. The mother was gone!
Gone! Hannah Duff rubbed her eyes
and looked around. Gone! and the
rain beating on the pane and the wind
roaring in the chimney like wolf at
bay! Gone! and left behind her that
wailing baby-deserted 1t, in fact, as
she herself had been deserted! On the
counterpane near by lay, in a little
heap, the jewels she had torn from her
hands, a purse containing a few coins
and a roll Of bank notes, and beneath
all A slip Of blotched and tear-stained
paper, on which were penciled these
words:
II leave her to your care and to DR..
Covers. 1 conjure you both to accept
the trust for one little year-then
will come for her"
Hannah Duff stared at this scrawl,
then cast it sullenly into the fire.
"And these fine people," she mutter-
ed, think to shift their flesh and blood
on a lone woman like neither flesh
and blood. cursed by one, and forsak-
en- by both, and with the mark of the
devil upon it,"
She dropped into a seat on the
hearth, and with her hatchet- chin on
her hands. gazed gloomily into the dy-
ing embers. Her brain was still be-
fogged with the fumes of the gin she
had drunk, and a great, superStitious
fear and terror seized suddenly upon
her.
Or. Covert" she muttered, raking
the air with her ten fingers, "a young
fellow, poor as a church mouse-he'll
not trouble himself with this foul
come-by chance! Who but satan him
self ever put that bloody streak on
its throat? The sly cat! She knew
it, and she thinks to fling the curse it
brings upon me- I'll never see her
again. and I'll not have her devil kin
under my roof another four-no. not
for all the money on the Cape!"