The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1910-01-06

m0tionless In the chair into which he
q sunk. his eyes fixed on the flames
or the candles. His unwinking gaze
created about each tongue Of flame
strange effects of vapor, halo-like cir
cles that widened and again contracted.
colors that came and went. But he saw
these things with his eyes without see
Ing them with his mind. It was not
OF m, 1t was not Of the ~death-cold
J o him, 1t was not of any
within sight he was thinking.
l. Flayia!
4 Flavia. who had deceived him.
duped him. cajoled him. Who, by af-
fecting g quarrel with her brother, had
thrown him Off his guard and won his
confidence, only to betray 1t. Who.
having lured him thither, had laughed
had laughed! AS he sat I'M thought
OF her treachery he looked years older.
1t cut him to the heart.
AT length. with a sigh drawn from
MS very soul. he reused himself and,
taxing q candle. he made the round OF
the chamber. The door by which he
MAD entered was the only outlet. and
II was OF stout oak, clamped with iron
and locked. For windows, q pair of
ioopholes. Sits SO narrow that on the
brightest day the room must be twilit,
pierced the wall toward the lake.
Inc walls We're two feet thick and
the groined roof was of stone, hard as
the w~eathering Of centuries had left II.
But not so hard, not so cruel as her
heart! Flavia! The word almost came
from his lips in a cry OF pain.
l.. Yet what was her purpose? He had
been lured hither, but why? His eyes
fell on the table; the answer would
doubtless be found among the papers
that lay on it. He sat Down in the
chair set before 1t and took up the first
sheet that came to hand-a note of a
dozen lines in her handwriting.
Sir" so II ran
You have betrayed. us. and were
that all I'd still be finding it in my
heart to forgive you. But you have
betrayed also our country, our King
and our faith, and for this it's not with
me 1t lies to pardon. Over and above,
you have thought to hold us in a web
that would make you safe at once in
your life and your person, but you are
meshed in your turn and will fare as
you can, without water, food or fire,
until o ave signed and sealed the
grant which lies beside this paper.
We're mo- unmerciful. and one will visit
you once In "a hours until he has It
under your hand, when he will witness
1t. That done, you will go where you
please, and HEAVIER forgive you. / who
write this am, though unjustly, the
owner or that you grant, and you do
no wrong
MMURROUGH."
He read the letter with a mixture OF
emotions. Beside 1t lay a deed, en-
crossed on parchment, which purported
to grant all that he held under the will
Of the late Sir Michael McMurrough to
Constantine Hussey, Esquire, Of Dup
pa. But annexed to the deed was a
separate scroll. illegal but not unusual
In Ireland at that day, stating that the
true meaning was hat the lands should
be held by Constantine Hussey for the
use or The McMurrough, who, as q
Roman Catholic, was not capable Of
taking them in his wi name.
Fully. only too fully, enlightened by
glanced at the parchment, for, largely
as these bulked on the table, the gist
Of all lay in the letter. He had fallen
into a trap--a trap as cold, cruel, heart
less as the bosom of her who had
decoyed him hither. Without food or
earthen floor was eating into his bones.
already the damp Of a hundred years
vas creeping over him.
He sat gazing at the paper with dull
eyes. For. after all, whose interests
had he upheld? Whose cause had he
supported against James 'McMurrough
and his friends? For whose sake had
he declared himself master at Morris
town, with no intention, no though, as
heaven was hif witness, of deriving one
jot or one tittl> of advantageffor him
self? Flavia's! And she had planned
this! She had Consigned him to this,
playing to it's crafty end the farce hat
had blinded him!
His mind traveled back to the be-
ginning OF 1t all. to the day on which
Sir Michael's letter. with a copy OF
his will, had reached his hands, at
Stralsbund on the Baltic, in his quar-
tiers beside the East. Gate. The cast of
hiS thnt,Ohta af tho raadinpr rosa hafora
him. The recollections OF his home.
his %boyhood. his father, which the
old ans writing a evoked. and the
firmness with which, touched by the
dead mans confidence. he had resolved
to protect the girls interest, that the
old mans confidence should be justi-
fed. the young girls inheritance Sc
cured to her-this had been the pur-
pose in his mind from first to last.
And this was his reward!
True, that purpose would not have
embrojled him with her IL 1t had not
become entwined with another-with
the resolve to pluck her and hers
from TIE abyss into which they were
bent on flinging themselves. II was
that resolution which had made her
his enemy to this point. But he could
not regret that-he who had seen war
in all its cruel phases. n fierce re-
bellions, and more cruel repressions.
in his cold prison-perish the
thought! For even now some heah
was kindled in him by the reflection
that, whatever befell him, he had
saved scores from misery, a country
side from devastation, women and
children from the worst of fates. And
though he never saw the sun again,
he would at least pass beyond with
full hands. and with the knowledge
that for every life he, the soldier Of
fortune, had taken, he had saved ten.
Continued Next Week.