The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1914-04-19

Sawed away fer The winter. The
wind that 5iew through the open pa
vili5n, now shora 0f all its comforts
aad luxuries. vas cold. raw and repel-
lag. 10 me woul,. disturb them here.
With her face spt toward the sinking
east. she leaned against one of the
thick posts, and in dull, emotioaless
voice. laid bare the whole story OF that
dreadful night and the days that fol-
lowed. She spared no details. she
spared not herself in the narration.
He did not once interrupt her. All
the time she was speaking he was
studying the profile of her face as IL
fascinated by its strange immobility.
For the matter of a full halfhour he
sat on the rail. his back against a post,
his arms folded across the breast of
the thick ulster he wore. staring at
her, drinking in every word Of the
story she told. look of surprise
crept into his face when she came 10
the point where the thought OF marry
ing Hetty 10 the brother Of her victim
'tiSN " sun W ahStiA ~ nv.
designs. Fer a time the look of in
credulity remained, 10 be succeeded
by utter scorn as she went on with
the recital. Her reasons, her excuses,
her explanations for this master stroke
in the way of compensation for all
that she had endured at the hands OF
the scorn:ul Wrandalls. all of whom
were hateful to her without exception.
! stirred him deeply. He began to UNI
derstand the forces that compelled her
to resort to this Machiavellisn plan
for revenge on them. She admitted
everything: her readiness to blight
Hetty's life forever; her utter callous-
! ness in laying down these ugly plans;
her surprising yindictiveness; her re-
Elections on the triumph she was TO
enjoy when her aims were fully at
tanned. She confessed to a genuine
! pity for Hetty Castletol from the be-
| ginning. but it was outweighed by that
thing she could only describe as an
| obsession! How she hated the
| Wrandalls! Then came the
real awakening: when the truth came
| to her as revelation from God. Hetty
had not been to blame. The girl was
| innocent of the one sin that called
! for vengeance so far as she was con-
cerned. The Staying of Challis Wran-
| dali was justified! All these months
| she had been harboring woman she
believed to have been his mistress as
we'll as his murderess. 1t was not SO
much the murdeess that she would
have foisted upon the Wrandalls as a
daughter, but the mistress!
She loved the girl, she had loved her
from that first night. Back of it all,
! therefore, lay the strrn, unsupported
truth: from the very beginning she In
stinctively had known this girl to be
| innocent of guile :. Her house
OF cards fell down. There was moth
ing left of the plans on which II had
been constructed. 1t had all been
swept away, even as she strove to
| protect it against destruction, and the
ground was strewn with the ashes OF
| fires burnt out She was
shocked to find that she had even
built upon the evil spoti AL
most word for word she repeated Het
tvs own story of her meeting with
Challis Wrandall, and how she went
step by step and hlindly, to the last
| scene in the tragedy, when his vile
| ness, his true nature was revealed to
her. The girl had told her everything
| She had thought herself to be in love
| with Wrandall. She was carried away
by his protestations. She was infatu.
ated. (Sara smiled to herself as she
| spoke of this. She knew Challis Wran.
| dall's charmD The girl believed In
him implicitly. When he took her to
Burton's inn it was to make her his
wife, as she supposed. He had ar,
ranged everything. Then came the
| truth. She defended herself
Il came upon her in the road on
that wild night, Brandon. at the place
pointed out. Can you picture her az
have described her? Can you pic
ture her despair. her hopelessness, hel
misery? | have told you everything
| from beginning to,end. You know how
she came to me. how prepared hel
for the sacrifice, how she left me.
have not written to her. cannot. She
| must hate me with all her soul. just al
have hated the Wrandalls, but will
| greater reason, confess. She woult
have given herself up to the law Ions
ago, II it had not been for exposinF
me to the world as her defender, hel
protector. She knew she wse not NOR
ally guilty of the crime of murder. II
the beginning she was afraid She
did not know our land, our laws II
time she came to understand that sh'
was in no real peril, but then 1t wa
too late. A confession would have
placed me in an impossible position
You see, she thought of me all thi
time. She loved me as no woman eve
loved another. Was not | the wifi,
OF the man she had killed and wa
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