Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1914-07-16
CHAPTER XVII.-continued.

the time she was speaking he was
studying the profile of her face as If
fascinated by it's strange immobility.
For the matter of a full half-hour he
sat on the rail, his back against 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 A look of surprise
crept into his face when she came to
the point where the thought of marry
ing Hetty to the brother of her victim
first began to manifest itself in her
designs. For a time the look of in
credulity remained, to 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 scornful Wrandalls, all Of whom
were hateful to her without exception,
stirred him deeply. He began to I'M
derstand the forces that compelled her
to resort to this Machiavellian 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 vindictiveness; 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 Castleton from the be-
ginning. but 1t was outweighed by that
thing she could only describe as an
obsesston! 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
Tor vengeance so far as she was con-
cerned. The Staying of Challis Wran-
dali was justified! All these months
she had been harboring a woman she
believed to have been his mistress as
we'll as his murderess. 1t was not so
much the murderess 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 stern, 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 it 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 blindly, 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
Buttons 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 as
have described her? Can you pic
ture her despair, her hopelessness, her
misery? l have told you everything,
from beginning to end. You know how
she came to me. how I prepared her
for the sacrifice, how she left me- /
have not written to her. l cannot. She
must hate me with all her soul, just as
l have hated the Wrandalls, but with
greater reason, confess She would
have given herself up to the law long
ago, If 1t had not been for exposing
me to the world as her defender, her
protector. She knew she was not NOR
ally guilty of the crime of murder. In
the beginning she was afraid She
did not know our land, our laws. In
time she came to understand that she
was in no real peril, but then it was
too late. A confession would have
placed me in an impossible position.
You see. she thought of me all this
time. She loved me as no woman ever
loved another. Was not l the wife
of the man she had killed, and was
not the noblest of all women in her
eyes? God! And to think Of what
had planned for her!"
This was the end of the story.
The words died away in sort OF
whimpering wall, falling in with the
wind to be lost to his straining ears.
Her head dropped, her arms hung
Imply at her side.
For a long time he sat there in ST.
lence, looking out over the darkening
water, unwilling, unable indeed, to
speak. His heart was full of compass
sion for her, mingling strangely with
what was left of scorn and horror.
What could he say to her?
At last she turned to him. Now
you know all that I can tell you Of