Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1915-04-15
CHAPTER X-continued.

She had rather have died, nay, have
had Reuther die, than to find herself
forced to weigh and decide SO mo-
mentous a question.
For, however she might feel about
it, not a single illusion remained as to
whose hand had made use Of John
Scoyille's stick to strike down Alger-
non Etheridge. How could she have
when she came to piece the whole
story together, and weigh the facts
she had accumulated against Oliver
with those which had proved so fatal
to her husband?
Deborah shuddered. Aye, the mys-
terry had cleared, but only to en-
shroud her spirits anew and make her
long with all her bursting heart and
shuddering soul that death had been
her portion before ever she had es-
sayed to lift the veil held down so
tightly by these two remorseful men.
But was her fault irremediable?
The only unanswerable connection be-
tween this old crime and Oliver lay in
the evidence she had herself collected.
As she had every intention of sup
pressing this evidence, and as she had
small dread of any one else digging
out the facts to which she only pos
sessed a clue, might she not hope that
any suspicious raised by her inquiries
would fall like a house of cards when
she withdrew her hand from the top
pling structure?
She would make her first effort and
see. Mr.. Black had heard her com
plant; he should be the first to learn
that the encouragement she had re-
Ceive was so small that she had de-
cided to accept her present good luck
without further query, and not bark
back to a past which most people had
buried.
You began it, as women begin most
things, without thought and a due
weighing of consequences. And now
you propose to drop it in the same
freakish manner. Isn't that it?"
Deborah Scoville lifted her eyes in
manifest distress and fixed them de-
precatingly upon her interrogation.
Mr.. Black smiled. The woman de-
lighted him. The admiration which
he had hitherto felt for her person
and for the character which could so
develop through misery and reproach
as to make her in twelve short years
the exponent of all that was most at
tractiye and bewitching in woman
seemed likely to extend to her mind.
Il am reconciIed simply from neces-
sity," was her gentle response. Moth
ing is more precious to me than
ReutheTs happiness. l should but en-
danger it further by raising false
hopes. That is why I have come to
cry halt"
Madam, I commend your decision.
But why should you characterize
your hopes as false, Just when there
seems to be some Justification for
them?"
Her eyes widened and she regarded
him with a stimulation of surprise,
which interested without imposing
upon him.
L do not understand you" said she.
lave Nou SSALS upon some clue
Have you heard something which I
have not?"
Mr.. Black took two or three crushed
and folded papers from a drawer be
side him and holding them, none too
plainly in sight, remarked very quietly,
but with legal firmness:
DO not let US play about the bush
any longer. You have announced your
intention of making no further attempt
to discover the man who in your eyes
meriCed the doom accorded to John
Scoville- Your only reason for this
If you are the woman l think YOU
lies in your fear of giving further op-
portunity to the misguided rancor of
an irresponsible writer of anonymous
epistles. Am I not right, MADAME"
Beaten, beaten by a direct assault,
because she possessed the weaknesses,
as well as the pluck, of a woman. She
could control the language of her lips,
but not their qufvering; she could
ELeet his eye with steady assurance,
but she could not keep the pallor from
her cheeks or subdue the evidences of
her hearts turmoil. Her pitifuI glance