The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1915-10-21


handkerchief and stand across this
open grave. Hold the handkerchief in
your left hand, as l hold this corner of
it, Now take your pistol, and when !
count to Three" raise anG fire, and the
one Of us left alive will pull the dead
man into the gravel
Arthur counts One when the now
fearful murderer essays to fire. But
the watchful Arthur is too quick for
him. His pistol speaks first, and, In
stinctively tugging the handkerchief
as he fires, Arthur dragS the bleeding
Blair into the grave. prone OH his face.
Arthur leaps into the grave after his
fallen foe and tears open his shirt to
see if the heart still beats, and there,
Oh the breast Of Blair Stanley, CLEANS
in the moon rays the evh glitter Of the
diamond from the sky.
Arthur Stanley had known its every
aspect, for the Stanley archives are
full OF it, in print and manuscript pic,
tured and described. 80 there it has
been, III the keeping of my cousin he
mutterS, and hardly realizing what he
does, except the balelu gem is his by
every right. he tears it from the neck
Of the figure in the grave and Chambers
out and Stumbles OH his way.
Beside q cross, white and majestic
in the moonlight, he halts. The moon
shines on the diamond in his bloody
hands as he stands by the grave where
lies, as he believes, his sainted mother.
Then, feeling the brand Of Cain Is on
his brow, Arthur Stanley ID stumbles
on, still clutching the diamond from
the sky in his bloody hands.
In the new dug grave Blair Stanley
moaned and stirred. The wound in
his forehead had been a glancing one,
only sufficient to stun him, and now
as he came to consciousness In the
clammy depths Of the grave his first
impulse was to clutch wildly at his
blood stained and disheveled shirt
bosom.
The diamond from the sky was gone!
The death of the good old doctor had
been all in vain. And Blair Stanley
also fed beneath the moon, bootless
and in truth blood guilty.
At Stanley hall Arthur gained access
to the library and shuddered again as
he saw the stains on his hands and on
the great jewel that seemed to CLEAN
all the brighter for them In the glare
of the library lamp.
1t was not to show the diamond
from the sky that all men yearned
for; it was to have it, to possess 1t,
even in secret. that caused them to lie,
to swindle and even to grope through
blood for 1t.
Well had the late Colonel Stanley
known the baleful history Of the dia-
mond that had fallen to the feet OF his
adventurer ancestor in a meteor. The
Stanley charm against harm" it was
called. and now look what harm it had
already done! Arraying brother against
brother. father against son, In the past,
it had broken women's hearts the
while, and now a false heir held 1t
against breast that ached In anguish.
Arthur felt instinctively that the dia
mond from the sky was responsible
for Blair's impusning the good name
of sweet Esther, good old DR.. Lees
fair ward, but Arthur did not know
that the good doctor lay cold in death
at the hands of Blair Stanley.
The wild thought, the wilder hope,
that he might go elsewhere and under
a new name, Still holding to the dia-
mond from the sky, rehabilitate HIM
self and then seek out Esther in Sc
cret and we'd her now possessed AT
thur
Among Arthur's many eXtrayagances
which the lax administration OF estates
in Virginia permitted scapegrace
heir was the buying of costly French
automobile. 1t was day when auto
mobiles were rarities and luXuries, and
the young spendthrift Of Stanley hall
had preened himself with the thought
that he would be the first to own an
automobile in all Fairfax county.
Arthur reasoned that Blair, who he
supposed was lying dead in the grave
that had been digged for another, would
not be found till perhaps noon. Even
then they might not connect his tragic
death with the broken guitar and the
other signs of struggle in the doctors
garden
Meanwhile the dawn had come and
Esther, who had been aroused at the
pistol shots, was In great agitation and
alarm. Comforted and encouraged by
the first glimpse Of dawn, she had
descended to the lower hall Of the
house. The door Of the doctors study
stood ajar and she glanced within.
There in the dim light Of the morn
ing sun filtering through the window
shades she saw the doctor in his
dressing gown stretched Imply across
q table. She touched his cheek to
rouse him and found 1t cold. Those
pale lips. kindly even IN death, could
never keep their promise to tell her
who and what she was ION the NOR
row." Here it was the morrow, and
the lips that could tell were cold IN