The Springdale news., 1915-08-06

doctors gate. The footprints were of well shed men of small and shapely feet, it was reported. No passing rough marauders, no outlaw negro desper- adoes had part in the murder and rob bery in the doctors study. nor had any such struggled in deadly combat in his garden, it was whispered The matter was mystery as well as murder, and the morbid neighbors gathered in and around the cottage of the dead man and whispered Greedily.
 Meanwhile the dazed and bleeding Blair Stanley Lad q strange home com ing in the night. His mother.. that proud. cold woman. worthy mate of tie grim Judge who had perished strangely =iA q wild mountain pass nearly generation aeone. loved her son seemingly only through her cold ambitions.
 You do not know when q day may eame that you may be in position to save the life of the heir of stanley she had said often significantly. Blair understood his mother we'll
 II was known hy all the Stanleys that the diamoud from tie sky had vanished strangely the night Colonel Stanley had expired alone in his li- brarY tAis preceding by few days cnly the tragic death of Judge stanley ill ue mogi4t;tiu pass. also, il was thought. aIone.
 This was eighteen years ago. but the Stanicx fead WIS hot dead with it's protagonists, those cider men of that elder day. It slumbered iii the bosom of tie younger generation. II smolder- ed hidden. yet burning not the less, in the bosom of the judges taciturn wid. ow, Biair's mother She had always believed with a bitter suspicion that eneompassed all Of the long dead Colo nel Stanley's friends that Dr. Lee had taken the diamond from the sky in the confusion attending the colonels sudden demise
 Dr. Lee was relative of Judge Stanley's widow, for all the better families of Fairfax were of kith and kin. The judges widow believed the doctor held the great diamond in his secret custody if for nothing else than to keep it from the hands of the judges family through any legal process they might attempt during the minority Of Arthur Stanley 2d.
 Hence il was that when the nerve shattered Blair, with ashen face and bloody brow, confessed to his waiting b.t ho hal T 1,91 in Dr. Lees aged hands she was not surprised When lie half ineoherently admitted to her that the old doctor had died in the struggle for the diamond she expressed no compunetion for the doctors death or revulsion at the deed of her son that caused it.
 But when he told her that Arthur Stanley, the one life that stood be tween them and all their ambitious desires. had been in the grasp of Blair did her mood of austere interest change 10 cold fury.
 You need not add your reproaches 10 my own," panted her son. But it was luck. the devils luck, that all at Stanley hall possess would have 
 heart
 But he wrested the pistol from my hand as though from the hand of a child. and he dragged me out of the yard down the deserted village street to the graveyard to kill me and rob me of the diamond with the ease of n giant"
 Well" said his mother we must hope for another better chance Mean while if you are sure that your strug- gles were not seen you had better lie hidden until l can learn what suspi- cions are aroused. If you arc missed will say you are gone to Richmond. Even if Arthur Stanley hears no more of you he will fh.nk still that lie hds sinin you He Win aeei si,ent."