Williams news., 1915-07-01
CHAPTER x-Continued.

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 question.
 For, however she might feel about it, not single illusion remained as to whose hand had made use of John Scoville'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- tery had cleared. but only to en- shroud her spirits anew and make her long with all her bursting heart and Phuddering soul that death had been her portion before ever she had es- saved 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 SUD- pressing this evidence, and as she had small dread of any one else digging out the facts to which she only pos sessed clue, might she not hope that any suspicious raised by her inquiries would fall like 8 house of cards when she withdrew her hand from the top bling structure?
 She would make her first effort and see. MT. Black had heard her com plaint; 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 hark back to a past which most people had buried
 You began 1t, 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 interrogator
 MT. 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- tractive and bewitching in woman seemed likely to extend to her mind
 T am reconciled simply from neces- sity," was her gentle response Moth ing is more precious to me than Reuther's happiness. 1 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 stimulation of surprise, which interested without imposing upon him.
 I do not understand you" said she. Have you come upon some clue Have you heard something which have npt?"
 MT. 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 frmness:
 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 merited the doom accorded to John Scov1lle. Your only reason for this II you are the woman I think you lies in your fear of giving further op portunity to the misguided rancor ot an irresponsible writer of anonymous epistles. Am l not right, madam?"
 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. quivering; she could Lieet his eye with steady assurance but she could not keep the pallor from her cheeks or subdue the evidences ot her .aeg.t's turmoil Her pitifuI glance