Williams news., 1915-06-17
CHAPTER vIII-continued.

GmD0QQeQ Tn IL. D6DOTdH anu INCuShSA eS l to live with the judge.
 CHAPTER vIII-continued.
 Already had she stepped several times to her daughters room and looked in, only to meet Reuther's un- quiet eye turned toward hers in silent inquiry. Was her own uneasiness 1n- fectious? Was the child determined to share her vigil? She would wait little longer this time and see.
 Their rooms were over the parlor, and thus as far removed as possible from the judges den. In her own, which was front, she felt at perfect ease, and it was without any fear or disturbing either him or Reuther that she finally raised her window and al- lowed the cool wind to soothe her heated cheeks The moon emerged from scurrying clouds as she quietly watched the scene.
 Perched, as she was, in W1ndow overlooking the lane, she had but to lift her eyes from the double fence (that symbol of sad seclusion) to light on the trees rising above that unspeak- able ravine, black with memories she felt strangely like forgetting tonight. Beyond how it stood out on the bluff! it had never seemed to stand out more threateningly! the bifurcated mass of dismal ruin from which men had turned their eyes these many years now! But the moon loved it; caressed it; dallied with 1t, lighting up it's toppling chimney and empty, staring gable.
 Spencer's Folly! We'll, it had been that, and Spencer's den of dissipation, too! There were great tales-but it was not of these she was thinking, but of the night of storm-(of the greatest storm of which any record remained in Shelby when the wind tore down branches and toppled down chimneys; when cattle were smitten in the field and men on the highway; and the bluff towering overhead, fared into flame, and the house which was its glory was smitten apart by the de. scending bolt as by a Titan sword, and blazed like beacon to the sky.
 This was long before she herself had come to Shelby; but she had been told the story so often that it was quite vivid to her. The family had been gone for months, and so no pity mingled with the excitement. Not til the following day did the awful nature of the event break in its full horror upon the town. Among the ruins, 1T a closet which the flames had spared they found hunched up in one corner the body of a man, in whose scared throat a wound appeared which hat not been made by lightning or fire Spencer! Spencer himself, returned they knew not how, to die of this self inflicted wound, in the dark corner o his grand but neglected dwelling.
 But as she continued to survey it tn clouds came trooping up once more and the vision was wiped out, an with it all memories save those of nearer trouble-a more pressing ne cessity.
 Withdrawing from the window, sh crept again to Reuther's room an peered carefully in. Innocence wa asleep at last. Lighting candle an shielding it with her hand, she gaze long and earnestly at Reuther's swee face. Yes, she was right. Sorro was slowly sapping the fountain ( her darling's youth. If Reuther WE to be saved hope must come sool With a sob and a prayer the motht left the room, and locking herself int her own, sat down at last to face tf new perplexity, the monstrous en1gn which had come into her life.
 It had followed in natural sequen' from a proposal made by the judi that some attention should be give his long-neglected rooms. He had sa on rising from the breakfast table
 (the words are more or less impt tant):
 "I am really sorry to trouble yo
 Mrs. Scoville; but if you have til
 this morning, will you clean up I
 study before I leave? The carria
 is ordered for half-past nine.'
 The task was one she had long
 sired to perform. Giving Reuther t
 rest of the work to do, she presen
 appeared before him with pail
 broom and a pile of fresh linen. NO
 ing more commonplace could be i'm
 tned, bu. to her, if not to him, th'