The Haslingden Gazette. — 1904-09-03 (Haslingden, Lancashire, England)

FELS-NAPTHA  Had he had faith in her, he would have acted differently in regard to his father, and would most probably have cleared his mother's fair name and established himself as Sir Guy's heir But from eighteen years ' of age he was a hopeless reprobate, a born scoundrel, that no training could have amended. . .  Osmond, however, kept himself in touch with Sir Guy's steward, who, notwithstanding his master's threats and injunctions—perhaps because he thought it best to be prepared for the unexpected, and hedge—let out to him some items of information. It was thus that he learned of his father's return to England, of the sale of his estates, and of his settling down in Surrey, " somewhere near Dorking." I He was not long in discovering Sir Guy , tinder the name of Jasper Skelding. Rhoda's mother was lying at the point of death, and Rhoda Wai unprovidcd for. It was he who persuaded the poor woman to send for her brother and commit Rhoda to his care, thinking he would make her his heiress, and thus the repudiated son, through the wife, would obtain his rights. As she thus sat thinking, Rhoda could find plenty of excuses for all the badness of her life ; first, from those early influences which weakened the moral fibre; and afterwards, from the companionship of a husband who would have corrupted an angel from Heaven. .  If she committed bigamy, she was forced into it by her uncle on one side, and by what she believed to be Osmond's desertion on the other. When Osmond returned it was too late, and hail his father known of their marriage he would have sent him to penal servitude. Her very sour had revolted against marrying Frank Dudley. And, but for that, she had always been true to the scoundrel who had spoiled her life. _  Again, if she had tried to fix the guilt m the murder upon Dudley, she firmly believed, at first, that the stick was his, and as the murder was still a mystery, nothing had transpired to show that he was innocent. Again, if Hannah Wickens died from the effect of an alkaloid which defies detection, how was she to suspect that the drug her husband had given her was a poison ? True it was that Hannah had become dangerous, through qualms of conscience, and they feared she was desirous of running away, and giving information of what little she knew, but the word poison had never been uttered by Osmond, or even hinted at. And so, as she sat staring into the red-hot coals, Rhoda ran through this gamut of sophistry, closing her ears against the still, small voice that was trying to tell her that it was all self-deceit, and that she closed her eyes then, as she closed them now, and believed what it suited her to believe, until she had heaped all her sins upon others' backs, and persuaded herself that she stood fair and white. A movement on th? cocch startled her : she had forgotten all Mosam und. She crept across the Mom and looked at her. Though still in a trance-like condition, there were signs that consciousness was awakening. It was time then that she gave her the six drops in the wine-glass of water, as Osmond had ordered.  Rhoda went to the table and poured the prescribed dose out of the tiny phial he had given her, then paused with the glass in her hand. It was just such a dose as that, from just such a phial, that had given poor Hannah Wickens her quietus. Most likely this was the same poison. At the thought, all the evil nature of the woman : flashed up. What if it were, she did not know it was poison—and it would rid her of a rival—and both of a great danger. She moved to the couch and looked down upon the victim's frank, beautiful face. It seemed a terrible thing to do. And if the girl were to die, would not the responsibility rest upon her? Osmond might never return, the whole thing might be a plan to Elestroy them both and shift the guilt from Ws own shoulders. She set down the glass upon the table. and went back to her chair to think again.  (To be oontinned.)