The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1881-06-25 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

WOMAN'S VOW.  By the Author of "A. STEAsoi lirraoTßAL," "NoßA's Rzuwas," ''CloALs OP FMB," *ie., sta.  CHAPTER LVETI (C mtintwal.  There was a gleam in her face that almost frightened him—it was so much like madness. _ _  Then she came a little nearer to him, and, bending down, looked in his face. "Can you hear me?" she asked—" can you understand  "Yes, I hear, Irene. Help me, for Heaven's Sale I"  "Listen! You have read the Bible, perhaps, when you were a child at school. Do you remember that when strange nations fell into the hands of the Jews it was said that the Lord God had delivered them into the hands of their enemies. Do you remember that?" " Yee," he gasped. "Help me, Irene !" : 44 As it happened to the Jews, so it has happened to Me," she said; "you are delivered into my hands —you have fallen living into my hands." "Oh, Irene, hasten for help for me !" "No," she replied slowly; "I shall bring no help to you." - "Bring no help !" he cried. "You are mad! I shall die if you do not." " Tim must die !" she replied. "The life of the body is as nothing compared to the life of the soul— less than nothing. You tried to kill ray soul; you would have taken from me my innocence, the life of the soul. You would have taken from me my good name and fair repute; you would have ruined my soul, and it is just—Heaven knows that it is just— that I, in my turn, should take from you the life of your body; It is but just," she cried, passionately. His faze grew livid with horror, his eyes terrible with fear.  "You cannot mean it, Irene! You are a woman, gentle and tender of heart, I know, dear. You are trying to frighten me. And lam sorry, sorry for my sin—sorry to my heart for the wrong I did you. I was following you just for that, Irene, to ask your pardon—to ask you to say that you had forgiven me."  She raised her right hand. "Do you remember this ?" she asked. 'Too late for the plealthen the doom bath been spoke— Too late for the balm when the heart is broke."  "I remember it, Irene. Oh, do not jest with me. lam in mortal pain. Do you know that if you leave me here, without help, I shall die the most cruel, lingering, torturing death ?" "As my soul would have died," she said, in a pitiless voice. "I swore to be revenged on you. I had but to speak one word to my husband and he would have set his heel on your face. That would have been merciful revenge. I prefer this." "I would not believe you, Irene," he cried, "if you went on your knees and swore to it." She knelt down among the ferns and dead plants. "I swear that I will do it I" she said, with the same strange gleam of defiance on her face. "I will leave you lying here to die in punishment of the wrong you did to me." "Irene," he said, "you are mad—you must be mad. Do you know that this would be murder "It is vengeance !" she said—" righteous vengeance! I have thought over it by night, and brooded over it by day, what I should do to be avenged—how I could reach you—how I could best make you feel; and now I exult that you are delivered over to me, bound, helpless, as people were delivered to the tortures of old.. It is righteous vengeance ! You tortured my soul, I avenge myself on your body." "Oh. Heaven!" he cried. "Can this be true? To die while the sun shines and the birds sing !—to lie here through the silent hours of day and. night! Oh, Irene, for Heaven's sake take pity on me I.—have mercy on me! Do you knew," and he broke down with a terrible sob—" do you know that it will take a week to the? lam so strong—ah, so strong! But you do not mean it—you cannot mean it! A man might do such a deed—no woman could." Her face neither softened nor trembled; she looked quite steadily at him. "Say what you will I shall leave you here to die. No prayers, no pleading will prevail, and, what is more, I shall have the courage to come and see you die, just as, day by day, you watched the slow crushing of my soul."