Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1905-03-18 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CHAPTER XXIII. MP RETURN OP TRH RY,FUGEE.  With violently beating heart, and temples throbbing as though they would burst, a tempestuous surging m my ears, and a whirling niist before my eyes, I stood motionless for a minute amidst the white fragments of the death mask. Then the reaction came upon, me. I dropped the iron bar, and staggered to the foundation on which stood the amorphous Ariadne, and, sinking down limply on the wooden dias, my frenzy quickly passed away, leaving me with only a -hopeless horror and deep:Lir in my heart. Huddled there, I gazed with unseeing eyes at the fire, thinking, think tug. I had discovered the dread secret! The lips of the dead had spoken it to me. And, oh, the horror, the agony of that revelation! Verily, the unveiling of the secret had been an unthinkable catastrophe. If only I could have known what would be the horror of that revelation, I should have faced death itself to have preserved the secret.  I had discovered the dread secret! Wisely, indeed, had Fred fled with the knowledge of it in his heart. I could read his thoughts now, and understood so plainly all that had seemed inexplicable. I oould realise how he had fled in horror of that possible revelation. And now I, too, knew the, secret.  I, too, knew it that horrible, ghastly secret,. Dead men tell no tales, it was said; that was not true, for the dead are often accusers. And that agonised face of the dead had spoken an witnistakab'e denunciation in its affrighted horror. The name "Be" had been frozen.on,the lips in death. Oh, horrible! horrible! ' •  All the past roBe to my mind quite clearly new, with the mists swept •away. The hundred puzzling uncertainties resolved themselves into a few damning certainties. The night of the tragedy, Fred's flight, Beatrice's subsequent state of mind. And then I remembered Fred's words, that the key to the secret lay here, at home: How little had I realised the sigiificance of those words! And now they had come to be verified; and by a miracle, I had read the secret fram the lips of the dead. And oh! the horrible truth the inhuman ghastlineas of the tragedy! What devil had pysr-essed that girl of the strange eyes and the pansionate heart—that girl who I had deified and reverently loved—to do so cruel a deed? What secret motive underlay so dreadful and dastardly a crime? 24Iadness—perhaps.madness—it wa well to remember that—some passin,g fit of madness. If only I could believe, that!  But now the secret had been revealed, and I knew that the woman I had loved—but how far away seemed that love now !—was murderess. What was to happen? Must I, too, flee away with this ghastly secret, to guard it from others as Fred had done? No, I shook! not do that. The secret would have now to be further shared, and then we should see what could be done. But, oh God! what could be done! Let me think! let me think I  I sat stupefied with those terrible thoughts, going over everything in my mind again and again, while the hours fled. The fire I was sta.ring into with almost un.seeing eyes went gradually out • the autumn night, damp and chilly, pawed, and the gaslights began to fade in the grey, oncoming dawn. Then I at last started up. -My thoughts had wearied me out, and all the agony of my passion. had quite pawed, leaving behind it the stunned lethargy of extreme despair. But ,it we duspair for what had passed; my future action I had resolutely decided. Mechanically I swept the fragments of the east into the grate, turned out the gas, and then, passing into the dining-room, extinguished the lighte there al I so. After that went to my room,