The Cotton Factory Times. — 1906-04-13 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

CHAPTER X. BACK FROM THE GRAVE.  Upon leaving Overdone Orange, Father returned to Upper Norwood, and engaged rooms in the house where a year ago she had lived for some weeks, and with all the strength of her will, she strove to keep back the memories of that time, and the more recent one of her professional visit to Overdone. The love she had given Cecil Kingdon seemed to overpower everything else—a love which owed nothing to the wealth she was to share, nor the life of ease and luxury that lay before her. Of these she thought almost indifferently; it was only the passionate affection she bore her lover which filled her soul, and yet there were moments when an agony of remorse and nameless dread of the future, tortured her. There was time for her to withdraw from her engagement; to hide herself and her dark secrete from Cecil for ever, to save him from linking his fate with hers. The death scream of the murdered Man, amid the awful silence of that night in Overdene Park, seemed ringing in her ears once more, as she stood regarding her pale face in the looking-glass of her room in Laurel Grove.  If he but knew what my life has been," she murmured, " he would despise and scorn me, and rd rather bo dead than to know his love had changed into hate. Yes, it will be better that I keep the secret of my former marriage from Cecil, and the story of what followed it. The years my hueband and I wandered and I did his bidding. In New Orleans, San Francisco, Bahia and a dozen other places, the man who was my husband is remembered and cursed. Thank G—d, he died, before his wickedness drove me mad, but it's made the woman of me, that I am." There shone a strange glint in her eyes at the recollection, and the calm beauty of her face was ruffled by an angry frown. This was followed by a look no reeolute that it changed the softness of her features, into marble as it were, and a hard little laugh escaped her lips. "I never knew what love was, until I met Cecil Kingdon and I'd go through fire and water to serve him, and prove my love," she muttered. "We'll go far away from England, after we're married—we'll put thousands of miles between Ovordene Grange, Her lips became suddenly pallid as the words died away on them and she put her hands before her faze. The cry was ringing in her ears, bringing a numbing fear to her heart. The letter that had been found in the dead man's pocket; the strangeness of his possessing it, the threat he had hissed in her ear to divulge her secret and then his death. The white little hand that she had withdrawn from her face and held in the glare of the fire, showed the scar of a deep cut upon it. and she clenched her hand angrily. "I can't give him up," she moaned. " I am a free woman now. The man who deceived me into  marrying him, is dead, and none will ever know of those dark years of my life." She moved away from the position in which she had been standing. and went to a writing-desk, taking out a small parcel and unfolding it. A wedding ring lay upon the piece of paper, and she held it up to the fire-light. "Why hand I kept thin badge of misery?" she asked, her lips curling scornfully. "Perhaps it was to remind me that I had regained my liberty when my husband died. When he was killed in that gambling hell in Bahia" and she looked at the golden circlet, which sent out a little glitter in the bright beams of the fire. Then with a swift action. she cast, the ring into the blaze, watching it glow and whiten in the fierce heat.  Suddenly the door of the little sitting-room was opened and a man whose face was partly hidden by his upturned collar, stood in the entrance, and for a moment Esther remained gazing at him in mute horror.  " You have a strange way of welcoming me," he said harshly. and stepping towards her. " Stephen Manton!" she ejaculated, and as though to hold him back, her hands were raised. 'My husband."  (To be continued.)