The Warwickshire Herald. — 1893-10-05 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

CHAPTER XV.  For a moment Locksley bowed his head on the girl's; for a moment he yielded to an unconquerable impulse—wrapping the slight form close to his breast; but he must not forget his paramount duty U physician. The girl was deadly white; the ordeal throogle which she had passed had tried her severely, yet less than he had feared; but this Was greatly owing, he knew, to her clinging love for him, her vivid sense, through all, of his sheltering love and protection. fir would not have her wake vet; and so, seeing her eyelids flutter, her lips. move, a sort of quiver en her face, he began the old mesmeric action of ili3 hand on her head, and soon her face grew calm again, the hurried breathing quiet and even; an utter pence seemed to steal over her spirit, and the girl lay in deep, tranquil sleep on her lover's breast. What emotiens, what thoughts, stitred within him as he sat there with the woman be loved; with the secret of a tragialv of life as well as of death; with a stupendous mysiery, of which that little scrap of paper lying on the table was a silent, unanswerable witness. Reidy had the hideatia plot I em laid; carefully all the outwdrks of the citadel ;madded. Opportunity stood the friend of the murderess; all surrounding circumstances played into her bands, smoothed this pa'liway to crime, slieltered the criminal from all suspleion. She was met at last by a power against which all def noes arl as vain as are locks and chains upon conscience —the power which pierces the unseen. and lays bare the hidden things of earth. A fragile stripling revealed in sleep what no man or woman, save that eine who sinned, be they as clever as they would, might discover in waking activity. The child, in her normal state, had not even sumected the reality; her spirit knew it; her spiv': dished on the dark places the fierce white light *4 truth, Yet, to many, even men learned in modi.ine, the sure might seem to have acted innocently; but Vere Lockeley had deeply studied poisons, and the object of these two pitichases was perfeeay clear to him. flow had Nurse Relton discovered the subtle secret of the combination which produced resedts so terrible, bat, apparently, so natural The mrdery still remained unsolved of Nora having substituted, in her vision of the death. eliamber, her own identity for that of the wirse. Mi. it was a vision, or elai.rropf nee, was proved heymd all question ; even the girl hers,lf must feel new that she could not have been actually in the room. Mit this matter Locksley laid aside in his mind for future study and investigation. The main issues were too momentous, ton absorbing, For any pre,ent consideration of secondary questions. Ncra was saved—saved from herself—saved for health and happiness. This was first and above all: and, with thrills of passionate joy, vere Locksley knew that he was the instrument through which his darling's innocence would be proved. little mercy could the murderess expect from him. Public proof of this crime she might be spared, for the sake of the man who, Locksley feare had secretly given the woman his name; but the lruth should not he hidden from him; she should be utterly degraded, hunted from the house in which she had borne a sacred trust, foully and Aainefully betrayed; she should give up the profession she abused and preraned, and leave the emintry for ever. The pow, r was in Locksley's hands now, nnd he meant to use it.  nut, as the time passed on, the teed: for • more inmediate netion grew imminent. : The day was icsking; soon the servants would be about; the secret of Nora's presence in the house must be kept from them. Would she, too, wake .to full