The Slaithwaite Guardian and Colne Valley News. — 1899-05-05 (Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, England)

THE SLAITHWAITE GUARDIAN AND COLNE VALLEY NEWS-MAY 5, 1899.  e 7 the loud ticrenins tor help which she was iesperatelv uttering. Again got Wildred down, but the other maa as on top of me, and for the second time I felt the turning pain, this time in my shoulder. I fought like a mad creature now, with the intent to kill, which I had not had before; but the conviction grew within me that, battle as I might, the effort would be all in vain.  Sparks advanced before my eyes. and then everything grew dim. Out of chaos came a slieek from Karine. Could it be a cry --)f joy? What reasor was there for rejoicing? But there followed a renewed crashing of glass, le muffled thud of feet descending from a height won the soft. surface of rugs, and the sound of men's voices.  It seemed to me that Cunningham's was among them, but a strange cold pall of darkness enveloped me, and I knew no more.  Afterwards I learnt, how it was that Cunningham, with two detectives from Scotland Yard, had trrived in the very "nick of time." His statements to the police authorities had been lecessarily so elaborate, and had been deemed so mtraordinary, that it had taken some time to wertte the desired impression at headquarters. He had been still at "The Yard " when my wire lad arrived. When at last he had induced the 'powers that be "to grant a warrant for Wildred's ,rrest on sucpicion of having murdered Harvey Farnham, and lo send a couple of men to the tfouse by the lock, where my telegram had anminced that he was probably to be found, it was too late to catch anything nye the ten o'cloca train.  Having reached the door of the grim old mansion, Karine's cries for help, ringing out upon the night through the broken skylight, had told them in which direction to proceed, and they had used the seine method of surmounting the obstacles which 1 had adopted and left for them. The servant was secured, but Wildred, seeing with his usual quickness that all hope of escape was over, had shot himself through the heart before the officers coald reach him. So died a man who had accomplished the death of many another, and through his humble accomplice (who now breaks stones at Portland), and the wretched wife, found poisoned in a room upstairs, the secrets of his numerous crimes and the dark House by the Lock were revealed.  It was not for many a day after that night': terrible experience that heard all the truth. What with the two wounds I had received, and the strain of the past few weeks, which had begun to tell upon me at last, for a time I lay in rather a precarious condition. But one morning I awok( t consciousness, and found that the beautiful face which I:ad been near me in my dreams was present in reality. Karine and her brother had nursed me through more than a fortnight's illness. Had I been quite myself I should have felt that then was not the time to speak of love to the girl who had endured so much. But the words were spoken before my judgment would let Inc restrain them, as it. so often had done in the first sweet. sad days. of our acquaintance._ _  "Forgive me," J said weakly. "I'm a brute. You've been such au angel to me—and I oughtn't to have told you now." „ .  "Oughtn't°you?" she answered softly. "Do you remember Inv saying one evening at the Savoy Hotel that there was only one thing in the world which might even then keep me from making a marriage that was horrible to me?" . _  "I re:tnember well," I returned. "I remember everyihing you ever said to me. Will you tell me what that one thing was ?" "I meant, if pnt hvi loved me. Sometimes I— thought you did, but you would never say so. You only asked to be ' my friend.' " "Oh. if I had but known—if I had but dared!" I exclaimed. "I was perishing of love for you from the first night I ever saw your face. Is it too late flow? I don't ask to be your friend, I ask to be everything—your lover, and your husband." "And I give you everything," she said. So it came about that the sunshine of happiness drove forth the black shadows which would fain have lingered to haunt us like ghosts from the House by the Lock. [Ten Elul]