The Cotton Factory Times. — 1908-02-28 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

FRANK CARS."  Stephen Ruthen read through the letter with all its incredible callousness, this foul blow that a mans band had struck at the woman who had trusted and cared for him. The name was quite unfamiliar, though in some odd way the rector seemed to have seen the handwriting before. "Stephen, do you wonder now that I hate that man?"  The low, intense voice crept to hie brain lilts a spark to tinder. Did Stephen Rtithen wonder?  Almost without his lolowing it, his hand had clenched on the hack of tho chair tightly—fiercely, as if his fingers were choking out the life of a rnan•  "This man, Carr—if he were within reach of my hands now-," he cried, hoarsely, "I believe before God that I should—" The words broke off abruptly, like the sudden snapping of a fiddle-string. Through the half-open door that led into the church, standing out among the shadows that lay thick about the alt,r—shadows broken only by the dim gleams of the candles burning in the organ loft and the faint moonlight that fell through stained glass in splashee of crimson--the outline of the cross that was the symbol of his sacred calling mot Stephen Ruthen's eyes whilst the-wild outburst was on his lips, recalling him to himself, taking, as it were, a dumb -voice, that cried to him:—  "You, one of Cod's ministers, with a threat of murder on your lips--with murder in your heart!" "That letter came to me weeks ago. Until then, though he had shown but too plainly that he had wearied of me, though he even struck me when we parted last---"  "He struck you, Oliver—in a. strangled Voice.  She nodded.  "Oh, but that blow wasn't so cowardly as the blow in his letter: for the last was struck in cold blood—premeditated. Until that letter came I believed I was at least his s ife. Not his wife—my God! only his plaything, his discarded mistress! Oh, Stelphen, Stephen, I think sty heart is frozen!" she broke out, wildly. "If only I could cry--dear God, if only I could cry! But I have no tears left, only this hate that fills me so that I can think of nothing else but my hate, my hunger for vengeance!" He touched her hands with an infinite tenderness of pity, but words failed him. Stephen Ruthen knew what a man who was a priest of the Church ought to have said—to have told her that vengeance was for God, not for man or woman. But he realised that such words spoken by him, with all his feelings stirred as they were stirred now would have been a mockery and a lie. His mouth was rigid, his hands were clenched. "Stephen, I want you to help me to find that man," she cried, feverishly. "I don't know his real name, but I've found a clue; part of a tornup letter to him which spoke of Wiklfell, and that brought me here. And then this afternoon. as  thott,gh Fate was fighting for me, I caught a glimpse of him in Fellsgarth Station.  _ She laughed mockingly. " You would have me spare him--a man too vile to live! A man who ought to be sent to his account with all his sins as red an blood upon his soul !" And her eyes glittered with a wild, feverish excitement. "Do you remember your  text of to-night?--`Too late to knock 'shim the door shall be shut; too late to cry for mercy when it is the time of justice!" "Hush!" he whispered, fearfully.