Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1908-01-11 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CHAPTER IX. A FEARFUL DISCLOSURE.  'Martyred? Martyred for another, mother?" the young man repeated vaguely. Then as a thought rose in hie mind, he said slowly, "You mean my father died for another man, to save him, mother. Was it a uoble, nerase death? How was it ?" There was a ring of genuine grief, a sort of dread expectancy in Ral and's tone, as if he realised it was not as he hoped—that he had not yet heard the worst. The widow covered her face with her trembling hands. "Oh, Roland, Roland," she breathed rather than spoke. "His death was not noble, it was not great in the eyes of men-.-but shameful, most shameful!" " Mother!" cried the son, leaning forward breathleasly, and gazing distractedly into hex face, "What do you mean?" "My poor boy, he—my beloved husband—your father, was innocent, his death unmerited, yet he died ignominiously upon the scaffold, condemned for another's crime," whispered the widow. Her listener sprang to his feet as if shot. The prspiration stood out in great beads upon his forehead, the muscles of his face twitched nervously, and the story of a great anguish was suddenly writ upon his face. Por several minutes the awful silence that followed was only broken by the low convulsive sobbing of the heart-broken woman; then a strangely altered, hu3ky voice murmured— "Mother, tell me the rest—the whole story. Who was this man for whom my father suffered?" Mrs Heath repressed her sobs, and trying to calm herself, prepared to relate her whole dark and dreadful narrative, while her son sat by the bedside drinking in with feverish eagerness every word she uttered.  The widow told how, seventeen years before, her husband was suddenly dragged from his home and accused of murdering a neighbouring farmer. At first all thought he was certain to be acquitted, for Frederick Heath was highly respected in the locality. Beyond the fact that Guy Staples (Roland started at the name, but did not interrupt) had had a quarrel with Heath over some land, and the bullet, found in the victim's brain, was proved to fit the barrel of the accused's gun, there was no other evidence against the prisoner. At the last moment though, when his distracted, hea.rt-broken wife was daring to hope, an unfore seen thing occurred: a new witness entered the box, and swore that when crossing the fields close by the grove at a late hour that night, he had heard voices raised as though in anger, and on going closer recognised the disputants to be Guy Etaples and Frederick Heath.  What this witness said was true in part—the two Men had had an angry renoontre, but Heath firmly asserted they had not come to blows, and that he had got away from Staples ae soon as he could, for the latter was intoxicated at the time. But Guy Staples had been discovered next mornMg only a short distance from the spot where he and Heath had met, shot through the brain_ " That was all the evidence against your father, Boland, and though it was purely circumstantial, it was sufficient to condemn him—him, an innocent man."  Mrs Heath paused, her emotion seemed to render her incapable of proceeding. Roland raised his !-et white face to his mother's tear-stained one, and at last asked, "Who was this Guy Staples, riother?" "Guy Staples Was the uncle of your friend, Tom Staples—his father's only brother; yet for all that, the family never believed that Frederick did the deed," replied the widow. " A.ad who was the judge who condemned my father?" inquired Roland again. "It—it was not the judge's fault, Roland--he was sorry for the part he had to play; it was his fir6t time of sentencing for the capital charge, and he