The Slaithwaite Guardian and Colne Valley News. — 1901-02-22 (Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire, England)

CHAPTER N 1,17. TALturr TA:ARV, Al 1.. Talbot Strangemoro thought that he laid suffered before, but no ci ali terrible moment as this lind ever come to him until mw win n John Armstrong's words rang nu his cars lik.! the trump of doom. They struck him with nil the suddenness of a dreadful blow, deprivhim all at once of power, streugth mid volition. He celed and staggered dizzily like one drunken, and if the men laid not come to his assistance he would have fellen like one dead to the earth. " You broke it to him too abruptly' " FOtid Harvey Wilson, compassionately, as be brought water and bathed the faee of the almost swooning loan. " I am sorry, but T did not know that be would take it so hard,' Armstrong answered. "Did you think I had no soul and no conscience, then?" demanded Strangemoic, ! glancing weakly up at him from the chaii where they had ',laced him. Oh, my Cml, air did you menu the horrible words you spoke tc me, or was it but an unseemly jest? ' " Unhappily it was the bitter truth, Mile:1'1;0. had I been more discreet I might have chos,n my words so as not to shock you so much. But I will not ask you to believe my unsupported tes.timon. I have with me some Louthou tind New York pipers, containing flit n hole story." He made a sign to his servant to unstrap his poi tinant eau, and bi hug Ihe papers. Sc nit one struck a light, and st ith a haki.ng liand Talbot Strangemore unfolded them. They rehearsed the whole tragic story, thrillingly. There could no longer be any doubt in his mind. His lovely girl.bride, Nina, whom he had so cruelly wronged and whom he thought had died the death of the suicide, had twice been saved from self-destruction only to meet a terrible doom upon the scaffold—dying for the crime of another. He crushed the papers fiercely in he hand and staggered past them to the place where Oswald Ferris still crouched, wild-eyed, and in mot lid-terror of his life. He bent down and hissed fiercely in the ear of the cowering wretch : " Did you hear what they were saying? Nina, lay young wife, was not dead as we supposed. She lives—lives, do you hear ?—Ar.d she is in prison, my innocent, pure-hearted darling—in prison, aml condemned Lo be hung for the muuder of Sibyl St.. Alban !" Oswald Ferris shrehlt from the fiery lightning of his eye,:, bid, he aoscred, tu%enly " Yes, I know. I lien 1(1 it all." " You heard it till? Then what have yon to say ?" demanded Talbot Strangemore, stormily. "I has e'nothing to say. What does it matter to Inc that your wife will have to swing for her crime !" Ferris answered, with the brutal lough of a fiend in Hades. " Wretch ! Coward ! Liar 1" Strangemore panted, springing ton lull him, and his two strong v bite hands leaped at the throat of Ferris and closed /Ton it with a strangling grasp. The face of the wretch grew swollen and Ii vii, his tierce eyes seemed to at art from his I ead, he uttered fearful inarticulate sounds of lege, fear end suffering. Presently he grew *hit, and only a smothered gasp teemed to issue from his purple foam-tlecked lips. In a moment all would have been over, and his crinie-ste Med soul would have been hurled unshriven at the judgment seal, but in that fateful moment the locked hands of Strange more fell :Tart suddenly, end he reeled back• ward from the wretch with a cry that shrilled to the very heavees : "My Cod, am I gone mad with the horror of this night thet I was about to sink my soul to the level of I Ids fiend's ?" Ferris glared at him with sullen rage and relief. " Let there be no more talk of Judge Lynch, now. You have attempted my life, even as I did 3 ours. We are quits, now," he exclaimed. " No, we are not quite yet—never until I wring front your cursed cowardly lips the confession of the terrible crime for which my innocent young wife is condemned to suffer leath !" Talbot Strangemore answered, with terrible wrath.  To be continued,