Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1907-07-27 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE END OF THE TRAGEDY.  There was ono person for. wlccal the news which Clem Finch brought back to Briardale came' just too late.  Old Raddle, the gardener, was dead. They found him lying prune on the hearth. with a Shattered jar of pot-pond-I.i a few inches from his outstretched arm. They judged that he had been Detaching, up to the maaatelpiece fur the jar —it was ono that his wife had filled with flowerpetals in their courting days, and he had often boasted of it—and that &Atli had mercifully stricken him just as b:s fingers had closed an the treasured memorial.  They could not send the sad news to Kitty or bid her come to the funeral, .as nobody knew her address. A pile of white ashes in the grate showed thot the old man had b-urtned the letters she was known to have sent him. An that remained for them to do, therefore, was to bury him quietly, and leave his few p:ss?esions unclifsturbecl until Kitty mustered up pluck to return of hex own accord. Pour Clem, though his heart was well nigh bursting benen,th his biue jersey, worked as herd as an election agent in spreading the mews he had to tell. Rough, insistent, monotoned, hfs vuice carried a fierce emotion no veheanence could have conveyed, and he story, substantiated as it was by the indispensable evidence of the marriage certificate, naturally caused a profound sensation.  People who had been among the first to credit Kitty Raddle's lying statement, and to add graphic little touches of lt:cal colour to it, now had the aina,ziing effrontery to declare that they had disbelieved it all along. snel Jack was overwhelmed with decorously worded Inesages of oongratulation on the saitisfactlry ending of the unpleasant affair. Rut he treated all these overtures of renewed friendship with scant courtesy. He knew how much of them was fulsome 'flattery and how little was genuine goodwill. His faith in the good nature of the narzow-minded people of %.awilwirr.:ll64 rat:mired o,,rude ahock *flora which  he wss slow to recover. Nevertheless, he could not raprcas a natural feeßnig of exultation that his traduours had been compelled to eat their own words, aind tliat ho had thereby—to use a popuJor slang phrNee--" got his own back." _  - RVaT rains but it pours, they say. Hard on the heeds of Clem' tartling &sales-wee came the ti&nos of Peter Winstanley's &alb. The lawyers cha.ritably attributed it to heart d:sease, but he had, as. a matter of fact, succumbed to alcabotc poisoning, brought on by an unrestrained debauch in one of the unsavoury little anking-dens he was in the habit of patrotrAiung. --- • • •  Of emcee, with Peter's death elle opposition to uapele Luke's will oollapsed like a house of clods. Jack's only foar was that his cousin Bernard, witt hrs oharacteristic impudence, woth:d openly take up the wee an his cram behalf, and ihen the same old weary routine of poomnstimatien nind hope defenned would have to be gone through agam. But he might have spored himself anxiety an that score. Benraard Ba;r-rinigton, unable to fae,e the etorm of scandal he had raised, and the consequeart km of social ravetige, which was meat and dt,..nk -ID him, bad fled aoroes the Atlantic, leaving his helpless girl-wife totally tmprovicled for.  Burt no one, with th 2 best will in the world, could render Kitty aid unti she came forward voluntarily to seek it. Clean Finch stubbornly refused to die-Jr-of!, her whereabouts, even to Jack, who was chivalrously ready ti a do what he could to help poor old &oldie's d,auglvter, though she deserved such benefits of him.  "Let her be," was Oleni's coaneel. "She'll not take charity from anyone. She's too proud. If that blackguaad don't send her anything, she must work for a that's all. But Heaven only knows what she'll do. She's been brought up like a lady, without over soilin' her hands wi rough work.  "I'd provide far her myself," he went on feverishly, " and kit people say what they pleased of me, but while ever that scoundrelly hutiband of hers remains on earth she'll take DO favours from another man. She worships him, while I'm poison to her—rank poison! She can't bear the sight of me--me that would die for her! Oh, Mr Winstanley, byre like mime is an awful thing to bear. It will drive me mad in the end, I think." Jack tried every possible means of comforting the distracted young fisherman but all he did was obviously of no avail. Finially, becoming alarmed, by the wild, maniacal gleam in Clan's bloodshot eyes, and the rambling nature of his talk, he left the room on some trifling pretext, and quickly returned with Dr. Keeley. "We most have him watched for a dary or two, doctor," he whispered, as they paused ft:r a moirient outside the door. He'll do himself some mischief if we leave him to his own devices."  But it was.tao late. Clem had evidently suspekted. that they had designs on .his liberty, and had made his escape through the window. Th. saw him roaming swiftly accroce the fields leading to the cliffs, aaxl deemed it urseleas to follow him.  For a week after that no more was Seem OT beard of poor Clem. Men, in the dull grey rooming, the sea gave up its dead. On the beach below the cliffs they found Kitty's wet body, cold amd still, with the dark eyes closed for ever! She had her dead child clatsped tightly in her arms, while near by lay the body of Clem, smiling in his last sleep. Whether it was murder or suicide, or merely misadventure, nobody could tell, but the covery of Clem's overturned boat, wedged in a dangerous chain of rocks a little furttlier down the coast, enabled the coroner's jury to, put a charitable construction on the wrieful tragedy. 'Until the last trump is sounded, and the tombs are tom asunder, these dark mysteries of• life amKI death must ever be mecreifully veiled from morbal exec