The Kenilworth Advertiser. — 1883-01-27 (Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England)

MANUSCRIPT XXX. IN A CAFE, IN A FRONTIER TOWN. Once more in the wide world, hunted like a wild beast, a price upon rdy head, fearful of every sound and face and voice; yet my disguise was good, my transformation complete, and the passport which took me over the French frontier in no way answered to the descriptions and photographs out Of Casper Von Wolfgang. "M. Franz Hermann, age forty years, height five foot ten inches, slight stoop in his carriage, reddish hair, turning gray, thick whiskers, moustache and beard, and florid, brown complexion, thick reddish eye-brows, arched, black eyes, straight, well-shaped nose, scar of a sabre cut across the left cheek, and a email purple spot under the right eye, the face much wrinkled." Who would know in this M. Hermann the once handsome dashing St. Leger Wolfgang? And I felt something almost like security as I turned one evening into a café in a email French frontier town. There were several men in the room smoking, talking, and reading the journals. One or two were English tourists, the rest were French, two Italians, a light-haired, wild-looking German student, and one American gentleman—a southerner, I found by what he said. I took a place apart, ordered coffee and one of the day's journals, and read, the hum and buz of talk coming vaguely to my ears for some time; but at last an exclamation from the English"man caught my ear, and chained every sense 1 had. "By Jove! that everlasting advertisement again! ne is tired of seeing it." "What is that, air?" asked the American. 4 "This one, for the apprehension of Wolfgang, the murderer of the great sculptor, Claverhouse." "Oh, ah, yes; it has been in the American papers for a year, at boat," returned the other, while I sat sileut, intent. " Ay, and in the French, Italian, German' everywhere. My belief is, the villain is dead. The devil's got him long since, or he would have been taken." "It was the most horrible and deliberate murder that has startled the world for many years," remarked a Frenchman. "The poor young wife, too, it killed her, I believe ?" "Oh yes; she waa a mere girl. It broke her heart, poor child! she died the night before his funeral." " What was the motive for the crime ?" asked an Italian' laying down the journal he was reading. "Oh, the old story,—jealousy. Wolfgang was a cousin and rejected suitor of Mrs. Claverhouse." "Do you know, Signore Inglese, whether D Angelo finished that sculpture he was doing before his marriage one, I mean, for the principal figure of which the Conte di Schism sat? or is ',The Wreck' his last work?" "No ; he finished the other shortly before his death, and it was on view in London after that, for three or four months. The Duke of 8— offered a fabulous sum for it, but the brother, Egmont Claverhouse,—the Conte di Schiara—refused to sell it at all, or any other work of 11 Angelo's in his possession." " A pity; but of course they are visible, for &Mara (I have met him) is too true a lover of Art to shut it up." "He is; they are now in the famous picturegallery at the family seat, Broescliffe, and open to tbe public." "flow came he to be called 'li Angelo ?' " asked the German student. "Well," said the Englishman, half laughingly, "it originated, I believe, with a child, one of his models, the cameo-seller who witnessed his murder. She found his name, I suppose, difficult to her Italian tongue, and used to call him "II Angelo." The name somehow got into the Italian journals, and was taken up." "Are they still searching for the murderer ? " asked the American. "Oh no; of course net. These advertisements are kept up by the brother, but the police gave it up long ago, months back; they think that he is dead." "Suicide, most likely." "I don't know. He was a sceptic, a regular scoffer; and I fancy these atheists, with all their talk. don't ears to face death. I'd macular nut an  One  murderer  ttrmy of bout, open einneri on a battle-ileld Chan an aroiy of eeoffere and inlidele." ' So would I, eir. Hadn't Wolfgang a mother?"  _ " Yes; terrible for her, poor woman. She has remained shut up in her own house ever since the murder. He has a half-brother, too, Lord Falconbridge; but he and his family went to Cannes, and are still there, I believe." "I wish," laughed the American, "that I could catch sight of the villain; I would earn the ono thousand pounds." All this I heard, and turned perfectly sick. I could not bear it longer, and 1 lett the café. I could not sleep that night. Is it a wonder ? My crime stood before me in appalling magnitude; and once more I fled before the hideous phantom, before the mad terror of capture. It seemed around me, belore, behind, above, in every face and sound. I fled to Hamburg, and flung myself into play; anything for forgetfulness,—oblivion. I laughed the loudest, and played the last and wildest; yet I won and won largely. My tongue was most glib, and my jests the most scoffing; but in the wildest revel dared not pause to look behind, for IT was there—a ghastly Presence, a whisper ever in my ears of what might have been. Oh, for one moment's power to retrace the past, and undo the deed that was done! Oh, if I had only listened in other years to the being who would have been my good angel; but I would not. I put away the light, and now I stood a hunted felon, mad with the remorseful, franticly futile wish to undo the I irrecoverable past; alone, in soulless darkness,—a murderer!  A hunted felon! What if the police had given me up, and left me to my own curse? he, the brother, had not; he had distrusted me from ttio first, and watched me, and him 1 feared. 1 knew Uuicio di Sobiara too well to dare to hope; as long as he had life he would never abandon the pursuit. 1 dared not long remain in the same place, or retain the same character; but excitement, play, I must have! Better to take my chance in cities and. capitals than again face the horrors of solitude.