Year: 1876

hoo AoShSo oP AfSA OCy ohA cSht AOA bhS
police, she came up to the Hall for the
first time since the squire's father (and
the father of her own child) had turned
from her last prayer; and she told the
young squire with eager, burning tears,
the one reason why he should have pity
on her boy. Then he smiled his cool
and handsome smile, and quietly ad-
vised her, if she lied at all, not to lie to
her own shame.


When the police came and took away
the child, stretching his arms out to his
mother, she stood with white and rigid
lips i'm the great hall, not even follow
ing him with her eyes, for they were
fixed upon the handsome face of the
young squire.


The boy, a pretty, timid child of
scarcely II years of age, was brought
before the magistrates, and told his tale
with many tears. He had been walk
ing quietly home the evening before,
when two men overlook him and walked
with him. They talked a great deal to-
gether, though not to him; but when
he turned from the turnpike ready to
go home to his mothers cottage, they
bade him walk a little further with
them and they would give him present
for his mother. He went on-a long
way he thought it-aDd then they took
him into an empty cottage and shut the
door, and kept him in there until it was
quite dark. They carried him then into
the Hall, as he could not have found
his way in the dark; and they put him
through a small broken hole in a win
dow, and babe him unfasten a door he
would find close TO him, or, il he did
not, he must stay there in the dark for
ever.


This was all the child told, but it was
plain to see how he had been frightened
by the threats of those villains.


believe one of the magistrates sug-
gested that the terrible fear the boy had
undergone had been sufficient punish
ment for him; but the idea was quietly
smiled to scorn. The child was SEN
fenced to solitary confinement for two
years-aye, though the poor foreign
woman fell on her knees before the
squire and pleaded to him as she might
have pleaded to her God.


Before the time of the sentence was
half told the doctor ordered the boy to
be removed to the hospital. "This soli-
tary confinement is most fatal for a
delicate growing lad," he said, with q
grave shake of his head. ''If he does
not die, he will be hopeless idiot for
the remainder of his life"


That worse fate was spared him; he
did die; and the mother, to whom this
news had been a death-blow, although
she did not know it then, crept to the
mansion here, and asked to see the
squire.


His servants told him, and he smiled
a quiet smile. ''Take her money moth
ing more is needed for such as she."


She looked down vacantly upon the
offered money; then she stepped back a
few PAGES, and raising her hands SOL
EMMY to heaven, called down its judg-
ment upon the master of the house; !;
pleading that the punishment to which
he had doomed her boy might visit him.
And the caressed and feted master of
this beautiful house, looking from the
window, saw this scene and smiled.
Five years went on, and still Lindley
Warwick lived his brilliant and luxuri-
Gus life; flattered, admired, and sought
after; committing none of his fathers
sins, only leading his life of cold and
DttllCSc Dot hNh ehOSS
five years had passed, he came once un-
expectediy and quite alone to his Lon
don house. He went out on the MORN
ing after his arrival, in a hired cab,
with his face muffled in a white silk
comforter; and when he had been clos
eted for long time with famous ply
sician, he returned and ordered the
house to be locked up again, as he was
going down to the country.


He came here at once, and-even be-
fore he took off his great-coat and the
muller that was about his face-he
summoned into his presence four old
servants who had lived here through
all his life.


1t was to this room they came, and he
stood there on the hearth, his face half
turned away while he talked to them.
They had been surprised enough at his
unexpected and solitary arrival-he
who used to come i'm state, when every
room in the house had been prepared
for the guests who came with and fol-
lowed him-but what a much greater
surprise awaited themi


He told them that every servant in
the house was TO be dismissed except
themselves; that either of them who
objected to this, or would not obey him
to the letter in what he was going to
require, could go at once, before he
spoke further; but if they stayed they
must strictly, and on their oath, observe
his orders. He told them there would
never again be guests in the house to
require their labor and attendance; !;
that, except their own premises, only
these three rooms would ever be Occu-
pied again. He told them that from
that day he intended never either to see
or be seen by man or woman; and,
showing them loaded pistol with a
double barrel, told them one bullet was
for any one who should dare to intrude
or look upon his face, the other for him
self afterwards. In those three rooms
he should live apart, he said, and he
would have doors through which no
prying eyes could penetrate, and locks
no hands but his could understand. He
would give the rest of his orders in
writing, he said, after the other SER
wants had been dismissed.


So at once began this terrible life of
suffering solitude; and though no one
ever, from that day, penetrated into the
young squire's presence, and though he
had told his secret to no one, still it was
understood-fo the quietness Of the
whisper was horror, and not doubt
that slow disease was eating his life
away, and must first of all destroy the
beauty of which he had been so keenly
and so sensitively proud.


Year after year life went on for him
in this awful solitude. Into these rooms
he gathered about him all he could to
make such life bearable, and sent for
the choicest of the pictures in the gal
lery to hang about.


Wheh he rang this bell, the old man
servant found his written order passed
under that locked door. When he rang
the chamber bell, the door between the
two rooms was locked, and the curtains
hung heavily between, but that outer
door was open, and the man could ar
range or take away the meals (through
these meals the young squire had no
attendance), light the lamps or fires, or
what not. When the inner bell of all
rang, the chamber was at liberty, and
the servant who went about his tasks
EnnWinU FIJI Qf