Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1892 — HEARTS OF GOLD OR THE HEIRESS OF MAPLE LEAF FARM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HEARTS OF GOLD OR THE HEIRESS OF MAPLE LEAF FARM

CHAFTER V. DRIVEN FROM EDEN. An ex-convict! As if he had been dealt a sudden and 'terrible blow, as the vindictive Balph Prescott spoke those words, Paul Dalton staggered under a fearful shook. His face became the color of ashes, his eyes expressed the wretchedness and •despair of a man lost utterly, and, clutching at a ohair for support, he gasped, in ■a quivering, agonized tone: "It has come at last. The blow has fallen!” Parmer John stared at him With wondering, half-believing face. Ruth, with a little cry of terror, more at his bearing than at the accusation, seemed unable to rally from the shock it gave her. Only the revengeful, excited Prescott was alive to the real issue of the moment. “Do you see?” he cried in jeering, exultant tones. “He dare 3 pot deny it. Xet him dare say it ain’t 'time! I’ll ■prove what I say—l’ll prove it now and mere. ” “I neither affirm nor deny it. Let me pass.” The words were a sob. With dazed •eyes, his face a void of misery, Paul Dalton groped blindly for the door. Through it he passed. Upon him it •closed. The crafty Prescott himself was amazed. He had counted on triumph, but the victory had come too easy to him. The victim had submitted without a struggle. He had not even afforded ihim an opportunity to gloat over his •downfall. Farmer John had sunk to a chair, fairly overcome. He had housed not only a thief, a trifler with the affections of his only child, b.ut a man reeking with the prison-rot—branded as a wretch, with his hand against every man, and •every man’s hand against his own! Choking down her dread, her uncertainty, her anguish, Ruth managed to totter to her feet. “Father," she wailed, “I love him.” An awful frown darkened the brow of John Elliott. “Silence!” he ordered sternly. “Speak that man’s name in my presence again •and I disown you. Meet him, even address a single word to him, and I curse you.. And i trusted him—a thief, a convict." “It is false. Father! father!" oried Ruth, “can you think it true when you remember his goodness? His face is upt the face of a criminal, and his words -to me —oh! my heart is breaking, breaking.” “Why, he did not even deny it,” muttered Elliott.

“He dared not,” burst out Prescott. “Let him try it. I have a man at the village who knows him—was in the same cell with him. He was caged for forgery, and pleaded guilty to get a light sentence. Well rid of him, Mr. Elliott. Lucky to get him away without your throat cut or your house burned •over your head.” Buth was sobbing piteously. A realization that her tears were shed for the man he so hated nettled the spiteful Prescott like an ox-gcad. “And worse than all, he tried to steal her away from me. He ” “Enough of this, ordered Farmer -John, sternly. “It’s an experience I shall profit by. I’ve heard of such villains —robbing their benefactors, deluding silly girls. He’s not the man to leave us in peace, even after all the trouble he lias made. He’ll hang around and try to meet Buth again, and work on her sympathies, but there shall be no such risk. Buth, you know my iron will. There will be no further delay. Balph, your marrying her was settled long ago. ” “Father ” “Silence! My. blessing or my curse—a convict or an honest man—take your •choice. You marry Balph Prescott within a week, or you leave my roof forever.” He lifted the crushed girl to her feet, and led her from the room as he spoke. Her sobs died away in the distanoe. Grim-faced, the Boman father in mien and heart, he stood looking from the uncurtained window. The crafty Balph, gloating with triumph, approached him, but he waved him gloomily aside. Paul Dalton crossed the broad stream of lamplight cast across the gravel path a minute later. His head was bowed, his fa,ce colorless. • 'V . • ..■•■..* j‘J >' Never a word did he speak, never a backward glance did he take, until he had reached the stile. His face was one great void of despair as he halted, and,-turning slowly, looked across the fair field and the bright haven that was home to him no more. “It has come," he murmured, brokenly. “I might have known it. What right had I to love, what right to drag an innocent life to shame and sorrow? And I dared not deny—l dared not speak my promise, my oath! Well, it is only one more fetter to the heavy chain; but she —it was no crime to love her—but heaven forgive me for the grief I have brought to the woman whose love was the one bright star of a cheerless existence.” He turned to take the highway that bounded the Eden . of his dreams, but paused suddenly. From the hedge a woman’s form had fluttered. Her hands grasped his own spasmodically a minute later. “Buth!” She swayed where she stood, her eyes burning up into his own. “One word before you go,” she wailed, piteously. “Innocent or guilty—tell me quiok, tell me truthfully, or my heart will break!” , CHAPTER VI. v nisowuih. “I cannot, I dare not tell you!” The words seemed to sound doom, disaster to all Buth Elliott’s hopes—the despairing misery in Paul Dalton’s eyes crushed her. She had pleaded for an answer to that wild appeal, to know if he was innocent or guilty, for the sake of the love that was breaking her poor, anxious heart, and he had replied to her thus!

BYGENEVIEVE ULMER.

The clinging hands relaxed with a shudder. Terror in her eyes, she surveyed him in dubious dread. “Oh, iny love, ” she wailed brokenly, “you cannot mean that the cruel words Balph Prescott spoke are true!” He said you were ” “An ex-conviot!” cried Paul, the jaTing dissonance of tortured accents in his tones. “Did he not also say that he could prove it, and I”—he laughed harshly, bitterly—"l am powerless to refute him. ” Ruth’s eyes distended with shivering anxiety. “Then it is true?" she gasped. He grasped her hands suddenly. He looked down into her shrinking eyes with that earnest impressiveness that told that falsehood could never actuate it. “They said I was a thief,” he began. “ Oh, that I know is false! ” “They make another charge, Ruth. What I have feared has come. Better for your sake, better for the sake of those you love, better for myself, that we part here and now. Let the past engulf all this mystery, a mystery I dare not explain. Forget me, forget it all. Good-by.” “You are innocent. Oh! I see it in your face. I read it in your patient, suffering eyes. Leave you—forget you? Do you value a true woman’s love so lightly as that? Speak, Paul! I conjure you. Give me the one assurance my torn heart craves. Only say that you are innocent, and though they pile proof mountain-high, I will see your brave face shining, serene, defiant, above it all.” Paul Dalton’s pale, undecided features showed that he was suffering intensely. “Ruth," he said calmly, at last, “suppose this man Prescott, who hates me so, should prove that one Paul Dalton was imprisoned for forgery, filled a hideous convict’s cell; suppose the records evidence it, the testimony of others apparently verifies it, and I, unable to disprove it, unwilling to lift the veil of a mystery that would wreck lives I \hold precious, should deny it, simply deny it, and say to you, face to face, heart to heart, ‘it is a cruel lie,’ what would you say?" With a wild cry of joy, of perfect confidence, the fair young girl burled her face on his shoulder. “Only say that,” she breathed fervently, “only tell me that you are innocent!” “It is true—but there all explanation must cease. Even to you, the woman I love, I dare not explain a mystery that links my life to gloom and-doubt. My lips are sealed!” “But, surely ” “The veil will lift?—yes,” spoke Paul, bitterly. “When a heart of iron wills ,it —when he—no, I have said too much. To the censor of my fate, to the keeper of my destiny, I will make a last appeal for justice. If I fail—good-by! In a a month I will return, if the galling chains can be unlinked. ’’ “A month!” cried Ruth, shudderingly. “Do you know what that will mean—do you realize that my father, iron-willed, resolute, will by that time make me the the wife of the man whom you and I know to have caused all this trouble?” “He would not press the sacrifice—oh, surely, never!” panted Dalton, his eyes flashing indignantly. “He would not doom you, his darling child, to a loveless existence. It shall not be —I cannot lose you—l will not see you bound to wretchedness unutterable. Ruth, I will clear up this mystery—l will stand innocent before the world; but if I lose you There was the interruption of passing pedestrians, and they crossed the grove. Toward the distant town their feet strayed, he talking earnestly, she clinging to his words and suggestions, trembling, fearful, as she Realized that, once parted, once her father’s resolute will was carried out, their future happiness was doomed.

She sped home an hour later, a frightened, anxious look in her young face. She gained the house unobserved. “For his sake!” she murmured. “Heis innocent; he loves me. He has gone to clear his name—to remove the stain of shame and mystery. When they know, I must endure the blow. It was right—it was the only way; and I love him so —I love him so!” % Affairs seemed to come back to their usual routine within the course of the next few days. There was a settled cloud on Farmer John’s brow, but it was one of suspicion and watchfulness alone, and it became less dense as he seemed to be convinced at last that Paul Dalton had left the vioinity for good, and that Buth was getting over her foolish fancy for him. Balph Prescott did not worry Buth with either taunts or attentions. There was a new light in the girl’s eyes that he did not like—a definite consciousness of seourity, a mute defiance that made him restless. He was content to await the developments of the case, and they came quickly. Fanner John was obdurate, once an Idea got Into his stubborn head. He made a long call on Geoffrey Forsythe; he was thoughful, preoccupied all one day. At eventide, as Buth Prescott and himself were seated in the oozy dining-room, he said, abruptly: “Buth, come here.” She had been watching the first feathery snow flakes of the year, she had been thinking of him! Guiltily, tremblingly, she walked to her father’s side. “You have always been a good girl,” said Elliott, with a rude attempt at affection. “I am getting old —circumstances have hurried matters. I want to have things settled. I had a talk with your grandfather to-day. It is his wish, as well as mine, that we see you comfortably settled in life. ” Buth turned white about the lips, but was silent. “You know how we have planned and talked about it,” pursued Elliott gently. “Balph needs a wife to make him realize the responsibilities of .life. We have arranged for a quiet wedding—why, girl, don’t stand as if I was pronouncing sentenoe on you. Speak, can’t you!” cried Elliott, angry at the right of the pale face and downcast eyelids. Buth rallied with an effort. “You wish me to speak, father,” she said, in a strangely constrained voice, that somehow chilled the eager Prescott. “I want to see some return of affeotifcn and obedience for all my years of care and kindness,” replied her father in a nettled tone. “Not many girls can get a husband that pleases all hands around, and jump into a fortune from a fond, Indulgent grandfather. ” “I have always obeyed you, father,” replied Buth, “but in this—it can never be.” “How’s that?*

Fanner John's brow* grew? heavy and dark. “It can never be." "You won’t marry Ralph?" "I cannot.” "Cannot? Will not, you mean. Bee here, girl! If you have any lurking thought that I will ever consider that hypocrite jail-bird, Paul Dalton " “Stop!” Incisive as a clarion note the word sounded forth. “Stop!” repeated Ruth, drawing herself ereot like some affronted queen, “he Is no thief, no convict, and he la—my husband!" It was out at last! Ralph Prescott sank back crushed. Farmer John stared at the girl as if he adjudged her suddenly bereft of her senses. “Your husband!” he gasped, incredulously. “Yes, you drove him away—you and that wretch yonder. He told me it was all false, and I believed him. He has gone to seek the proofs of his innocence. The night he left I met him. We were hurriedly married at the next town. I knew that this would come. Not he, but I, placed this barrier against your cruel will, that would Otherwise have made of marriage a mockery, a crime, in linking my llfo to that of a man I loathe and despise!" She had never believed herself possessed of the oourage to tell It all; but, 10l the truth had been revealed dauntlesely. Farmer John regarded her in silenoe for a moment; then, a guttural, choking cry in his throat, he flashed out: “And this is true?" * “Yes; I am his wife.” The burly form trembled, the great knotted hands went up in the air in furious gesture, the lurid eyes glowed with the pent-up rage of an unmastered spirit. “Then go!" he almost yelled. “Go!" and he flung open the door with a crash. “You are no child of mine; you have chosen the jail-bird, the scoundrel; go find him. I pray heaven that my eyes shall never again rest on the child who has defied my authority, wrecked my life, and broken my heart. Girl, I curse you, I disown you out of my heart and out of my home. Go! You are no ohild of mine!" [to be CONTINUED.]