Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1894 — UNITED AT LAST [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNITED AT LAST

BY MISS M E BRADDON

CHAPTER XXVII-Continued-Gilbert handed the Coroner Melaine’s letter, which had now assumed a crumpled and dilapidated appearance, as of a letter that had lain all night in the dew and dirt of the footpath under the trees. The Coronor puzzled through the letter, reading it aloud, with various mistakes and pullings up and tryings back, the jury listened open-mouthed. “This clearly indicates that Mr. Wyatt came here by appointment," remarked the Coroner, sagely. “Who is this Melaine Duport?" "My wife's mail.” It was explained to the Coronor that Melaine Duport was missing. After this, the jury having duly viewed the body, or, at any rate, made believe to view it, the' inquest was adjourned to give the local police time to make their investigations, though what they wore to invest'gate seemed a somewhat puzzling question. . “They’ll bring some London detectives, who will look into my room, see those guns, and then put two and two together,” thought Gilbert. “I don’t suppose my alibi wou d hold water at the assizes. A jury would want some independent evidence to sustain my account of my time between 7 o clock and midnight yesterday.” Trrtvr ****** The Coroner’s inquest dragged its slow lengths along. No new evidence was elicited to make the case stronger a lainst Gilbert Sinclair. The fact of his departure remained the only damning fact against him. There was also the fact of Melanie Duport’s disappearance on the morning of the murder, and opinions were divide:! as to which of these two was guilty, or whether both had not been concerned in the ait. The newspapers made much capital out of an event which soon became known as the Davenant Mystery, and Constance Sinclair had the horror of knowing that she was the ob ect of a morbid interest in the minds of the nation at large. She left Davenant almost immediately after her husband, and took up her abode at Marchbrook, with Martha Briggs and the little girl for her only companions, until the arrival of Lord Clanyarde from the con-

tinent. The inquiry before the coroner endod at last in an open ve; diet. The deceased had been shot by some person or persons unknown. Davenant was formally taken possession of upon midsummer day, not by Sir Cyprian Davenant, but by his lawyer, who installed some of the old family servants as care-takers. Sir Cyprian had left England, a few days before James Wyatt s death, on his long-talked-of African expedition. The year wore round and the horror of James Wyatt’s unexplained death faded out of the national mind, as all such horrors do fade when the newspapers leave oil writing about them. Constance lived her quiet life at Marchbrook as she had lived at Davenant, happy with her child, yet mindful, with a shuddering pity of that fi i ndless wanderer doomed to bear the brand of Cain. Christmas came and passed, and for nearly a year she had remained in ignorance of her husband's fate. Then came a letter, in a strange hand, but signed by Gilbert Sinc'air: “Dear Constance. —lamdown with a malignant fever common to this part oi the world, and generally fatal. Before I die I should like to ask you to forgive me for all the pain my jealousy gave you in days gone by, and to teil .you that I now believe that jealousy to have been causeless. It was what the thieves call a ‘put up’ business, and Wyatt was the lago. He set a trap for me, and got snared himself in toe end. “I want to tell you something else, which may perhaps distress you, but that is no fault of mine. The child you are so fond of is not your own. Boor little Christabel was leally drowned, and the little girl brought to Davenant while you were ill is a child adopted for the purpose of bringing about your recovery. This plan was sugge ted to me by your father. He knows all about it. “I have made my will, and sent it to my London lawyers. I leave you ■e, erything. So, if matters go well in the North, you will be a very rich woman. 1 wasted a good deal of money on the Newmarket stable; but, with your qu et life, you will soon recover lost ground. Of course you will marry C. D. W ell. I can't help that, I ought never to have thrust my.-elf between you and your first Jove. Nothing but misery has come of our marriage. “God bless you, and give you a happier life than you would ever have spent with me. Your dying husband, “Gilbert Sinclair. “P. S. — If I go, the man who w.ites this, Thomas Grace, tobacco grower, will send you certificate of death, and all necessary evidence. If I live, you shall hear from me again.” ’

CHAPTER XXVIII. CRUET, KINDNESS That letter from her dying husband was a bitter blow to Constance Sinclair. There was the keen sense of loss; the knowledge that her lovely cbiid had verily sunk beneath the German river never to rise again save as a spirit amidst the choir of angels. There was the deep humiliation of knowing that she had been duped. They had taken advantage of her affliction and consoled her with a lie. She had been fooled, deceived and deluded, as a child is deluded for her good. Her soul rose up against this mocking of consolation in bitterest anger. Her very thanksgivings to Heaven—tho.-e outpourings of a mother’s grateful heart overflowing with its wealth of joy—had been offered up in vain. She had no reason to ba thankful. Heaven and earth had conspired in ill treating her. God had taken away her reason, and man imposed upon her folly. Whom upon earth could she ever trust again, when even her father had so deceived her? With her husband's letter came the certificate of his death. The same post brought her a letter from Gilbert’s lawyers, to inform her of their receipt of his will, executed on his deathbed.

After those tears given to the untimely dead, her thoughts were full of anger. She could not forgive the deception that had been practiced, even though it had been done to save her life. “Better a thousand times to have died in that dim dream than to awake to such a disappointment as this,” she said. While she sat with Gilbert’s letter open before her. abandoned to a tearless despair, the little one’s voice sounded in the corridor, and she heard the light, swift footstep which always made her heart thrill. To-day it struck her with an actual pain. She rose involuntarily and ran to the door as she had been accustomed to run to meet her pet. rejoicing at the child's approach; but, witti her hand upon the door, she stopped suddenly. “No, I won t see her—litt e impoitor —living lie—to have stolen my love and my dead child Poking down upon me fro n heaven all the while —looking down to see her place filled by a stranger—lonely in heaven,perhaps,for want of a mother’s love, and seeing her mother’s heart given to another. ” The light-tripp.ng step camenea-er. “Mamma! mamma!” called the glad young voice. Constance locked the door. “Go away,” she cried, hoarsely; “I don't want you!” There was a pause—complete silence —and then a burst of sobbing. The strangeness of that tone had chilled the’child’s heart. Lips that had hitherto only breathed hive, to day spoke with the accents of hate. Instinct told the child the greatness of the change. The little feet retreated slowly down the corridor —not so lignt of step this time —the sobs died away in the distance. “I will never see her face again,” cried Constance. "Some wretched child —perhaps the offspring of sin—base at heart as she is lair of face—and so like my lost one —so like—so like. No. I will send her away—settle a sum of money —provide handsomely for her—poor child, it is not her crime—but never see her again. Yet, oh, Gcd! I love her. And she is crying cow, perhaps. The loving little heart will break. ” She had been pacing the room distractedly. This last thought was too much to bear. She ran to the door, unlocked it, and went out into the corridor, calling, “Bel e. darling Belle, come back, iam waiting for you yet.” “My pet, I love you, I shall love you to my dying day,” she cried, passionately. “Hearts can not be played with like this. Love can not be given and taken away. ” The child hugged her. and was comforted, understanding the love, if not the wbrds that told it. “Belle hasn’t been haughty, has she, mamtna?” she asked, with innocent wonder. “No, pet; but mamma has been very unhappy. Mamma has had a sad le - ter. Oh, here comes Martha, ”as that devoted nurse entered the night nursery. “Do you know, Martha, I think Cristabel wants change of air. You must take her to Hastings for a little while.” “Lor’, mum, that would be nice. But you’ll come, too, of course. You wouldn’t like to be parted from her. ” “I don’t know that I could come, quite at first. I might come afterward, perhaps. I have some very sad business to attend to.” Constance told Martha of Mr. Sinclair's death, but not a word of that imposture which had just been revealed to her. Martha had t een as completely deceived as she had, no doubt, Constance argued, for she know it was not in the girl’s honest nature to assist in a deception. The likeness to the lost child had deluded them both. “I suppose all children of the same age ana complexion are alike,” thought Constance; “and yet I fancied my baoy was different from a 1 other children.” She wished to send the child away, in order, if possible, to cure herself of the habit of loving a child that had no claim on her —to love whom was a kind of treason against the beloved dead. The preparations for the journey were hurried over; Martha was delighted to pack and be off. The child was pleased to go, but cried at parting from “mamma. ” At two o’clock in the afternoon the carriage drove Martha and her charge to the station, with the steady fold Marchbrook butierl for their escort. He was to take lodgings for them, and to make all things easy ,for them, and see them comfortably settled before he came back to, Marchbrook. Constance breathed more freely when the child was out of the house, and there was no chance of hearing that light footstep, that clear, sweet, childjsh voice. Yet how dreary the big old house seemed in it 3 solitude, how gloomy the rooms, without that fluttering, changful soul and all the busy life she made around her—the family of dolls—the menagerie of woolly animals, all atticted with the same unnatural squeak.gaud internal noise never heard to issue from any animpd that ever lived in the realm of zoology. “It would have broken my heart to keep her near me, ” thought Constance, “and I feel as if it must break my heart to lose her.” Sho sent for Dr. Webb. He was in the plot, doubtless. It was at his advice, perhaps, that this heartless deception had been practiced upon her. If it were so, she felt that she must hate him all her life. Tha little village surgeon came briskly enough, expectingto find a mild of measles, or some other infantile ailment, in the Marchbrook nursery. What was his astonishment when he found Cinstance pacing the lo:g dreany drawing-room, pa e, with two burning spo!s on her cheeks,eyes bright with fever. “My dear Mrs. Sinclair, what is the matter?” “Everything,” cried Ccnstarce. “My poor husband is dead, and on his deathbad wrote me a letter telling me the cruel truth. Your wicked plot has been discovered. Yes, wicked; for all lies are wicked. You can not do evil that good may come of it. You saved my life, perhaps, but what a life! To find that 1 have lavished my love upon an impostor; that when I thanked God on my knees for His bounteous mercies, I had received no gracious gift. He had shown no pity for my sorrows: but you —you and my father had played at Providence, and had pretended to.j'erform a miracle for my sake. It was a cruel, infamous deception.” j “It was designed to save your life, and, what is even more precious than life, your reason,” replied Dr. Webb, wounded by the harshness of this attack. “But whatever blame may attach to the strategem, you may spare me your censure. I had nothing to do with it The German physician, whom i your father brought here, was the ad--1 v'ger from whom the suggestion came.

He and your father carried It out between them, i had nothing to do but look on, and watch the effect of the shock upon you. That was most happy.” “The German doctor,” said Constance. wonderingly. “Yes, I remember him faintly, as if it were a dream —that winter night. He made me sing, did he not? His voice had a mesmerical effect upon mo. I obeyed him involuntarily. His presence' seemed to give me comfort, stranger though he was. It was very curious. And then he bent over me and whispered hope, and from that instant I felt happier. And it was all a mockery after all; it was a trick. Tell me who aud what the child is, Dr. Webb.” “I know nothing of her origin. Lord Clanyarde brought her to Davenant. That is all I can tell you. ” “Fool! fool! fool ” cr ed Constance, with passionate self-reproach, “to take an impo tor to my he rt so blindlv, to ask no questions, to bell ve without proof or witness that heaven had performed a miracle for my happiness. What right had I to suppose that Prov.donee would care so much for me?” “You have great cause to bo thankful for the restoration of life and reason. Mrs. Sinclair,” said the Doctor, reproachfully. ' “Not if life is barren and hopeless! not if reason tells me that I am childless.” “You have learned to love this strange child. Cannot you take consolation from that ailectiou?” “No; I loved her because I believed she was my own. It would bo treason against my dead child to love this impostor. ” “And you will turn her out-of-doors, I suppose, and send her to the workhouse?” "I am not so heartle sas that. Her future shall be provided for, but 1 shall never see her again. I have sent her to Hastings witn her nurse, who adores her. ” “That's fortunate, since she is to be deprived of everybody elses affection.” There was a spice of acidity in the doctor's tone. He had attended t e child in various small illnesses, had met her almost daily riding her tiny Shetland pony in the lanes, and entertained a warm rogard for the pretty little winning creature, ivho used to Eurse up her lips into a rosebud for im to kiss, and had evidently not the least idea that ho was old and ugly. “Since you can toll me nothing, I shall send for my father,” said Constance; “he must krfow to whom the child belongs.” “I should imagine so.” replied the doctor, glad to feel himself absolved of all blame. It w T as a painful position, certainly, he thought. He had anticipated this difficulty from the beginning of things. He was very glad to take his leave of his patient, after hazarding a platitude or two by way of consolation. Lord Clanyarde was in Paris enjoying the gayeties of the cheerful season before Lent, and making himsolf extremely comfortable in his bachelor room at the Hotel Bristol. He had married all his daughters advantageoujly and buried his wjfe, and felt that his mission ha i been accomplished, and that ho was free to make his pathway to the grave a i pleasant a i he coula. From January to March he found his aged steps traveled easiest over the asphalt of Paris, tnd as poor Constance was happy with her adopted child, ho folt no scruples against leaving her to enjoy life in her ow r n quiet way. |TO BE CONTINUED.!