Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1898 — A Dangerous Secret. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Dangerous Secret.

By FLORENCE MARYATT.

CHAPTER II. —(Continued.) "Hash! hush!” cries Delia imploringly, as she rises to her feet with the child in her arms. “Hold your tongue, yon old vixen ” commenced James Moray, but his brother stops him. “Be quiet, Jem, and let us go upstairs. You’re not in a fit state to speak to any one.” “No, that Vs not, nor ever is,” replies Mrs. Timson, witheringly; “take ’im up with you, do, sir, and a precious bargain you’ve got. And if you don’t mean to stay here all night yourself you’ll be good enough to turn out again sharp, for I’ve waited up too long for yon already, and don’t mean to trust my ’ouse to a drunken sot like that ’ere.” James Moray here makes a futile dash at the landlady’s cap, but nearly upsets his balance in the attempt, and his brother with some difficulty guides his tottering feet up to the comfortless sitting room, where Delia has already preceded them with the boy. When at last they reach it they find her kneeling before the fire, taking off Willy’s wet garments and chafing his feet and hands, which are as cold as iee. The look of anxiety and reproach upon her face is quite sufficient to raise her husband’s choler. “Leave that brat alone,” he says, authoritatively, “and let him put himself to bed as best he may. I require your services.” But Delia can be angry, too. The meek spirit with which she bears his insult to herself does not extend to his behavior to her child. “I cannot leave him yet,” she answers, determinedly. “He Is wet through to the skin, and heaven only knows what harm you may not have done him by taking him out at night in such weather. If I do not see that he is thoroughly warmed and dried he will have an attack of inflammation before the morning.” “Do you mean to disobey me?” cries James Moray, as he advances toward ijer threateningly. He is a slight, effeminate specimen of his race, with pale blue eyes and reddish hair; but even an effeminate man is an alarming antagonist for a woman when he approaches her intoxicated and with uplifted arm. A sudden resolution seized Delia to appeal to the protection of her brother-in-law. She has never beeq intimate with William Moray, for though he constantly visits her apartments it is generally during the evening, when she is away from home. Delia dislikes him heartily, with his burly, well-fed manner and pompous speech, but surely, she thiuks, he can never stand smilingly by and listen to her husband’s abuse of her. “Mr. Moray, I beg you to interfere with your brother on my behalf. This child is exceedingly delicate, and most subject to violent attacks of cold that endanger his life. He ought never to have been taken out to-night; no fnther who had the least consideration for his health would have done so; but since the error has been confmitted I will not be deprived of applying the remedy. Pray reason with James and show him that I am right.” “Well—really ” stammers her broth-er-in-law, “I scarcely feel justified in—in —opposing—your—that is, my brother’s claim to what he thinks best with his own child!”

“Of course not,” interposes her husband, loudly. “One would imagine, to hear you speak, that the boy didn’t belong to me. Drop those clothes, I say! Drop them! Leave the brat to himself!” “I shall not leave him!” replies Delia, also raising her voice, as she resumes her occupation. The men are equally dmazed. “What!” exclaims Mr. William Moray. “Were you speaking to me?” demands the other. “I spoke to both of you!” she answers, rising and folding her arms closely round the child, as though to protect him. “It is I that work for this child. All the money that comes to this house comes through my labor, and I do it for Willy’s sake—no one else’s. Therefore I refuse to give up the right to attend to his wants —the common right that every mother has.” “I’ll be whipped if you shall attend to him now,” says James Moray, as he seizes the child by the arm and twists him out of her embrace. The is violent and makes the boy scream, and the sound of his voice in pain maddens his mother. “Mr. Moray!” she exclaims vehemently, “if you stand by and let your brother treat us in this way I will never forgive you. You don’t know the tyranny he exercises over me and my poor child. Only yesterday he beat Willy cruelly—look at his back and judge for yourself—and threw me from the top of the stairs to the bottom ” “Reall/, my dear lady, these little domestic differences can have no interest for a third party. They are so much better kept to one’s self.” “Little domestic she echoes scornfully. “Would your tvife call it a ‘little domestic difference’ if her arm was bruised as mine is?” “I should much prefer Mrs. Moray’s name being kept out of the conversation altogether!” “Oh, yes! 1 suppose her name is too good in your estimation to be mixed up with such a disgraceful affair as a tipsy man beating'"biswife. But my name is Mrs. Moray, I have not only to hear of it, but to bear it.” “I think, James,” says William Moray, turning to his brother, “it would be as well if I wished you good-night.” “All right,” replies James, in a halfstupefied manner. He is still leaning up against the wall, with the partially undressed and weeping boy in his grasp. And William Moray, the well-fed, respectable city man, who can visit and encourage his dissipated brother in bis vices, but never ask him to his own home or stretch out a helping hand to aid him to a better life, prepares to return to his vulgar, thriving home at Brixton. But Delia will not let him pass. She places herself before the door and glares at him like a tigress. “You shall not go until you have heard me speak,” she says. “You come here and encourage this man in his drinking and his idleness; you know that he lives upon my earnings and ill-treats me in return; you know that you are ashamed to ask him to your own house or introduce him to your friends, and yet when I —a woman—appeal to you for protection and help, against him, you smile and turn the subject, and say you’ll take your leave. Well, then, I defy you both—there! Keep your drunken brother, since you are so fond of his company; support him yourself, for I am sick of it. My money is my own —not his—and I refuse any longer to keep him in idleness and vice, while I toil and slave. Go home and tell that to your wife, or I may take it into my head some day to tell her myself. Between you both you have made me desperate!” She looks so as she stands there, with the fire of indignation gleaming from her eyes. “Most extraordinary—never heard of such a thing!” mutters William Moray, as he slips past hdr down the stairs.

Then she is left alone with her husband, and fear succeeds to desperation. Her vehemence has almost sobered him. He looks as though he were about to speak. ? She puts her boy into his little bed with many a fervent kiss, and returns to the sitting room, inwardly trembling, though outwardly calm, to collect his scattered clothes. Poor little Willy has but one suit. If she does not, hang it before the Are to dry he will have nothing to wear upon the morrow. Delia glances round suddenly and meets her husband’s eyes. The semi-intoxicated look has faded from them; her daring has dispelled it. She knows now that she has to encounter a man sober enough to -be dangerous, and sufficiently strengthened by liquor to feel his power. Her first impulse is to secure the weapon nearest at hand, and that is a chair. She puts it in front of her and grasps it tightly, as James Moray, with his effeminate, puny face and evil eye, advances toward her.

CHAPTER 111. • “Well,” he commences insolently, “and so you have chosen to insult my best friend, have you? and in my presence, too.” “Your best friend, is he? For my part, I should be ashamed to be able to call no better man ‘friend’ than one who pandered to my vices* and yet did not consider me good enough to associate with his family.” She is crying bitterly now, with her face hidden in her hands, but her tears have no more effect upon James Moray than they have upon the table. “I won’t have this sniveling,” he says, coarsely; “stop it! do you hear? It’s all put on. An actress can pretend anything she Whether I struck you or not, you had no right to tell William of it. What concern is it of his? And you’ve spoilt, maybe, the best day’s business I ever did in my life, by blabbing of me in that way.” All this time it has never occurred to Delia to ask why her husband and his brother took the unusual trouble to drag out her delicate child, in such inclement weather, to accompany them on their round of pleasure. And she catches at the last words of her husband’s address eagerly. They seem to contain a glimmer of hope for her. “How? by what means? has your brother offered to help you get work?” “Work! work! I’m sick of the word; you never seem to have an idea beyond it. I’d have you know that my family w r ere not brought up to labor, whatever yours were.”

“The more shame for them, if they leave their wives and children to starve. And I may slave on forever to keep you In drunken idleness, while your brother stands and looks on and sneers at my parentage and my profession. Rut he shall not have the opportunity to do so much longer.” “What do you moan by that insinuation?” “I refuse to say. You will find out in time for yourself.” “By Jove! she shall tell me!” exclaims James Moray, striding across the apartment to her side and grasping her by the wrist. “Now, what is it?” But Delia clinches her teeth and is silent. “Then take the consequences of your cursed obstinacy.” The uplifted hand comes down heavily upon the side of her head, but she does not resent it further than by closing her eyes as it descends. But when she receives it she draw's a long breath, and, springing up from her seat, confronts her husband. “What do you thiuk of that?” he says, jeeringly. “I think, as I have alw’ays thought, that you are a coward and a bully. I think —what r was fool enough to deny to-day, when it was suggested to me—that the best thing you can do is to drink yourself to death, and that the sooner it happens the better for all connected with you.” At this moment there comes a cough—a single hollow cough—from the next room. Della hears it and makes a spring for the door. But it is locked, and the key is in Moray’s pocket. “Unlock the door, James! I must go to Willy ” His reply iB given in a tone of perfect coolness, although a look of his eyes betrays that he knows his power. “I prefer your remaining here!” She comes up behind him as close as she can as he unlocks the bedroom door. “James—dear James, do let me come, too.” His answer is to throw her violently from him in the center of the room. Her tied hands prevent her being able to save herself in the slightest degree, and she falls, first against the table and then on the floor, striking the back of her head and hurting herself considerably. As she rises, confused and dizzy, she hears the key turned again on the opposite side of the door, and finds herself a prisoner. She rushes forw'ard and kicks with her feet against the panels. “James!—James! —James! —for the love of heaven, come back - and take me to my boy!” But all the answ’er she receives is conveyed by the sound of the slamming and locking of the-bedroom door, and she feels that further appeals to his pity w r ould be in vain. She hears Willy ask for her again and again, and the same order to him to be silent reiterated by his father, accompanied by a threat of punishment if he is not obedient. The mother’s suspense becomes agonizing; her brain seems almost to turn with the dreadful fear that oppresses her. She beats her body against the wall that divides them, and screams to her husband to administer the remedies for the child’s relief. The effect of her vehemence is that Mr. Moray, in a loud voice, threatens to thrash the boy if he disturbs him again. The feeble complaint is nevertheless repeated, and—what sound is thaf? The inhuman monster is beating his sick —maybe his dying child. Delia’s senses seem to forsake her. She beats, with her pinioned arms, against the wall, the door, the window, in her mad, indignant horror, until, desperate at her impotence, and worn out with conflicting emotions, she sinks unconscious on the floor.

CHAPTER IV. The next morning dawns upon a bright, cold day. Mrs. Hephzibah Horton rises with the lark. This morning, however, she ihtends to devote to the interests of her friend. Among the most ardent admirers of her freedom of thought and action is her legal adviser, Mr. Bond. This little man and Mrs. Horton are always quarreling, and yet neither of them is happy without the other. Mrs. Hephzibah, armed to the teeth with an umbrella, boots and waterproof, steps into the office in Ilolborn and asks for Mr. Bond. The-clerk in attendance, having given her a dusty seat, flies to inform his principal that this wellknown client seeks an interview. “Well, my dear Mrß. Horton, this is an unexpected pleasure,” commences the solicitor as she is ushered into his presence. “Don’t talk nonsense! Why shouldn’t you expect me one day as well as another ?'

- ;-v y. \ ■ And here Mrs. Horton details as much as is necessary of Delia Moray’s circumstances and history, to which Mr. Bond listens attentively, lying back in his office chair, with his eyes closed, and his hands slowly rubbing one over the other. “You wish me to understand,” says Mr. Bond, when she has concluded, “that your friend is desirous to separate from her hnsband and to maintain herself?” “That’s it. She wants to get rid of a brute who ill-treats herself and her child and squanders all her earnings.” “There is a family, then?” “There is one child.” “WeH, it seems to me that the best plan would be for your friend to establish herself in a home of her own, and if her husband persecutes her, then to take out a protection order aghinst him. But if he can and will support herself and the child, there is no law by which she can leave his protection.” “All she wants is permission to support herself and her child away, from that man.” “Of course your friend is aware that if her hnsband chooses to claim the child she will have no power to oppose him?” “What! Can’t she keep her own child?” “Not if it is above seven years old, and the father will not consent to her doing so.” “Then, if I understand you rightly, should Mrs. Moray take out a protection order against him, she won’t be able to claim the boy—as part of her right?” “Certainly not The child belongs to her hnsband.” Mrs. Hephzibah Horton does not speak for a few moments. If she were a man she would swear horribly—as she is a woman, she bites her lip and is silent. But the same choleric indignation that produces oaths is rising in her breast the while, and as soon as she thinks she has obtained sufficient command over herself to speak it bursts forth. “So—thiß is your law—is it?” she exclaims, rising from her seat. “I wondei an honest man like yourself is not ashamed to sit sniggling in your chair and weighing it out as a grocer does his sand, pretending to think it sugar all the while. You must know what a horrid cheat and fraud it is. What! You tell me there is no chance of redress for this unfortunate woman, unless she consents to part with her child —the only creature for w'hom she longs to burst these unnatural bonds, and live in peace! But if she had been frail instead of honest she would at this moment have been free to quit her taskmaster and take her boy out of his clutches. Here! let me go—do! I must tell poor Delia the upshot of this as soon as possible, for I’m afraid I raised hei hopes last night for nothing. I’ll come and see you again, some day, when I’ve got over'this, and feel in a better temper; or, perhaps I’ll run out to Hampstead next Sunday and have tea with you and the boys. But let me go now, for the air of your room stifles me. Injustice and robbery! Robbery and injustice! That’s what the whole system amounts to.” Saying which, in no inaudible tone, Mrs, Hephzibah stalks through the outer office into the street, leaving the clerks in a state of bewilderment as to what particular wrong she alludes to. (To be continued.)