Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1898 — A TANGLED SKEIN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A TANGLED SKEIN

MRS. ALEXANDER.

CHAPTER XVlll—(Continued.) Standish naturally took advantage of •Colonel Callander’s absence in Fordsea to renew his visits to Prince’s Place. He was far too sensible to take offense at the "whims of a man so evidently out of mental harmony, and he was anxious to see as much as he could of his interesting ward, whose mood puzzled and distressed trim. In all her grief and depression she had always spoken to him with the utmost confidence, with a degree of unreserve Which showed how glad she was to open her heart to him. But for the last week she had grown silent, reserved, hesitating —she seemed to think before speaking to trim. One day, on reaching Prince’s Place, he was Shown upstairs to the drawing room, where he found Miss Oakeley. Still further upstairs Dorothy was amusing her little nephew and niece, as the chill February afternoon was too ehoweiy and east-windy to allow of their going out. Mrs. McHugh sat at her needlework, while “auntie” built up card houses for “Boy” to knock down. "And is there no news at all of Mr. Egerton?” asked Nurse, breaking a tolerably long silence, while she threaded her needle. "Mr. Standish had one letter from him, soon after he had reached Valencia, before he had time to do anything, but he has not written since, though be promised to do so.” "Well, to my mind, he is the likeliest man to do any good. Why, that wonderful detective has just been making fools of us.” “Mr. Egerton promised to write again soon, when he had anything to tell. Mr. Standish may have a letter any day." “Perhaps he has to-day. I fancy he has come, too, for I heard the doorbell a few minutes ago.” “Miss Oakeley is in the drawing room,” said Dorothy, without stirring. “Come, now,” said Mrs. McHugh, “my dears. I must clear that table, and get tea. Let Miss Dorothy go; she is wanted down stairs.” “And when you have finished tea, you shall come down, too,” said Dorothy, escaping with some difficulty. Descending slowly, Dorothy found the drawing room ajar, and, entering softly, saw Henrietta and Standish in the recess formed by a bay window, their backs were to her. He held Henrietta’s hand, and, as Dorothy paused, uncertain as to her next movement, Standish exclaimed warmly, “My dear Henrietta, how can I ever thank you enough?” a<nd kissed the hand he held. Dorothy slipped away as noiselessly as she had entered, and went down to a small study, where she selected a book; then, feeling strangely tremulous, she sat down and tried to clear her thoughts from the painful haze which seemed to dim them. Soon, very soon it seemed to her, Collins came in and said, “Miss Oakeley desired me to say that tea is ready, miss.” “Where have you been, Dorothy?” cried the tea-maker. “I have sent up and down to find you. Mr. Standish has a letter from Mr. Egerton, be wanted to show you.”

“There is very little in it.” said Standish. He had shaken hands with his ward, looking kindly and anxiously into her face, and then drawn over a chair for her. “I never expected much from him,” returned Dorothy. • . “He certainly is not sparins/himself,” returned Standish. “Here letter.” Dorothy took it and laid it On the table. Standish watched her with some curiosity, and Henrietta, who seemed in high spirits, launched into a description of her Aunt Callander's unreasonableness about the children, about the trouble they gave when they did go to see her, and the terribly bad system on which they were brought up. Then looking at her watch, she exclaimed: “Oh, I must go out! I promised my aunt to see her to-day. She has a bad cold. Indeed, Ido not think she is at all well. I am quite sorry about her, poor old thing! You can tell Dorothy what we have been talking about, Mr. Standish. Ring the bell, please, and tell Collins to get me a cab. Good-by,” she added to Standish, “I suppose you will be gone by the time I come back.” As soon as they were alone, Standish, after looking very earnestly at Dorothy, sat down on the sofa behind her. “Don’t you care to read the letter?” he asked. “I should prefer hearing its contents from you.” Her voice sounder dull and despondent. “Well, then,” taking it up, “Egerton, after much searching, has found an old muleteer whose nephew, Pedro, is a sailor, and was, the old man thinks, on board a vessel that traded between Cadiz and the Levant, and sometimes went further. The muleteer does not know where he is now, but he appeared last December kt Alicant, and seemed very flush of cash. Since then he has gone to sea again, and his return is problematical." “Yes, I suppose it is—very,” returned Dorothy quietly. “My dear Dorothy, something Is working in your mind which you hide from one. It is tormenting and distressing you. Don’t you think you had better open your heart to me?” “What is it Henrietta told you to tell sne?” “We have been arranging a scheme for Callander and all of you. We propose that When the time for which you took this house is up-—that is in about a fortnight, I think—yon should set up your headquarters in Brussels. There are pictures, and churches, and the field of Waterloo for Callander to meditate upon, and you are en route everywhere. Henrietta, I mean Miss Oakeley, thinks that if you persuade Callander that you cannot travel without him, he will consent to live with you, and then, the children and yourselves Mug constantly with 7 him, will draw him

gradually out of himself. He has sent in his papers and gives up the army, I am sorry to say, though I quite expected it.” “Yes. I think it is the best thing to be done,” she said. “Then you can discuss It with Henrietta this evening, and I shall see you tomorrow, when I hope there will be some tidings of Callander. Good-evening, njy dear ward.” A noisy farewell from the children, and he was gone. “Why did he kiss Henrietta’s hand? and what was it he thanked her for so enthusiastically ?” She went to sleep with this unanswered question preying on her heart.

CHAPTER XIX. They—that is, Mrs. Callander, Henrietta and Dorothy—waited in vain for a letter from the Colonel. , A week had passed and he made no sign. Dorothy was very uneasy, much more so than Henrietta or his mother, neither of whom shared her profound foreboding of evil. To them, his abstraction, his indifference to all, that formerly interested him, the distressed expression of his eyes, sometimes so dull, sometimes wild and reckless, were only marks of natural but unusually deep grief. To Dorothy they were indications of mental anguish too strong for the control of reason. It was, therefore, with a sense of infinite relief she heard Collins tap at the door, as she was changing her' warm out-door drees for one of lighter material, and say, in a brisk, cheerful tone-: “If you please, miss, the Colonel has come. He is in the drawing room.” Callander was sitting by the fire tn a large armchair, his hand on Dolly’s bead. Both children Were standing by him demurely, gazing with wondering, awed eyes at their now half-forgotten father. All seemed silent. “Dear Herbert, I am so delighted to see you!” cried Dorothy, running to greet and embrace him. He smiled absently, and stretched out his hand to her. “Why did you not write? I felt bq anxious about you.” *— “I was quite well. I had nothing to write about” The tete-a-tete which ensued was very trying. Callander sat quite still after the children had retired, answering the observations she forced herself to make from time to time with monosyllables, or the briefest possible sentences. She thought dinner would never be announced. How Dorothy longed for Standish! She was growing nervots—foolishly nervous. When they returned to the drawing room Callander again took the large easy chair. Dorothy began some needlework, and sat opposite him, in token of her readiness to converse if he was so inclined. He kept silence so long that Dorothy thought he was asleep. Suddenly he sat upright and exclaimed: “You are not like her, and yet you are. You haven’t her beauty!” “I know that well, Herbert,” she returned, hoping he would relieve his mind by talking of the dear dead. “Still she looks out of your eyes at me sometimes, Dorothy, and then I don’t know whether I hate or love you! You used to be like a daughter to me, and you are a good, kind girl. You must always take care of those poor children!" “Yes, I will, to the best of my ability,” said Dorothy, with difficultyokeeping back her tears. < - “You must never let my mother get hold of them, mind that.” “I hope you will stay with them, and order what is to be done for them. As to Mrs. Callander, why are you so unkind to her? She is very unhappy.” “Because I cannot forget how unkind she was to my lost darling,” he returned sternly. “And you should not forget it either! I can never forgive her. And she wants to make out that I am weak— weak in brain! She sent that fellow, Dillon, to dog my steps down at Fordsea!” “Indeed, I am sure she did not. He often goes down to Eastport in his endless search for traces of—of- ” She hesitated. “Of the murderer,” added Callander, with composure. “Ay, he may search. But I—l alone must punish, I tell you. I may wait, but I will have my revenge by my own hand!” Dorothy felt uneasy, but she wisely avoided contradicting him, and so kept silence. Callander, now fully roused, stood up and began to pace the room, “What has Egerton been doing? Has he written?” “Yes —he thinks be has found some traces.” “Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Callander—rather a terrible laugh. “He will never find the murderer away there!—never!” And he paused opposite her. “At all events, he said, in his letter to Paul Standish ——” “Standish!" repeated Callander, with a deadly, bitter tone, one that made the word sound like a curse. “Why do you speak his name to me? I wonder you dare!” And be resumed his restless walk. This seemed to Dorothy an opportunity for asking an explanation of his mysterious dislike to her guardian. “I do not know why I should not name him, Herbert. Tell me why you dislike him. It might relieve your mind.” “Tell you?” he repeated, "tell you! I have sometimes wished to tell you, that you might, know what a subtle devil ’’ He broke off, and muttered something to himself. "There,” he resumed, “you loved her well. You would shield her memory well.” “I would do anything for her sake—anything to comfort you!” cried Dorothy, unable to restrain her tears. Callander paced the room in silence for another minute, then ho suddenly sat down beside her on the sofa, which her usual seat, and, taking both her hands, which he held tightly, he said, low and quick: “I will tell you all —all! I

found it out just before—we lost her. It was my 'mother pointed it out! But before that, before I left India, there was a change, a faint change in her letters. You would not have seen it—no one would have seen it but a lover such as I was! I felt and knew that something had come between us.” Dorothy sat listening, motionless, with curdling blood. Had he indeed discovered the truth? “My mother wrote that Standish almost lived with her and you, but I would not notice her indhuations. Then I came home, and I kfiew there was a change. Still, she had some love for me, but he was always at her ear! He would not let her come away with me alone! That would have made all right. So I determined to have his life; but she—she ” His voice failed him, and he paused, panting, big drops standing on his brow. “Paul Standish!” cried Dorothy, wrenching her hands from him, all her force and courage returning. “Paul Standish is as innocent as I am. What —who put this horrible idea into your bead? You did not believe your mother, who told you this horrible lie?” “It is no lie!” be said, with a moan like that of a creature tn pain. “I saw it in her own Waiting.” “She never wrote anything to Paul Standish which the whole world might not see. Who has imposed upon you?” "Ah! you do not know. Neither she nor he would speak of such evil things to you. But, Dorothy, I will have patience, subtilty as profound as his, and patience. I will punish him yet, cruelly, unrelenting. I feel my hand on his throat now!” and he clenched both hie own, looking awfully wild, the fine, strong face she knew so well distorted by passion to a demon-like expression. Dorothy felt as if Paul’s doom was fixed, that nothing could save him. She —she only could undeceive the wretched man before her. “You are wrong. Herbert!” she said, bravely and steadily. “I can prove that you are wrong; I can prove that Mabel always loved you, that you do Paul Standish the greatest injustice. Will you wait here for a few minutes, and will you read what I bring you?” Callander, checked and astonished by her words and impressive manner, stopped, silent and still. “What do you mean?”'he stammered. “Yon shall see!” she cried, and flew away upstairs to where in the secret drawer of her old dressing case, inclosed in a blank envelope, lay the letter she had never been able to deliver into Egerton’s hands. AD fear, all hesitation was gone. What matter any danger to herself from the fury of the excited man she had left behind? Wbat matter the desperate retri but ion she might bring down on the real offender? Everything was secondary to the desire of proving that Mabel was really true to her husband, that Standish was innocent of tbe hideous treachery attributed to him—all consequences were swallowed up in this overpowering motive. (To be continued.!