People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 May 1896 — Untitled [ARTICLE]

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CHAPTER VIII. more; poison. “I ought to-4eave town and go with her at once,” said Cyril, as he sat, with his young wife's pitiful little letter in his hand, and an expression of deep anxiety upon his handsome face. “Tell me, Fred, how can I manage it?” Fred sat thouhtful and quiet for a good five minutes before he answered, half hesitatingly: “If you ask my advise ” “Ido;” said Cyril, emphatically. “Then I don’t see what good would be done by your going to her immediately at all. A letter, to reassure and console her, will answer quite as well, until your arrangements for her reception are completed; then you can go, or send me for her, and bring her to town. And, you must remember, you have been at home two weeks, and have never called upon Miss Ellis yet. What excuse or reason could you possibly give for leaving without seeing her?” “Confound Miss lEllis! My dear fellow, do you expect me to leave my wife in such a predicament, out of regard for what another woman may say?” * “Certainly not; but you asked my advise you know. Ido expect you to do it out of regard for the Huntsford fortune,” Fred answered, with a groan of perplexity and impatience. “And what influence can my actions, one way or the other, possibly have upon that?” He said. “Every influence,” answered Hastings, patiently, “as you yourself will acknowledge presently. You have long been tacitly considered May’s lover, and certainly your uncle’s will lends to confirm such a supposition; since who but a madman would refuse a splendid fortune and estate, simply because he must receive along with it a rich and lovely girl? You met the lady at the funeral, when the conditions of the will were made tfnown: she made no objections then; she has made none Httrce. opposition will not, voluntarily, come from her, then, and the inference necessarily is that she loves you. A woman who loves aqd believes herself slighted will be jealous, of course, and likely to suspect a rival. You were at Greendale nearly all summer. May knows that, and has often speculated—half piqued, half laughingly—as to what the attraction there could be. Once rouse her suspicions and—possessed of such a clew—she will find out your secret and ruin you.” “And will she not find it out when I bring my wife to town?” said Cyril, gloomily. “It will come to the same in the end, it appears to me.” “What can she find out in town? That she has a rival for whom you have made a charming little home? And what does that amount to? It isn’t a refusal to fulfill the conditions of the will, you know; and such a discovery might enrage her so that she herself would be the one to refuse.” Cyril's face flushed red. .“1 understand you,” he said. “You don’t mind her finding out Doily, if she doesn’t find out that Dolly is my wife.” Hastings nodded. “She would suppose, of course—oh! no, no, no, I could not do. my innocent little darling such a wrong. If ever she discovered it, it would break her heart.” “How is she going to discover it? You will guard her too well for that. Let the place you take be up at Harlem, where you yourself are unknown. And as to doing her a wrong, why, that’s ridiculous! She is your wife, what you may say, or others think, can make no difference in the fact, you know.” “That is so,” said Cyril, gloomily still, but beginning to yield to the other’s sophistry. “If you talk of doing her a wrong,” pursued his cousin, “I think the loss of this fortune, the taking.her away from a peaceful home, and exposing her to the vicissitudes of life that must be yours in, the precarious calling of an artist, constitute a much greater wrong than that of placing her in a slightly dubious position for a few months, which you can rectify at any time, and which she herself will never feel.” “I believe you are right.” said Cyril, more cheerfully. “Of course I am right. 1 have nothing but your welfare at heart, and I have thought of the