Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1902 — NORA'S TEST [ARTICLE]

NORA'S TEST

BY MARY CECIL HAY

! From ■ "Darkness • To Light

CHAPTER XVHL—(Continued.) “Nora,” Dr. Armstrong said, letting his eyes pass over Lord Keaton's face with a supercilious smile, but evidently suspicious in that moment even of Nora, “I can trust you—in any company. I can trust you to recollect what matters relate solely to your own family, and on what subjects you have bound yourself to secrecy.” - > “Miss St. George is not one to break a vow,” rejoined Mark, with calm disdain, “even though it were wrung from her by the meanest lies." “Yon speak courteously,” observed Nuel Armstrong, smiling, as he hissed the wbrda ajowiy, in hta cowanlly fury;“btrt that, of course, is what we are tempted to expect from our aristocracy? I am glad you have reached your height among them at last. The position must naturally gratify you. Only try to escape an unexpected descent. It would be mortifying and humiliating for a lofty soul to return to the untitled herd from which it so lately sprung; and—lTffay possibly live to see you do it. One other thing I would tell you before we part; and what I aay I mean, Lord Keston; if I hear of your trying to worm yourself into my cousin's confidence, or to learn secrets •he has sworn to keep, I shall hold back my hand no longer.” “Do your worst; that is, if you have not already exhausted your worst.” “Nora,” cried Dr. Armstrong, throwing off, at last, every shadow of compunction, and letting loose his rancorous hatred to the man opposite him. “I will keep silent no longer—even for your sake, and for that you have this man to thank, who wears the title which has been so fatal to your house. When you recall this scene, remember that I would have •pared you, but that his malice and arrogance wrested all forbearance from me. No need to tell you to whom I refer, Nora, when I say I will bring him here now. He shall face his verdict, and then, when the truth is known, you will see who was your real friend, and loved you, knowing that very truth which will excite his contempt. It is time for my revenge now. and I will take it.” “If you feel yourself able to go through with it,” observed Mark, with easy negligence, “you cannot begin too soon.” “You speak without understanding,” rejoined Nuel, with a fierce, furtive glance tat othe stem face of the younger man. “No; I fancy 1 understand,” he answered, in his leisurely way, ‘‘aud I fancy I can gauge your power, sir. You threaten that you will bring to England" a mat) who —if known to be alive here —would be captured by law for a crime committed more than eighteen years ago. No matter whetherhehas escaped the letter of the law or not, he will be ruined for life as an English—well, simply an English gentleman, let us say.” “Ruined for life!” sneered Nuel. “That is a novel way of regarding the impossible future of a criminal. 1 have need but to swear to his identity—and 1 will do •o, unless Nora herself pleads with me — and he dies as a murderer should!” “You will do your part promptly and skillfully. I have no doubt,” said Mark, as he led Nora away. "Why should you delay, through any trifling quqhns at all? Put the finishing stroke to your Tong career of personal ambition and animosity. I shall be prepared. I will even court that trial which you threaten. And, in the meantime. as you know quite you have nothing to fear from Miss St. George's betrayal of a secret of yours. "Nora,” whispered Mark, presently, as he paused a moment, in doubt whether Dr. Armstrong would follow them to the house or not, "do not tremlrte so. It will be all well When he has done his worst, as now he threatens to do, I have been expecting this. 1 would myself have hastened it long ago—l mean as soon as the power was mine, on my uncle's death; but, in my search for you, sweetheart, how had 1 room for other thoughts and projects? He will scarcely, even now, act before 1 am ready for him; for when I have left you. my love, I shall have no strong impulse to keep me lingering here. And then, when this last cloud has passed, we shall —dearest, du not let that old shadow fall across your face, even at words of mine. I have made a promise myself, have I not, to help you iu carrying yours? You shall not listen to any plea of marriage front Lord KestiffTTUffd yet. my beloved, you shall love him —just, as be loves you.” •

CHAPTER XIX. The arrival in Mill wall Docks of a Swedish steamer frtrtn Gothenburg was Bot an event sufficiently rare to create excitement on that account alone, yet the excitement in the midst of which two gentlemen lau led from the Gung King w«a no new thing, as they understood well; though it was quite apart from that inevitable noise and seeming confusion with jt'hich every vessel is haled into an English port. "If I had been brought here blindfolded.*' said the elder man, speaking in a low, refined tone, while the jargon and the patois went on around them, f ‘l should not have distinguished this as the English shore.” “All the better," said Mark Poynx, promptly, while he led his companion toward the cab which had been called for him. “I da not Mish you quite yet to feel that you are at home in England. —Bran if Wft are detained in town for a longer time than we expect?’ he added, coolly, as they drove away, while his shrewd and quixxical eyes rested upon a ■san who, as they waited him. raised his •tick to summon a passing hansom, “wo •hall probably find a wholesome excitement in the detention itself." Lord Euston's companion was a man at little more than forty years of age, yet the stoop in bis narrow shoulders, Ms scanty hair, and the dreamy, inlooktng expression of his eyes, gave the ImpreMiion of a much older man. A strong •ontrast he was to Mark; yet there was some strange, subtle resemblance in the voicca of the two men, uninterfered with •ren by the slightly foreign accents of the stranger. This resemblance struck Mark himself later on, as they atom! bofore the fire la a private sitting room at then hotel, talking earnestly and thought-

fully; and he spoke of it at last with a little amusement. While his companion paused before answering, with a nervous hesitation which seemed habitual to him, Mark walked to the window and looked down into the street. He had not stood there many minutes before a man came sauntering from a shop opposite and crossed directly to the hotel. “We may just as well avoid all fuss and publicity,” observed Mark, coolly, as he turned from the window, “and hasten through this unpleasant affair. By this time my telegram will have reached Doyle at the Inns of Court Hotel. Arthur, my dear fellow,” he added, earnestly; laying his hand for a moment on the shoulder of his friend, “don't look so down-hearted. Remember, you have nothing to fear as an eventual barrier to your return to the old home and life, to the restoration of your daughter, and the public acknowledgment of your innocence. You have not, indeed; and no man would shrink at going through a little temporary harass and delay to insure such a result.” “Tell me of ——” “No,” interposed Mark, with that resolute firmness of his which was so quiet; “I will tell you nothing of Nora. What a persistent fellow you are, to return to that-request again, Tn spite of me! No, you would only say I exaggerate everything. If there is one subject I dare not trust myself to talk of just now,” he added, both his eyes and voice earnest, “it is that which fills my thoughts as well as yours. Come, you, who have so bravely spent three years of exile and denial, would never show.the white feather at the very last, when such a different life is opening, just because we must needs stumble oyer the threshold. I'm* afraid that adroit and patjent officer is very tired of keeping his eye upon me. He so thoroughly deserves his reward at last, that I will go and anticipate it for him.”

So when, ten minutes afterward, the man who had waited until this hour to arrest Arthur Poynz, came up to the room to act upon his information, Mark came With him; and the departure of the three seemed quite simple and natural, and altogether unlike a legal arrest. - —♦- ♦ * * ♦ ' • ■ . . . » - “Doyle,” whispered Mark, in his leisurely way—the Irish lawyer sat anxiously scrutinizing the faces in the police court while Lord Keston spoke to him—“ Dr. Armstrong looks pretty confident of holding the winning cards, eh?” The lawyer nodded, without a word, his attention thoughtfully fixed upon Nuel Armstrong when he was sworn. Then he followed every word, as Dr. Armstrong testified to the fact that Arthur Poynz had been -suspected of administering poison in the year 183 S, to one Catherine Say, at Heaton Place, in the County of Surrey, and had escaped before the conclusion of -the inquest, throwing his hat and cloak into a certain lake of deep water, with intent to elude the law by a suppositions death.

All this Nuel Armstrong was slowly and distinctly making evident in his answers, when the presiding magistrate broke the thread of information with a jiuestion which—as far as the listeners could tell—had at that moment struck ; “Were you sworn upon the Gospels?” “I was sworn,” returned Nuel, with the air of scornfully dismissing an irrelevant subject, “in the usual way.” “Do you,” continued the magistrate, unmoved, “believe in the Gospels?” With the calm aud supercilious smile which so often stirred his thin Tips, Dr. Armstrong glanced into one or two of the faces around hiffi. itnd answered: “I believe in them, of~course —as men generally believe in them—as detached portions of the history of a certain epoch.” "Do you believe in them?” persisted the magistrate, without the slightest change in the expression either of his face or voice. “I acknowledge," Nuel answered, still with the smile upon his lips,'"just what all sensible and thoughtful men acknowledge—that they are trustworthy records of a particular age. And beyond that, I consider myself bound in honor 4o speak the truth, and the whole*truth, after being sworn upon them.”

“There is no need at nil for you to enlarge upon the subject,’’ returned the magistrate, briefly. "Your answer can only be a word. Do you believe in the Scriptures—yes or no?” “In a general way, and for this purpose, I-—” "Attend to my question, it you please,” interrupted the magistrate, with emphasis on the reiterated qnpry, "Do you believe in the inspiration of those Gospels on which you have been sworn? If you do not, your oath cannot be taken.” “I—no man believes in the whole,” asserted Nuel, his plausible smile growing an effort to him, as his fury was roused. “But I consider myself bound on my oath to utter only what is the truth.” “Then,” absented thp magistrate, in a rather raised, quick voice, “you do not believe in a God?” “I do not understand such a question here,” returned Dr. Armstrong, his lips tightening more and more as his eyes fell upon the bent head, and easy, apparently inattentive expression of Mark Poynx. “It is a simple question. Have the kindness to answer it simply, too."' “I do not understand the term.” “I think 1 may safely say, then,” remarked the magistrate, pointedly, "that you are the only man present who does not do so." • “There may be a Being of “ "No circuit of words, if you please," was the reply, uttered with growing emphasis. “I call upon you to say if you believe that there is a God?” “I have already answered that question." replied Nuel, his lips growing hard and dry upon his teeth. “No, you have not” “I have already said I believe in portions of the history where that name is mentioned." “Yos do not believe, then,” insisted the magistrate, impatiently‘at last, “In the Gospels on which you have been sworn?”

“I do not J* “You do not? Stand down, if yon please. I will not allow any one to bo accused by one who dares stand here and deny his Maker, or publicly avow his disbelief in the Scriptures on which he is, as a witness, sworn. Stand down!” J “Lord Keston,” whispered Mr. Doyle, his face red in his irresistible excitement, “is your witness able to appear?” “Yes.” . .