Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1904 — Woman The Mystery [ARTICLE]

Woman The Mystery

By HENRY HERMAN

CHAPTER X.-(Continued.) At the time when Walter and Adams ■were inquiring for him at the St. Charles Hotel, Mr. Rodbert Berinquay was seated in the first floor room of the Hotel de Paris. His pale sane was of a papery ■white, and a nervous twitch distorted his mouth frdm time to time. “1 am afraid,” he said, in his slow, quiet voice, "I was very indiscreet this morning; but you can imagine my surprise when I saw the fellow standing before me —I. who thought him dead years ago. You never reported to me that you knew all about him. That was unwise.” ”1 would have had to make reports that would have filled books if I had wanted to inform you of everything that came undpr my notice,” said Bernard Quayle, who was sitting opposite him. "I don’t think there is much harm done. He has lost nil memory through his accident, and I dare say he has by this time forgotten your question and all concerning it.” ‘'Let us hope so,” retorted Berinquay. “Anything that can mar your success falls so heavily upon me. Do you think you are approaching- the end of your task?” he whispered in hoarse gutturals. “I think our chances are decidedly favorable,” rejoined Quayle. “I have a man downstairs who will settle the business for us, and if ho won’t”-—here his eyes glittered more ferociously—-"I will take it In hand myself.” “Mind,” whispered Berinquay then, “there must be proof, absolute proof of her death. The whole business is in the hands of the Court of Chancery now, and there must be such proof as the eourt will accept before I can obtain possesaion of the property. It is a matter of life and death to me now. I am in thej hands of men who will show me no mercy. It will mean the prison if I cannot find money to pay them, and I would at any time rather die than that. Therefore, name your own price—any sum you like. You shall have it. Only rid mo of my millstone.” At this moment they were interrupted by the entrance of Henri, dressed in a Zouave uniform. ' ‘T finish;” he cried, with an imperious wave of the hand. “I no more scrub floor. I not clean knife. I go soldier, I go fight.” “When yhu are sane again, my if fiend,” said Quayle, quietly, “1 will talk to you: Do you know in whose regiment you are going to fight? Do you know who your colonel is?” “I not care,” rejoined Monsieur Henri, with alacrity. “But I see her. I see Helene. Beautiful. An’ I snail be near her.” “Yes,” retorted Quayle; “you will be near her-—near the woman who sent us both to the galleys; and when your senses' come back to you, you driveling idiot, you will not be so pleased that you are under the heel of r man who has already once given you a taste of his quality, and who will again, if he only dreams who you really are.” “I not “care. I not afraid, an’ if ’e comes ’cross me —I kill ’ini!” “Go downstairs!” hissed Quayle. “It Is a miracle.” he whispered when Henri bad gone down. “All goes swimmingly. If I had asked the scamp to join Adams’ corps, he might have refused. Now that he is already in the battalion, it will b» so easy to let a stray bullet find a billet where it is least expected.”

CHAPTER XI. Over a year hail passed, and the cloud of battle lay dark and sullen over the pine woods near Richmond. On the previous day, the 31st of May, 1802, a battle had been fought. The Louisiana battalion had shared the light, which had ended in a temporary retreat of the Union forces. Col. Adams and Walter Glaydes, now a major, were in camp, whiie Helene was in Richmond, only n few miles nway. Toward morning Walter was walking a little way behind the outposts, when he came across Henry Sainton, who had actually sneaked into the Union camp across the ditch and brought back withhim some coffee, which wns already a rare luxury in the Confederate army. He was soundly reprimanded by his superior officer, who told him he would report him to Col. Adams. In return Henri informed Walter that tbs enemy were getting rendy to march on them and take them by surprise. Major Glaydes immediately conveyed this startling information to Col. Adams, who at once called his men into action. It wns not a moment too soon. With a rush and a roar the Union troops swept down upon them. All along the line of the Louisianians the musketry rattled, and the powder smoke wrapped the battalion in its stonegray shroud. Every eye was fixed on the front, where the enemy’s rifles flashed and cracked. Henri was but three or four paces behind Adams, and a little to the latter’s left. “Fire into the bushes! Fire into those bushes!” cried the officers. Henri had just reloaded his musket, and as he raised it a fiendish thought flashed into his mind. Adams was standing with his back to him, waving his eword, and pointing out to a sergeant a apot in the enemy’s line where the tiring seemed to be fiercest. Henri gripped his weapon and looked about him frcnzledly. lie placed the muaket to hie shoulder aud fired, and Adams threw up his arms and fell to the ground. "Zat for Toulon,” hissed Ilenri between his teeth. "Zat for penal servitude. Monsieur Quayle will be pleased." In a little garden in the western outskirts of Richmond, behind a screen of sunflowers, and in the shade of fire or six huge and venerable elms, Helene seas seated opposite a buxom, middleaged negro woman, in whose ebony black face the white teeth gleamed aa brightly as the white eye*. Th# little wait* L 1 was opened and •utstretebod, and th* negro woman held th* rosy tips with her black fingers as If ■h# were handling the most delicate, tha ■tost precious, and the most fragile thing fee tha world. She was telling the girl’s tort one. Am Helen* looked up for a second, aha toll aes the rails of th# fence between Mm etems of the sunflowers, and between

the stems of-f'ne sunflowers a face flashed upon her, a man's face, which she knew—Gapt. Denoin’s. On the first impulse of recognition, she was about to rise and ask him aloud to step indoors, but with tW self-same heart-beat, she rememDered that he was a United States officer, and her pulse nearly stood still as it flashed upon her that, at that time, he could be in Richmond only as a spy qr prisoner. A ball seemed to stick in her throat, and she rose slowly and said to the astonished negro woman: “I have heard all I want from you, Sue, and I am so much obliged. You can go back to your work. I’ll call you again when I want you.” She had advanced a step or two and was standing there with white face and flashing eyes. Capt. Denon took off his hat and bowed to her. “May I come in. Miss Iximure?” he whispered; and she simply nodded, hardly knowing what she did. The latch clicked under Gapt. Denon’s band, and he stood before her, and was about to address her; but she, remembering the circumstances of the case, said to him: “I think we had better go within doocs, captain. Follow me.” She led the way to the parlor, bright with its gay chintzes and comfortable with its .homely furniture. Denon had followed, hat in hand, and stood before her like a great overgrown schoolboy, who cannot And words to express his thoughts. The woman was the first to recover her self-possession. “What is the meaning of this?” she said. “Why did you come here?” “I came here because, being in Richmond, I would have died rather than not see you.”

“I am weary of hearing this, Capt. Denon,” she said. “Every man I meet tens nu- that he is in love with me. I wish I could find a man who hated me, so that I might make him love me, just for a change.” *'l am very sorry,” he said, quietly; “I am risking my life for a glimpse of you, and your first words are a reproach.” "You risk your life!” exclaimed Helene, hotly. "Of course, you are in Richmond as a prisoner of war! “Not a prisoner of war,” he answered, with slow diffidence. "Then you con only be in Richmond as a spy. Confess it. Confess it, sir!” “I am not a spy,” was the pained rejoinder. "I came here as the bearer of instructions to the priaeijaal United States agent.’— She turned with an angry hauteur. "Bearer of instructions to a spy, or a spy yourself, is all the same.” “1 should not have accepted the mission,” he said, so slowly and so solemnly that, in spite of her seething anger, the words touched her heart-strings, “I would never have come to Richmond had it not been that I was inspired by the hope that I might see you. For a glimpse of you I have risked my life and my honor. For another glimpse of you I would risk my life and honor twenty times again, even under the dread of offending you.” The noise of horses’ hoofs and of carriage wheels upon the gravelly road attracted their attention, and when Helene flew so the window she saw that a twohorse ambulance had arrived at the garden gate. Walter, who had been sitting with the driver, jumped from the wagon. Helene leaned against the window with her face as white as Denon’s, aud her staring eyes saw the Stretcher men take Adams from the ambulance aud prepare to bring the wounded man into the house. “Poor Daddy!” moaned Helene, staggering back and looking frightenedly at the man who, if he were discovered by a Southern officer, was certain to meet his fate on the gallows. Her glance traveled all around the room in a feverish trouble. Her sympathy for her wounded protector was crushed out of her heart by the dread of the fate In store for the man who, she said to herself with the same breath, w f as nothing to her after all. "It’s all up with me,” gasped Capt. Denon, “and I am not sorry. Since you give me no hope, death is the happiest fate that can befall me.” “No,” she cried on a sudden, “you shall not die. In there! In there! Quick! before they come! That is my room. They w’ill not dare to go in there.” “Your room!” exclaimed Denon. “Yes. Quick! before it is too late! In there!” And she dashed upon him and pushed him through the door, at the very moment when Walter entered the parlor 1 , and, with surprised eyes, saw the door of Helene's room close upon a man.

CHAPTER XII. Walter stood for a second or two dumb with pnin and amazement. In the next moment, however, be remembered that he had no right to express surprise or pnin, even if he were racked oy either. Helene was free to show her preference for any man. At the same time it seemed to him as if Helene's act were poisoned by a guilty secrecy, and he felt the sting of it bitterly. "The Colonel is badly hurt,” he said at last, with broken voice. "He was shot through the lung on Sunday. Will you not go to tyin? The doctor says that we have every reason to hope for the best; but the Colonel is very weak, and he asked for yon the moment he approached the house.” Helene cast an anxious glance toward the door of her room, and an unusual pallor spread over her face. She hesitated for a few seconds, and then tripped out of the room. Aa she reached the landing outside she had to lean against the wall for support. "Has Jack seen Denou?” she asked herself, staring Into the gray vacancy. “Wbat will Jack think of me? That poor Denonl Jack will find him, and they will shoot him or bang him.” At that moment Sue's black face gleamed upon her in the light of the upper landing window, and she beckoned to the woman. “Save me. Sue,” she whispered, convulsively, clutching the negress’ arm. "There la a man In my room.” "A man in your room, chile V questioned faithful Sue, hoarsely.

“Yea; get him out of the house with* out being seen. His life and my honor depend upon it.” Helene gasped while she mattered the words. The old servant pressed her mistress’ hand, and darted upstairs without a word. Helene had to grip the banisters while she ascended the stairs. On the first floor she drew a long breath, and said to herself, “ “Well, if there is no way out of it I Cannot help it, but I must try to save him if it Cau be done.” The wounded man was lyipg on a little iron bedstead near the window when Helene entered the room, and the summer light rippling through the muslin curtains shone upon the pale, painstretched face. The once clear gray eyes were dull and nearly glassy. Suffering had angularized every line and every feature, and the barely perceptible smile which gleamed there was t’he only token of recognition. “Gome, my dear," said the weak voice, “sit by she here, and let me hold your ■hand. I am glad, if' I am to die, that I can end my days near you.” “I am so sorry, Daddy Adams,” she said, “but I must be brave. You will get over this.” “I don’t know,” was the hoarse and feeble rejoinder. "I am not so sure about it. The doctor says he thinks I will. He says I must not speak. Well, sit by me here. I do not feel strong enough just now; but I have so much to tell you, and I don’t want to miss a chance, if I am to go out of this world.”

The dusk of the early summer evening had settled to darkness, and Walter was meditating whether he ought to remain in the house or return to camp. The weather was hot, and scarcely a breath of air troubled the summer hush. Waiter was standing in the mellow twilight •in the porch of the house, when he saw Sue and a negro whom he did not know, both of them carrying bundles on their heads, come through the side entrance and walk to the front gate. The negro was a tall fellow, well set up in his limbs, but walking with a slovenly, uneasy gait. He was dressed in old blue jean trousers, and wore over his red flannel shirt an open striped cotton waistcoat with big brass buttons. A big, black felt hat covered his eyes, which were further obscured by the bundle he was carrying. She was chatting and laughing as they were walking along, and they had opened the ga£o and were already outside, when their progress was cut short by the sentry on duty there. “Hey, stop!” cried the man. “Who are you?”

“You kin see, shoo, sonny,” replied Sue, grinning her broadest. “I’s Sue, I is, Miss Helene’s servant, an’ dis knllered gennelman, dat's Elijah, an’ he’s helpin’ dis chile carry de clothes to de laundry.” Walter’s eyes followed Sue and the negro as they walked along the road, when a sudden thought gripped his mind, and he gasped: “It is Denon. I thought I knew him,” he muttered. “It is Denon, as sure as I am a living man.” Without another word he walked slowly through the little garden and out at the gate. The sentry salute*} respectfully as he passed. Walter walked down the road slowly, keeping Sue and the negro in view all the while. Two streets farther down the pair turned to the left, and Walter followed them. At the corner he increased his pace and at the same time Sue and tho negro walked seemingly as fast as their lege would carry them. That was enough for Walter. He started to run after the pair, and soon caught them. One glance at the negro’s face was sufficient. It was Denon —Denon magnificently disguised, but Denon, and nobody else. “Stop a moment, said Walter to the negress. “I want to speak to this gentleman. Take that bundle. You are quite strong enough to carry them both. When you have done your errand, go back to the house, and tell Miss Helene that I will look after your friend.” The poor woman "stood there in a feverish trepidation, hesitating about what she ought to do, and then went away weeping as if her heart were breaking. “We will not stop here, Capt. Denon,” said Walter. “The neighborhood is dangerous to you. I will be obliged if you will answer my questions as we walk along. Did you come to Richmond at Miss Lemure’s request?” “No,” was the simple rejoinder. “You came unbidden and unasked?” “Unbidden and unasked.” “One more question,” said Walter, “and then I have done. Is Miss Helene in any way engaged to you?” “In nowise engaged.” “Good!” ejaculated Walter. “I will have to ask you to come with me.” (To be continued.)