Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1908 — A CROWN OF FAITH [ARTICLE]

A CROWN OF FAITH

CHAPTER XV.- {Continued.) "Leila!” “Oh! do not call me so, Mr. Calthorpe!” said the pretty governess, blushing excessively. “And must I say Miss Leigh?” asked the young man, sifiliug sadly. “You regard me as an ogre, do you not?” He joined her as be spoke. “Let us walk on this way toward the fields,” he said. “Mr. Caltborpe, the earl is ill in a fit. X just saw- your servant at Dr. Marks’ door, and he told me what was the mattar.’* “And here have I been spending the last hour, with that irreclaimable spendthrift, Dick, my brother, who has returned from Ireland penniless, almost •hoeess; has taken up his quarters at the ‘Black Wolf,’ and has sent to me for money. Only last month I sent him from m own allowance fifty pounds, and now I have been sent for to this inn; and meanwhile the poor old earl is taken ill. I must hurry off. Leila—-may I not say Leila?—l must hire a carriage here from the Claytons, and be driven as fast as possible to Beryl Court.- Leila, trust me.” “How can I trust you, Mr. Calthorpe?” •he faltered. “I know you mean well — that you are honor itself; but —but that terrible woman whom they call your Wife!” “And I,” he answered, “declare solemnly that look of love never passed from my eyes to hefs—that word of love never passed my lips! She was as the veriest stranger. I have danced a Scotch reel with her; I handed her a chair at that mad, merry supper at St. Swinthin’s. 1 have scarcely, I believe, had any conversation with her alone in my life. Save for the Scotch law, and her calling herself Mrs. Calthorpe In the presence of witnesses, she is no more my wife than yonder milk woman passing over there with her pails.” “And yet she is considered as your wife, and something tells me that the law will make her so. But you must go, Mr. Calthorpe.” “I must,” he said; “but may I not hope to see you again soon ?” ~ “There must be no appointments,” she answered sadly. “I must be cispumgpect, Mr. Calthorpe. Gossips must not chatter of me. Do you not feel that I am right?” * “You are right,” he answered, “though It is anguish for me to be forbidden, to he near you }■*

And they clasped hands and parted. Leila returned to the library. Miss Ellen Watson had departed. Leila obtained the book she wanted, and set off On her lonely walk to Woodmancote. Darkness-was gathering fast over the %hen Leila entered the secluded lane with the high hedges. She was thinking far too much of Arthur Calthorpe and the poor old earl, of Ellen Watson, and the scapegrace brother of Arthur, to give even a passing glance of fear at the shadowy lane. Presently the moon arose, and she caught glimpses of it getting higher and higher among the branches to the left. All at once a footstep behind her in the lane startled her—a heavy footstep, as if a man accustomed to much walking—a •Ipw, measured tramp. Nearer and nearer, closer and closer! She hurried instinctively—hurried as If something terrible was on her track; but still the footsteps gained upon her. She ran —and Leila was swift of foot—she panted for breath, and still while she ran the footsteps gained upon her; not that the person ran—only advanced at a quick march, taking long strides. She shuddered at the conviction that soon a strong and cruel hand would grasp her shoulder, and then, gleaming before her in the moonbeams, she perceived the roof of a barn. Shelter—a hiding place! That was her instinct. She rushed headlong across the road. There was a large gate leading into a field, which swung on its hinges, unlatched; this gate Leila pushed open, and entered the field. She ran around the barn, and found the door open. There was a heap of straw in a corner; Leila crouched under it. She was in that portion of the shed which lay close to the road. Where she crouched then she heard most distinctly the heavy tramping footsteps which had frightened her. They passed the born, grent on a little way, then suddenly ceased. Then Leila heard a cry that awoke the night echoes. She trembled and shivered with cold terror. She did not dare to go out in tbesHne. “No,” she said to herself ; "I must stay here all night.” At that moment she heard other footsteps in the lane, fast and furious, ns those who ran in pursuit. It seemed to her, where she crouched on the straw, that one person ran on, and the other stopped —*he was sure of it—stopped close to the wooden wall of the barn. She could hear footsteps on the roadside grass; she could hear breathing as of one wljo panted, exhausted and breathless, as she had done first. Soon it seemed to Leila that this person sat down on the grass, as if to real. Should she atggk out? There was another road into Woodmancote across the fields. It was' a longer road than by the lane, and there were stiles to clim£. Still, abe would not be likely to meet the people Who had frightened her; and this person, whose sighing, gasping voice she heard outside in the lane, was evidently a woman — perhap# a woman of the lower class, terrified and ill-used by some drunken knaband. Leila took courage by degrees, and left the barn, and went out into Ihe field noiselessly, unheard by the i»craon who aat by the roadside leaning against the wall of the barn. Leila went on, and leaned over the top rail of the gate. Yea, a woman aat In shadow, leaning the back of her head against the wall of the barn. Her bead was bare to the summer night. Her long, dark hair bung low and wild on her abouldara. Waa It not a gem like a diamond which flashed in the beams of thg

moon when the woman 'raised her hand to her brow? She did not see Leila. What was she doing? Was she weeping, quietly,-as though her tears were wrung out of the bitterness of her soul? Pity prompted Leila to approach this being in distress. She went on still noiselessly. The woman was pressing a handkerchief to her brow. As she removed it, Lcila-saw with horror that it was soaked with blood.’ “Arc you hurt? Can I help you?” asked Leila. The woman- gave a start. Another nloment, and she turned a face furious and haughty toward Leila Leigh. She did not speak. Leila started back in amazement. She was looking into the proud, cold, angry face of Mrs. Colonel Wycherly! CHAPTER XVI. Leila could not believe her eyes. Mrs. Wycherly, the haughtiest woman in the county, stately, imposing, handsome Mrs. Wycherly; she who never stirred abroad without her equipage, her carriage, her splendid horses, her richly liveried servants —Mrs. Wycherly, sitting alone by the wayside at nine o’clock in the even--ing, bonnetless, her dark hair sweeping* to her .waist, a bleeding wound J in her forehead, her light dress torn, her face ghastlLf t ■■ ■ / ' While Leila gazed, awestruck and wondering, at the woman, she rose suddenly without a word, caught her white, long skirt in one hand, and passed, like a ghost in the moonbeams, across the dusty road, stepped lightly oyer the low stile, and then Leila saw her figure receding swiftly in the moonbeams. Miss Leigh stood spellbound, watching her. “Can it be a dream—an hallucination?” she asked, passing her hand over her eyes. “If I should mention what I have seen, I should be laughed at as a visionary. But what a look that woman gave me — cold, defiant, wicked! She is a terrible woman, I ami certain of it. Poor creature! her head Was hurt; it was bleeding. .Ought I to follow her and offer her assistance? No; she defied me. Her looks said to me plainly: ‘Speak to me —recognize me at your peril!’ She must have marvelous strength. A woman not young —Mrs. Wycherly must be fifty-five—to rise up stately and defiant, cold and implacable, -while bleeding from a wound in the head, and cross the road and take her way across" 7 those damp, "dewy fields ! I should be afraid to follow her!” And It was true, there had been a concentrated look of wrath on Ihe face of Mrs. Wycherly, which had terrified the susceptible, sensitive Leila. The look said: “Speak to me, or question me, at your peril!” as plainly as ever a look expressed a sentiment. Leila turned her face resolutely toward Woodmancote, and she talked ftlJVilg the road, without meeting with anything Or anybody to cause her fear. When she rang the bell at the great gate, the entrance to St. Martha’s, her heart beat thankfully that shelter and safety were hers once more. She found her way to her own chamber, where she was joined by her friend, Miss Gregson. to whom she gave a graphic account of her adventure. “My dear child, you must be mistaken.” “I am not, Miss Gregson. If ever I saw Mrs. Colonel Wycherly in church, rustling in brocade and splendid in costly lace, cold, statuelike, haughty, as she always appears in public, I saw her this night bonnetless, her hair streaming to her waist, and bleeding from a cut in her temple.” “It was sopne woman from a caravan of waxworks, or giants and dwarfs, or lerned mice—some caravan on its way to Crawley Fair. That screaming you heard was when her husband quarreled with her, and struck her. Then he ran away, and she went and sat down by the roadside. That’s the whole story.” ■ “My dear friend, you are not in general so practical; you ordinarily see a" romance in every adventure. Why will you not believe me when I declare upon my honor that I saw Mrs. Wycherly sitting by the roadside to-night?” “To tell you the truth, Leila,” said the English governess, seating herself and putting her small, white hands together firmly, “I never can see anything romantic or interesting about those Wycherlys. I think them the most uninteresting, stu-pid-people in the county. Whatever possessed a young man of your brother’s talent to bury himself alive at Wycherly Hall as tutor to that silly-looking, whitefaced boy, whom they say is to inherit all the fortune, I can’t for, one moment imagine ! Sometimes I think be is idiot enough to believe hflbself in love with that imp of a girl, Ella Wycherly, although she has the manners of a squirrel rather than of a lady, climbing trees at the risk of her neck —a saucy, forward, pert little creature!" • Miss Gregson’s mild, blue eyes flashed; Leila looked at her in amazement. * “The colonell,” went on Mies Gregson, “Is the veriest stick —a wooden man, haughty, and silent as a dumb effigy of an officer! His head would make an excellent signboard for an inn, If some village craftsman who paints stags and bulls’ heads would take his likeness! As for the woman —bah! what is she fit for, except to wear lace, and velvet, and jewels, and look round on all the word n* if they were mndo of something inferior? I tell you I hate the Wycherlys. Nothing so interesting or romantic would ever happen to her C 5 that she should ha?e her temple cut open, and her hair—her own, too—should fall in a cloud to her Waist* and she should sit at the roadside at night, weeping. No; he/ hair Is always bound up tightly, depend upon It; and I don't believe she ever sat out in the moonbeams on a summer night in her life. She would think she compromised her dignity.” Miss voice Irciublcd with passion. Leila looked at her in amazement still more profound. What was the reason for all thia temper? Eliza Gregson was in general wild and quiet, her fervors wera of the romantic kind. 6h« might sometimes wax sntbusiastic about

Stitious characters, but never abont real es, unless—unless, and Leila began to recall two or three occasions on which the quiet English teacher bad waxed warm and fervid and exeitahfe; but always one person was concerned, remotely or pearly, with Miss Gregson’s. display of •feeling—one person, Leila’s brother Lionel Yes, Leila saw it all. During the monthsjwhen Lionel had taught languages at St. Martha’s, the little English teacher had fallen head-over-dkrs in love with him. Hence her warm and really sincere friendship for Leila; hence her conviction that Lionel was the heir to a sounding title and large estates. Miss Gregson declared that she had found a clue, though she would not reveal it to Leila; and she said that, s when she had 'well followed up this clue, she would prove Lionel to be an earl in his own right. Leila looked at her pityingly. “My dear Eliza, I believe that Lionel is in love with that Miss Wycherly,” she said softly; “and it is, of course, foolish of him. I do not suppose she willDeVer care for him, and in time, I suppose, he will see his folly, and forget her.” “Forget her!” echoed Eliza Gregson, with a sigh. “Well, I suppose in time he may learn to look back on this folly with contempt, but still there will alway* be a feeling, a romance, an interest. Thackeray says that a man’s first'love is never forgotten—that, with his wife by his side, and his children clambering about his knees, he still thinks fondly of some cold, or foolish, or haughty girl, with a fine pair of eyes and a voice, and a bright smile, who made a fool of him, or was separated from him ever so long' ago; and if your brother Lionel ever marries, he will still think of this dreadful little hoyden... “But still he may not think ot her very often or very painfully. I wonder whom they mean to marry her to? It is odd they have adopted that bo>\_ Itiseems she is ouly to inherit thousand a year or so. and that is all the parents’ choice and doing, for they might have made her heiress to it all, aud have married her to some son of a duke. There is a mystery in that family.” - “Yes,” assented Leila; “and that brings me back to Mrs. Wycherly sitting by the roadside with her hair unbound, bonnetless and bleeding from a*' wound in the temple.” . ■“I am positive you are wrong!” cried the English teacher eagerly. “Nothing would move that icy woman out of the role of conventionaism. What grief or excitement has she in her life? She has that one daughter, a girl strong as a mule! She has a wooden husband, who says ‘ah ! ah !’ to’ all she proposes. Who in the world is there to give her a blow on the head? Where was her carriage? Where 4 r ere her servants? Depend upon . it, Leila, you are suffering from an optical delusion; I am certain of it.” " r - (To be continued.)