The Welsh Coast Pioneer and Review for North Cambria

My theme is not of ancient kings, Nor yet of knights of old, Who 1I8.te in state or rodo bedecked In robes of cloth of gold; An humbler theme, though mightier far, My fancy tends to lure (The anemy of coughs and coldø- WoocW Great Peppermint Curs.

BY AN UNSEEN HAND BY JOHN K. LEYS, Author of The Lindsays," Held in the Toils The Bolton Square Tragedy," &a CHAPTER XIII. THE VERDICT OF THE JUItY. At last, late at night, the jury sent word that they had agreed upon a verdict. Some one ran to fetch the coroner, who was resting from his labours in the coffee-room of a neigh- bouring hotel. There was a general air of relief on the face of every one present. Horace was thankful to see that Stella. was not present. She had not attended the in- quest that day. While they were waiting for tne coroner Horace tried to catch the eye of the foreman of the jury, that he might-, if possible, read his fate, but the man per- sistently refused to look at him. He fully expected that the jury would say that he had murdered his wife but he was anxious chiefly on Stella's account. If the vcrdict should be one of wiifulmurder against them both she might escape the scaffold-in- deed, he could not see what evidence there was to convict her—but she would be branded for life. The mere fact that her name had been linked with his in such a connection would ruin the reputation of any woman. Happily she was spared this ignominy. When the foreman of the jury rose to declare the verdict there wag an intense silence in the room, and Horace braced himself for the worst. "Have you agreed upon your verdict, gentlemen? asked the coroner. "We have. We find that the deceased died from one or more doses of arsenic but there is not sufficient evidence to show who ad- ministered it." The verdict was received in dead silence. It was equivalent, as every one felt, to the Scotch verdict of "Not proven." The coroner bit his lip and looked dis- appointea- He opened his mouth as if he wanted to make Rome comment upon the ver- dict, but closed it again without speaking. Then, rising abruptly, he said: "Gentlemen, you are discharged," and the inquest was over. Horace blundered out of the building, and somebody put him into a cab. When he reached home he threw himself into a chair in the library, and there he remained for hours, silent and motionless. What a mess he had made of things How he had brought sorrow and desolation, poignant grief and bitter despair, to those he had loved best. His wife had loved him there could be no doubt of that, for she had asked him to marry her. And how soon her love had turned to hatred and contempt! Her life had been orderly, and in a sense happy, until he came into it to poison the well- springs of her being. He had no doubt now that in some way she had possessed herself of the poison and had taken it herself, and then, unwilling that she should suffer alone, she had accused Stella and himself of the murder. That was what her union with him had brought her to! Sella, too, had loved him. She had given him her heart, and he had given her his. What had his love brought her? Grief and despair, a blighted name. Love each other as they might, they could never be happy together. The shadow of this tragedy would always lie upon them the dead woman's hand would come between. His contrition for the one serious fault he had committed—persuading Stella to remain in the house as his wife's companion—was deep and true. But peace of mind would not ome to him. A deep melancholy seized upon him, and held him in its deadly grip. He might even have listened to the tempter and vainly tried to put an end to his misery bv suicide had not it been that this would mean leaving Stella to face the storm alone, without a friend and without resources. He must live, he told himself, if it were only because he was her only friend but for many weeks after his wife's funeral he made no attempt to see her. He had a short note from her occasionally, and that was all. She told him that she had found a situation as nursery governess in a large family, that she was kept very busy, and was content with her lot. But he pictured her toiling from morn to night among unruly children, subject to the caprices of an unreasonable and stupid woman, and leading a life absolutely devoid 3f anything like pleasure or recreation. He thought, he feared, that such might be her fate, but he would have been shocked and in- dignant if he had known how near the pic- tures his fancy drew for him were to reality. When, after a long seclusion, Horace began to go once more among his fellows, he imagined that they fought shy of him. Every time a man declined an invitation he gave him, or left him after exchanging a few commonplace phrases, he felt a keen pang of humiliation. At first he tried to persuade himself that he was merely fancying these things, but he soon became convinced that his friends' attitude towards him had changed. He was living under a cloud, and he knew there was good reason for it. Just as he was about to remove his name from the books of all the clubs he belonged to he happened to meet a well-known retired general. The two men were alone in the smoking- room, the General studying "The Times, Horace lounging aimlessly at the window. The door was opened by a member of the club, who, seeing Horace, immediately with- drew. Horace uttered a bitter laugh, and the General looked up from his paper. Did you see how little Jobson sneaked away when he saw me, as a cat sneaks away from a wicked-looking dog? "No," said the General, bluntly; "but if you think the fellows feel like that to you, why don't you resign ? Horace was silent for a minute. He had had an excellent lesson in the value of 'champagne friendships." He used to think of himself as popular among his acquaint- ances. But not one of all the clubmen he knew would give him a kind word, or even look at him, if they could help it, now that he was under a cloud. "Don't you see, that if I took my name off the books it would be as good as confessing that I wasn't worthy to mix with the other members? No, I don't. And at any rate I don't see what good being a member can do you, things remaining as they are." I daresay you are right," said Horace. "I had hoped to live down the scandal, but I'm beginning to think it will be too much for me. After all. I can't blame the fellows. If I thought Jobson had murdered his wife, I confess I shouldn't like to dine with him, or to oe seen in his company. Do you believe I murdered my wife? he demanded fiercely, wheeling round so as to face the General. "No, I'm rather inclined to say that I ion't," said the ex-soldier, fixing his eye-glass Molly in his eye, and regarding the other man steadily for a second or two. No; you don't look like a guilty man, certainly. But you must confess that things looked fishy- decidedly fishy for you and the young lady." "I have never denied that it was natural bo suspect us. But where is the proof? There is none there can be none; for we are innocent. The General coughed and took up his newspaper. Now a cough is a wonderful thing. It is much more expressive than language. One may say almost anything by a cough, and say .t, too, without being reminded afterwards of what one eaid-wliieh is the most valuable juality any means of communication can lave. In this case the General's cough said, Oh, indeed Of course you say so. I must not say I don't believe you, but all the same, X don't believe you a bit." Horace was very angry, but what could he do? One can't call a man to account for coughing. "It is hard to be condemned without proof," he said, after a pause. uYy dear fellow," said the General, moved to sodden pity by something in the boy- cotted man's tone. "You say there's no proof, but that's just the point. What some of us—I may say nearly all of U&—feel is that there it proof, but "Where?" cried Horace; "only tell me • «rlpw»l" « "In that letter your solicitor would not surrender to the coroner." "The letter enclosed in the one my wife sent Mr. Hovendean 1" The General nodded. "But he's not my solicitor! I can't make him disclose it! Well-you or your wife. It's much the same thing, isn't it?" Indeed, it's not at all the same thing I have begged and entreated Mr. Hovendean to on that letter, but he won't." The General shrugged his shoulders. It's very unlucky from one point of view," said he. "But have you considered what may be inside?" "General, I am not afraid of what is in that letter, because I am an innocent man. If I had been guilty I would have been afraid, and very much afraid, of what might be in the letter. But when a man is falsely accused, the more the charge is gone into, the more clearly does his innocence appear." "Well, I can't think of anything that would be more likely to put you right with the others than opening the letter and find- ing that it contained no proof of the charge," said General Bonchurch, and immediately subsided into his newspaper. Horace left the club and went home, and ne he walked along his mind was filled with one idea. There was indeed one way of forc- inp Mr. Hovendean to open the letter, and, so far as he could see, one way only. He must persuade Stella to marry him. It would be untrue to say that this idea had never crossed his mind before; but it had always appeared to him as a far-off dream, something that the years to come, when all this trouble would be a thing of the long past, might possibly bring him. But now he thought of it as a thing that might be very close at hand. For it was only when the news of the marriage of him- self and Stella should reach the ears of Mr. Hovendean that he would consent to open the mysterious letter. Surely, if he told Stella that he was an outcast, shunned by every- one, for want of the information that lay locked up in Mr. Hovendean's safe, she would consent to forget the past. He knew that he was asking a great deal of her. It would b at a considerable sacri- fice of her own feelings if she married him so soon after the tragedy that had darkened th-eir lives. But that way, and that way only, hope lay for him, and he decided that that very night he would try to see Stella, and at least learn what she thought of his sugges- tion. CHAPTER XIV. I AM A LEPER." The footman at the great house in which Stella had found employment looked as if in his opinion Horace was taking a great liberty in asking to see the governess, who in his eyes was only an inferior sort of upper servant. But a small gold coin .vhich Horace had ready between his fingerf smoothed over matters wonderfully. He a shown into a small room at the back of the house, cold and cheerless, to be sure, but one that was apparently very little used. It was quite ten minutes before the door opened and Stella appeared. At her first com- ing into the room Horace was delighted to eee her looking so well. He had never seen her more lovely. But in a very short time the flush faded from her cheek and the light died out of her eyes; « so saw that it was merely the excitemein..i. visitor coming into a life that was aILd as dull and sad as that of a prisoner that had given her such an animated appearance. She gave him her hand in silence, and sat down, scarcely venturing to look up. "It is some time since I saw you," said Horace, speaking very gently. "I hope you are a little more comfortable than you were at first." "Yes; I am getting more used to it. At first I felt the confinement, as I told you in my note, but I have nothing to complain of." For the first time since he had known her, Horace found some difficulty in talking to Stella. He could not plunge all at once into the subject that was next his heart, and he did not see how he was going to lead up to it. He felt that he had not made a very good start. "I am glad you are tolerably comfort- able," he said. "It's more than I could say for myself." "What do you mean?" "Only this, that I am looked upon as a pariah, an outcast. I am practically boy- cotted. I am treated by other men exactly as if they believed that I had committed the crime my poor wife charged me with, and by some legal quibble had escaped punishment. If this goes on my life will be unbearable. I might as well be dead." A sigh of sympathy was Stella's only an- swer. I suppose you don't consider me guilty?" he said, but the look of horror on the girl's face made him add hastily :— "No, no! Please don't look at me like that. Only, I wonder whether you would do something for me—something that might put an end to this state of things." "Only tell me what I could do!" cried Stella, clasping her hands together in her earnestness. "I was talking over the matter with a man at i he club to-day, a retired general who is a thorough man of the world, and a man of influence in my set. He told me that he thought nothing would help to re-establish my good name except to have the letter my wife sent to Mr. HoTendean publicly opened and the charges made against me thoroughly investigated. The letter must show what Lavinia had in her mind. If they were merely the fancies of a sick woman, that fact will be apparent, if the charges are vague and unsupported; if, on the other hand, they are plain and definite and supported by evi- dence, I ought to be prosecuted. The letter must either convict me or cause my inno- cenco to appear. "Now, as you know, Mr. Hovendean has delcared his willingness to go to prison rather than violate his duty (as he conceives it) to the dead, by breaking the seal of that letter before the time when he wae autho- rised to do so--that is, till you and I are married, or are on the eve of being married. "No, Stella—please hear me out. It is perfectly true that I shall never rest until we are made one, but under ordinary circum- stances I should have thought it best to allow quite a long time to elapse before we came together. That, I think, we owe to the dead. But there is no need for unnecessary- cruelty. There is no reason why we should spoil our lives and ruin our chances of hap- piness because my wife believed ill of us. That would be carrying sentiment — a right sentiment, I quite admit—much too far. The day must come, be it near or far away, when I shall claim you as my own." "Don't deceive yourself, I entreat you," interrupted Stella. "That day will never come. No, Horace Cleeve, you shall never call me wife; I shall never call you hus- band." "Never is a long word," said Cleeve with a smile. "In this case it is a true one," returned the girl. Horace felt as if he had received a mortal wound. At the back of his mind, out of sight, there had always been, during these days of trouble, the hope that Time's healing fingers might so heal their wounds that hap- piness might yet be theirs. Now Stella was telling him that this could not be. "Stella," he said, "have you ever loved me? She gave him a look that meant, "You know I did." "It is true that I, like an imbecile and a scoundrel, threw away the gift of your love, but is there to be no forgiveness for me? It is not a question of forgiveness. Have I not always told you that I had nothing to fotgive that as it was impossible we should be married, you had nothing to re- proach yourself with ? I have always said so, and I say it again now. But what I have felt ever since—since that dreadful time, is that marriage is not for you and me—mar- riage to each other, I mean. The idea of building our happiness on the wretchedness, the death, of another, and that other vour wife, is repulsive to me. No, we can never come together. The dead stands between us." There was a long silence. "It is natural that you should feel in that way," Horace said after a pause. And, as I told you, I would not have mentioned the wbitct to-dajr it it had aot txm for a. hme that you might Overcome your prejudice so far as to go through the ceremony with me, as that seems to be the only way of putting me right with the world. I thought to have lived the scandal down. But I cannot. 1 am a leper in tho eyes of mv fellow men. Am I never to be able to hold up my head among them again? Stella tried to speak, but her voice failed her, and to conceal the trembling of her hands she rose, and, placing them on Lne mantelpiece, leant her head upon them. Horace saw that the strain was almost too much for her. "Don't try to answer me now," he said. "You are overstrained and unable to think calmly and dispassionately. Let me come and see you again this'day week. Perhaps you will be able to give me an answer then. If not, I will wait another week-as long as you choose." She gave him her hand in silence, but kept her face averted from him, and he left her. Seven days went by, and Horace did not show himself during the week at any of his clubs. He spent the time chiefly in walking or cycling along white roads lined with dust- covered hedges, and as he had no companion on these expeditions they did little to cheer him. There was one man who, if he had been in London, would have stood by him and helped him to bear the isolation in which he lived. This was his old schoolfellow, Dennis Power. Dennis had been called to the Bar, but had never practised—" never had the faintest fljeker of the ghost of the shadow of a chance of a brief," as he said himself. So he had taken to journalism, and was just then engaged in following the fortunes of a British column which was engaged in teaca- ing better manners to a tribe of thieves and murderers on th north-west frontier of India. The time went by somehow, and on the appointed evening Horace once more made his way to Sussex-square, where the smart lady who employed Stella was supposed to live. As a matter of fact, she slept there, idled away her mornings there, and oecasien- allv dined there. "You are looking better to-night, Stella," he said, as he shook hands with ber. "You are not quite so pale, and you look stronger. "Yes, I think I am better. And you—have things improved at all during the past week? I have not been near my club, and I haven't spoken to a soul. But I have no doubt that if I had gone anywhere I should have been cut as before. There is no reason why there should be any change in the opinion men held of me. "And you think it possible that if I-if we were married, and the letter opened, you might be able to prove your innocence? Yes; or at least I would know the parti- culars of the charge against me, and I might be able to disprove them at once. It would give me a chance of showing that she—my wife—must have been mistaken." Stella did not open her lips for some time, and when she spoke it was with an effort. "I fear I am about to pain you," she said, "to wound you very sorely, but I cannot help it. On the night Mrs. Cleeve died I made up my mind that never, under any circumstances whatever, would I be your wife. I thought it was only right and decent that it should be so. I thought it was the only reparation I could make to the dead for the wTong I had done her. So, if it is really necessary for the sake of lifting this dreadful cloud from your life, for giving you a chance, as you say, of clear- ing yourself in the eyes of the world, that I should marry you, it must be a mere cere- mony. We must part at the church door and not meet again." "Stella, you are very hard! You cannet mean it! "Yes, I do mean it." He rose and began to pace up and down the room in great agitation. "It is too humiliating he cried. "Why should you wish to shame me in the eyes of the world? "God knows I have no such wish she cried passionately. "The world will not know or care what our relations are. But if my condition is too hard for you, it will be better to dismiss the idea altogether, and try to prove your innocence in some other way." "Stella don't be so hard! We should both be wretched if we did what you pro- pose." "It would be hard, very hard, no doubt, for you to be tied to a woman who was no wife to you. And that is why I ask you to consider weil whether there is no other way, before you go through the ceremony with me." "And you? You would be bound by a tie-" „ It would make no difference to me," said Stella quickly. "There are some wemeja who-" ("can love but once," she was going to say, but she stopped herself), "who can get on very well without being married at all, and I think I am one of them. I need not call myself by your name indeed, no one need know we are married but Mr. Hoven- dean." "It is sure to get known," said Horace, "and if you did not live with me it would be said that the reason was because you be- lieved me to be guilty." "Then I cannot help you," said Stella, with a look of distress. (C Yes, you can drop your-your unreason- able scruples, and marry me in the ordinary way. After all, why shouldn't you if you love me? Stella shook her head. "Did it not say in the letter that was read out in court that the other, the sealed letter, might be opened if we were just about to be married? she said, after a pause. "Yes, I think there was something of that kind. But oh you arc hard What can 1 say to make you look upon my offer as any other girl, any sensible girl, would? "Please don't let us go into all that again. It can do no.good. I have quite made up my mind. But if it is necessary for the restora- tion of your good name I will go through the ceremony with you and be nominally your wife." With that he was obliged to be content; but he had a pretty strong hope that. once they were tied together by the law, he would be able to brush aside her scruples. It might be a work of time, but surely she could not keep up that absurd attitude all her life. A licence was obtained, and the usual formalities were complied with. And then Horace wrote to Mr. Hovendean, telling him the date nxed for the ceremony, and suggest- ing that the sealed envelope should be opened in the presence of Miss Silvester and himself on the preceding day. He wanted the whole thing to be over and done with, as far as possible, before the wedding, so that the shadow of that horrible suspicion the dead woman had entertained might not rest upon their union. Mr. Hovendean replied that for several reasons it would be better and more con- venient that the letter should be opened first, and he fixed an hour when Stella and Horace should call at his office for the purpose of seeing the envelope opened. He added (unnecessarily, it seemed to Horace) that an officer from New Scotland Yard would be present. (To be Continued.)

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