UNWILLING WITNESS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7079, 27 February 1893, Page 4

UNWILLING WITNESS.

LITERATURE

rCOHTINXJBD.I •Very well,’ said Hillbury. ‘Here ia tbe picture—i nd bare is coy card. When you see this gentleman again, please hand it to him, will you ?’ The girl took the picture, and the card he gave her. She looked doubtfolly at the words, ‘ (J.S. Geological Server, * engraved beneath the name, Thev conveyed to her mind no idea beyond that vague suspicion with which tbe pass-words of the educated class are . regarded by tbe ignorant. She was not sore that this easy yet distant •tranger was not making her in some way tbe instrument of his diversion—perhaps at her own expense. Qiilbury stood in the doorway watching her with puzzled, unhappy interest. Her beauty, as of a perfect young animat, a triumphant survival of tbe fittest feminine type, impressed him the more as be examined it. She was as handsome as Josephine, aod as much mora dangerous, to the average man, as passion without mental discipline could toako her. The girl found nothing to reassure her in Hillbury *s inscrutable dark eyev. Ho lifted his hat and gravely wi*»**d her good-afternoon, and again his eourtesy seemed to remind her of the distance between them. Hillbury had a grrat fondness for Bodowin.* He was quite used to disapproving of him. He was always longing to put him to rights, to rouse his ambition, and make him show for what he was w orth. But, illogical as Bodewin's life was, in hie friend’s opinion, and provoking as were his habits, Hillbury had ever found him one of tue most truthful, sensitive, and scrupulous of men. Yet he was aware that there was a side of Bodewin’s life he know nothing of. There bad been a journey to Deadwod to which Bodewin had never referred, though it was evident to all who knew about him that, in one way or another, it had been a bard trip for him; and there wae this trouble with Harkins which Bodowin had gloomily alluded to. Why not go to him frankly and ask him what all this nonsense was about -—and what, in particular, he meant by pretending ignorance of a house where a discussion of his picture called up so much feeling on tbe part of a pretty resident? Decidedly tbat wae the proper thing to do. Since be bad of Bodewin in the matter, he could do no less than speak to him. He would open tbe subject on tbe first suitable occasion. No such occasion came, however. It seemed, almost, as if Bodewin might be trying to avoid him. Hillbury did not see him again to speak with him before bis departure for Denver.

Hilibury had certain convictions which be never expressed, because they were incapable of proof. One of these was the conviction that Bodewin was not dead. About two weeks after Bode win’s disappearance, when all efforts to find Him or learn his late bad ceased in the camp, Hillbary set out one day alone to search of bis friend. He bad mentioned to no one the object of his journey. He took the same way by which he had guided Mrs Craig’s party to the lake. He passed the burnt timber, entered the spruce forest, and, plodding on through gleam and shadow, kept the trail as far as a certain ridge which he followed, moving now more slowly,.and looking about him for that little hollow where the little cabin lurked, and where he expected to find, yet hoped not to find, his friend. He cams upon the cabin from the rear, and finding the ground around the prospect-hole unsuitable for a nearer approach on horseback, he dismounted and walked around the cabin towards its entrance. He could see the porch while be was still some distance from it —the long bench, sheltered by the projecting roof—and seated (here, conspicuous in the morning sunlight, he saw John Bodewin. His back was partly turned to Hilibury. Against bis shoulder rested a woman’s bead, a young bead, thickly covered with light, shining hair. His hand seemed to press it closer, while, his head was bent over the face, benatb bis own. An idyllic stillness and peace surrounded the solitary cabin. There seemed no one m the forest but these two silent, lover-like figures—and Hillbary, who bad set bis toot within their paradise. Hilibury did not see a man seated, smoking, on the farther end of tbs bench, where a bop-vine sheltered it. Be looked hut an instant Upon what he believed to be hie friend's disgrace, and then tramped fiercely back to the spot where be bad left his horse. As be rode homeward through ! the melancholy spruces, his hot disgust . passed, and loft a feeling as it he had dome from a burial. ‘ I knew he was not dead., Would that be were—would that ho were, rather than this! ’ •He la? sleepless in his blankets that night before his camp-fire, going over and over again the evidence against - Bodewin, and trying to find some flaw in the chain of prooof against him. He remembered thac Bodewin bal not joined in the ■mirth over Craig’s story of the cabin, and the pret>y '.'golden-haired girl who bad sain she whs a stranger in those parts. He hud declared there was no such cabin. He had afterwards seamed to waver and hail withdraw his assertion. The cabin wastbere, and bis picture bad beau seen there. The girl had blushed, and refused to take of it or of him. He ' Ijadrefused to go on the Eagle Bird csse b«caaso of some mysterious hold ' Hiwfcins bad on him, through a woman. " verge °f a oonfesswhjoh was . tmrfwjtly yiffjr paiutul to him.

bad at the last moment consented to B give his testimony—had declined to go over the range with the Eagle Bird outfit, bad gone alone, and had notVf been heard from since. He was at tbe t cabin in the woods—the Cabin be bad v pretended to doubt the existence of— ° comfortably secluded, in tbe society of t a handsome girl of a class from which i be could not take a wife. c Would (hat he were dead! Hillbury ‘ summoned up his case against bis friend. The sad, pure, sensitive Bode- ( win, negligent, yet over-sordpulooa, , whom he bad loved and watched ores < for many years, was no more—nor had he ever been. The poor fellow bad his j own strange charm. Hillbury owned i it and missed, even then when he believed that be bad long been misled by 1 it. The nest evening he went to see j Josephine. He went more than once j to see her, nor could he vet assure ] One evening he asked her ifahe would < take a ride with him in the valley. ] She turned red and then pale. ! * No,’ she said ; ‘ I hate the valley I’ , * Whereever else you please, then.’ , * No, not anywhers, thank you. I shall not ride any more while I am here.’ When he went home tbat night he said to himself, ‘ She too is mourning for tbe living dead.’ And when he considered how her thoughts must be dwelling oh the recreant Bodewin and idealizing him in his absence, the folly oe his friend’s conduct seemed to him almost more tragic than its baseness. (To 5e continued.)