CHAPTER LXVIII.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 108, 27 June 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER LXVIII.

" T WILL, DENNIS !" i 4'i 4 ' In>rratitu 1o! Thou marble-hearted flend ! More hideous when thou showest In a child Thau the sea-monster !"— Shakespeare. The new year was two weeks old, and a promising child at that, when Mrs VernellGrimes and her maid reached Chicago. A wretched journey to both had been their voyage back. The maid kept asking herself, now that she held such an awful secret, what she was to do with it. It quite burdened her. Never for a moment could she shake it off. It was not Grimes who had muidered the colonel. That would have been a different matter. It was this poor, tormented lady for whom her patient heart had conceived a kind of dog-like affec tion. She needed her so much, leant on her so completely. And what would it avail her, Guila Grimes.here or hereafter, to denounce her ? And as for that mistress, who would have recognised her? From the very day of the funeral, when, after Hilaria had adjusted her veil, and she, looking in the mirror to see the effect, had imagined that there she beheld peering over her shoulder the face of her murdered husband, she had been haunted by phantoms. These visions of an unre&ting conscience had culminated in horror the night at the gaming-table when Grimes, with diabolic cruelty, had played her an appalling trick. It ?ent her reason staggering to the very confines of ! madness.. Since then remorse, absinthe, and disillusioned love had been steadily doing their fatal work. She would have no more personal adornment. Deprived of its custom ry daily coating of White Rose Pallor and Jacque minot Glow, her face was yellow, wrinkled, haggard as tl'at of a woman of seventy. Now that the Kaven's Wing was no longer applied to her tresses, one saw how thickly appeared the whitening hairs Her figure had grown shrunken and bowed. The eyes alone seemed like those of Mrs Charu. They were bright, keen, afire. " To what hotel shall we go, madam ?" Hilaria asked, as the train steamed into Chicago. 11 Hotel ! We shall not go to any. W e shall drive home " " Where, madam?" "To Praiiie Avenue, of course !" " But madam forgets the house is rented — was rented ready-furnished to an old gentleman." "Madam forgets nothing!" came the tart reply. " But madam will be obeyed." Against her, in this mood, Hilaria knew it was useless to argue ; so when they were seated in a hack she gave the driver the old address. But as they neared their destination, driving straight south on Michigan Avenue she dreaded what new vagary would possess her when there arrived. A neglected look the Vernell mansion wore when they stopped before it. Most ot the blinds were down. The steps anH p»ih were covered with untrodden snow, iiiia .. paid the driver and dismissed him. The two women approached the house Mrs Vernell took from her bosom a bunch of keys and unlocked the outer door. "Madam," her maid protested, "the occupant will think this strange !" "That is so. I— l had forgotten," she said, vacantly. And she dropped her hand. " Do not go in at all, madam !" her attendent went on, soothingly. "It will revive painful memories." She started, and looked at her maid with a sort of questioning terror. How much did she know? "There are no memories I fear !" speak ing haughtily, ehrilly. " King !" She did as bidden. No answer. " King again !" Again the bell clamorei through the great house. Not a sound. Aeain and yet again, but with the same result, " I shall go in !" said Mrs Vernell, dec"dedly. They were standing in the vestibule. She applied another key to the inner door. It turned in the lock. The door swung back. They went in. Richly furnished as of old, the hall looked bleak, emelt damp. Walking cautiously, dreading they knew not what, they went through the long draw- j ing room. It was in the most extraor- j dinary confusion, disorder. If a band of pillaging soldiery had raided it, it could not be more topsy-turvy. Every cabinet in the room was ransacked and its contents strewn over the floor. Several o f the beautiful painted panels which adorned the walls were hewn out of place as though with hatchet or axe " What can it mean ?" they whispered. Through every room in the house went they. Everywhere the same spectacle of barbarism met their eyes. "It must be the work of burglars !" Hilaria whispered, and her mistress nodded assent. But nowhere was there sign of life, of any human being. Only once did Mrs Vernell show evidence of emotion, of wavering. That was when they entered the colonel's smoking 1 den on the second floor. There she staggered, and grew so ghastly her maid involuntarily sprang to her aid. But with a violent effort she recovered herself. " When I require you, I shall tell you !" she panted. For though relentless conscience had iriven her back to the ecene of her crime, a frantic terror of detection thrilled and swayed her, brain and body. •"' Hark !" cried Hilaria, suddenly. They both stood still to listen. "There it ie again !" she cried. The short Janu try day was waning. The dull, yellowish light stealing between the curtains showed each the face of the other, wild with a nameless terror. " It was a human voice !" " A moan !" breathed Hilaria. Once more they heard it faintly, " Help I" "It came from tho closet there !" murmured Filaria. "Go and see !" said her mistresß. But she shrank back. Again it was repeated, and this timemore faintly. Who could resist such a piteous appeal for aid ? Hilaria went boldly forward and flung open the door. Such a sight as was that which met her eyes. On the floor, his limbs drawn up in an attitude of pain, lay an old man attired in a flowing gown, and wearing a grey wig. He was frightfully pale, and his clothes were soaked with blood. Instantly Mrs Vernell recognised him. He was the tenant to whom the house had been leased.

" It is Mr Helm !" she cried. Hilaria went off like a flash and back in a moment with a cup of wine — the dregs of a decanter. She litted th 6 old man's headmade him swallow it. Then she lifted, bodily, his attenuated form in her strong arms aud bore him into the adjoining room, and laid him on the bed. With swift skilful fingers as those of a professional nurse, she cut his clothes, discovered the wound, bound it up. Then she went on a fresh search for food and drink. These she obtained. When she returned she found him in a dead faint, and Mrs Vernell wringing her hands in helpless terror. Half an hour after, when care and nourishment had somewhat revived him, he spoke. Few sentences, of course, and brokenly, but with her ear close to his lips Hilaria repeated them connectedly as she itnagjinecl he wished her to comprehend, and he eagerly nodded affirmation. "Your servant tried to kill you for the purpose of robbery. You have gold. He thrust you in the closet to die," she said, dtPtinotly, "is that it?" He bent his head. " I don't - know —I can't remember !" he murmured " Shall I send for a doctor— go for one rather?" He clutched her arm with a look of dissent and dismay. "Then lam not to go?" He shook his head and smiled. 11 There is some one ooming toward the house," said Mrs Vernell from the window u'here she stood. " Who ?" he gasped. She turned in careless surprise. "I do not know. A coloured man. " A great tremor shook from head to feet the figure on the bed. Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. With extiemo agitation he motion^ to Hilaria. Again she bent above him. "He— it was he -but did not - get money. Had changed— not there Will look more " "You mean he did not discover your money because you had changed the place j of its concealment, and that he has come to j look for it. He nodded, his evident excitement growing more intense. Whatever freak took sudden possession of Mrs Vernell at the words, Heaven only knows, for assuredly the two others with her did not. The door of the wardrobe near which she stood was ajar, di&closing the clothing within. " Now,' 1 she cried, " for a good scare !" She dashed in, and in a moment re-ap-peared, a Japanese dressing gown of old Helm's enveloping her from head to feet She hurried across to the bed, snatched off, his wig, fastened it on her own head. , Was she already indeed past the boundary of the dark country ? "Madam!" remonstrated Hilaria in' affright. But the old man understood. Into his eyes came something which was like a gleam ot amusement. She drew from her bosom a small revolver she always carried of late They could hear the cracking of the door below as it swung open. Mrs Vernell went into t!ie corridor, down r. few step-* of the staiis. Nervous lest the outcome should bo another tragedy, Hilaria quickly followed hor mistress. i The new-comer, a gigantic negro, came | a \ Ith furtive tread The figure on the >tnirs attracted his eje. With a yell of dismay he leaped back. "Master! Master!" In this waning light deception was easy. The gray dressing-gown, the silvery wig. "For what have you returned?" In a low, deep voice, and levelling the revolver " The truth, you black fiend !" 41 For money." And there breath and pluck deserted him, and he crouched back against the door in a paroxysm of terror. Fearful of betraying herself, Mrs Vernell bade him be gone. And when he had skulked out and away like a lashed cur, she called to Hilaria to go down and secure the door. She flung aside the revolver, sat down on the topmost step, just where Miss Dorothy had sat the night Jonus Claflin had returned to seek his bride, and burst into a peal of shrill, unearthly laughter. In that house, occupying the same room, she and Hilaria that night remained The next day Mr Helm was on a fair road to recovery, but at his urgent request they still stayed. Hilaria restored the house to something like order, and prepared the meal 3. Three days longer they remained. Then Mrs Vernell said they would go to the hotel. Whatever had impelled her to come here in the first place it would be hard to determine. But, then, she never of late had very good reasons for her caprices. As yet her plans as to restitution were very *ague. Since returning she had imagined no relentless spectres, and perhaps for that cause her resolutions slightly paled Besides, how would the former be possible without in some way arousing suspicion and implicating herself ? The day of their departure dawned bright, blue-skyed, and sunshiny. At Mr Helm's request Hilaria had telegraphed to a cousin of his, and had received a reply that she would come on and take charge. Just now the old man sat propped up in a big arm-chair, in the upper sitting-room of tragic memories. Near him stood Hilaria, who had just taken away his lunch -tray and made him comfortable. Obeying an irresistible impulse, she spoke out, abruptly. " What induced you to rent such a large house when there were only two to occupy it ?" she asked. He laughed drearily, and with a shade of embarrassment. "We all have fancies, and this is one of mine." Unconceived but silent, she sat down opposite him. In a quiot way they had come to be good friends of late, these two. She pitied him, and be was grateful for her attention. He supposed her much older than she really was because of her disguise. Suddenly he lifted his white-headed, whitebearded old face. " If you would really care to hear it, I will tell you my etory," he said. "I would indeed," she answered. And then he told her, relating his life prosily, garrulously, as an old age narrates incident's the most trivial. One episode in particular struck her, so pathetic was it, so illustrative of cold blooded, youthful cruelty. " About twelve years ago I found myself setting out for the second time to make my fortune. To save my little hoard my son and I determined to journey as far west as we might on foot. One night, while sleeping in the open air, rain began to fall I was drenched. In the morning I awoke in a raging fever. And what do you suppose, while I lay there parched, feeble, helpless by the roadside, that son of mine did? Stole my little stock of provisions, stole my little bag of money, and without leaving me as much as a cup of water to moisten my baked lips, left mo. May a just Heaven curse his life !" "That was inhuman," his listener said, at last;, with a shudder,

" Ihave lived to berevenged," he went on. "It was two days before I was discovered by emigrants, and life was nearly extinct. I vowed I would get rioh. Fortune favoured me, passing by many a better man. Never mind," with a cunning twinkle in his old eyes, "how much money I've amassed in those twelve years. My servant knew itwas a good deal ; that's why he tried to kill me. He it was who rented this house for me, I've always had dreams while living in this grand place of meeting my son some day on the street ragged, penniless -of bringing him here, saying : ' This is my home. lam wealthy. Go and starve !' Oh, it took years of grinding to gather the money, but I would gladly give every cent of it for one hour of vengeance —of triumph over him !" And while they talked, they did not know that below Mrs Vernell had a visitor. He had seen her at the window as he came up the path, and had motioned ber to admit. Protesting at hearty but unable to refuse, she obeyed. When they stood in the great ruined drawing-room, he faoed her in intense amazement, disgußt. " Is it really you ?" he said. He might well ask the question. In this yellow, bowed, shrivelled, greyhaired old woman there was little trace of the glowing beauty of Letitia Chavu. As she remembered her altered appearance, she put up both hands and covered her face with a shuddering cry of dismay. As for him, he looked fresh, young, jaunty as ever. " A nice trick that you played me !" be said. "Well, we can't talk about it now. There is something far more important to discuss. Head that !" And he handed her a paper of that morning. In flaring headlines was a statement in which one read the words, " Fraud !" 44 Vernell Estate !" " The Swindled Heirs !" And below, a long, gossipy, graphic account of the claim instituted by Voyle Vernell against the Vernell property. When she had fully comprehended all that it signified, she looked up with a calm face. " That makes the work of restitution so much the easier for me. I will not contest the case." So this was how she took it ! He must change all that. There was only one chord now to strike. "If you do," he said, "it will be an act of sheer madness. Do you not know that any such course would arouse inquiry ? Already there are not a few who harbour suspicion. If you did not contest the claim, there are hundreds who would say, 'Ah ! she is stricken with remorse for having murdered her husband I' " It was a bold, risky move, this carelessly constructed, unpolished lie. But he knew the bare thought would terrify her into submission. She possessed not now her old vigorous, resolute brain. She was weaker, more easily influenced. His power over her had always been extraordinary. " She flung her hands above her head with a cry of fear "Would they - think, say — " she gasped. " Would they ?" he repeated, scornfully. "Havel not told you that the colonel's sudden death is being referred to in curious tones. Only to day the man next me in the street-car said to his neighbour : ' I wonder if that brilliant widow the lucky colonel married had anything to do with his exit !' " She groaned aloud. " It is from this," he went on, following up the impression he had made, " that 1 have come to save you " She fell on her knees before him, convulsed with terror. "I could not bear to see you, Letitia, you," his voice taking on a new tenderness, "standing in the felon's dock, condemned — " But her wailing cry interrupted him. " No, no ! Oh, I have dimly dreaded that. The fear is with me always always. I will do whatever you say, anything, Dennis, if you will only pave me !" Her eyes were fairly starting from her head. There was a faint foam on her livid lips, " It is ao late now, there is only one way," he replied, slowly, a gleam of exultation in his pale, lazy eyes. " And that " she whispered. You remember telling mo that young Vernell was with the colonel the night of the— the death." "Yes." "And I myself, near McVecker's one night, heard him make threats against him. Now those facts, in conjunction with his claim to the property now presented, will save you if " Her glittering eyes questioned him. He went on steadily. " if you swear out a warrant tor his arrest on the charge of murdering his uncle, Colonel James Vernell." She crouched back on the floor, panting. Her hesitation angered him. He turned away. " Don't then ! I waeh my hands of you. You are ungrateful. Go to Joilet for life, if you prefer 1" She leaped after him, caught him, clung to him, shivering, shrieking, weeping ■wildly. " / will, Dennis — / will /"