CHAPTER XII (Continued).

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 156, 29 May 1886, Page 6

CHAPTER XII (Continued).

"I hop© you are not thinking of sacrificing yourself for another less noble and loss generous than youreelf. If euch ia the cine to Actions which certainly have looked dubious till now, I pray that you will reconsider your duty and not play the Don Quixote boo far." Bnt Bwight Pollard, instead of accepting this explanation of his conduct with tha eagerness of a great relief, only shook his head and declared : * 4 My brother -for I know who you mean, Miss Sterling— ia no more amenable to the law than myself. Neither of us were euilty of the action that terminated Mr Barrows's life." •♦And yet," came in the strange and unexpected tones of |a third person, "can you say, in the presence of her you profess to respect and of me whom you once professed to love, that either you or your brother are. guiltless 'of. his death?" and turning simultaneously to-, ward the doorway we saw gleaming in its heavy frame the vivid form and glittering eyes of bis mest redoubtable enemy and mine— Rhoda Colwell. - . He fell back before this apparition and Appeared to lose his power of speech. She advanced like an avenging Nemesis between us. •* "Speak!"' she vehemently exclaimed. " Are you —I say nothing of your brother, who is nothing to me or to her— are you guiltless, in the sense in which she would regard guilt, of David Barrows's death V And her fierce eyes, shining through her half-clo;ed lashes like lurid fires partly veiled, burned upon his face, which, turning paler and paler, drooped before her gaze till his chin settled upon his breast and we barely heard the words that fell from his lips: 'God knows I would not dare to say lam."