A STORY OF TWO HINDOO DAGGERS.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 165, 14 August 1886, Page 6

A STORY OF TWO HINDOO DAGGERS.

, By Major Alfred Rochsfort.

. CHAPTER XXX (continued), x Back to the Manor, keeping close behind him, she went at a run. •-> She entered the house not ten seconds behind him, and again she was in her room turnin gup the lamp. She overtook him with the flight before he had passed through the library, and here she caught a glimpse of his face, the expression of which h«d undergone another change.- ■ ■■ . His movements had become heavy and weary, and the head that stili held the glittering dagger hung nerveless by his side. Without any idea of rousing him back to consciousness, for she had ceased to fear him, Miriam followed him into the outer room. She saw him open a box — it was exactly like that Clarence Ash worth brought with him, and she was sure it was the same till she recalled that he had voluntarily surrendered it into the keeping of the coroner. Exactly as ClarenceAeh worth had done, the doctor, without changing his eyes from their straight-ahead, unwinking stare, touched a secret spring, and a bolt flew back, revealing the drawer with the golden tiger head for a handle. Into thia drawer the doctor carefully and noiselessly placed the dagger. He closed the drawer, placed back the bolt that concealed it, then put down the lid and locked it, all with the same mechanical accuracy and deliberation. Holding the blade-like key in his hand he walked out and placed it in a drawer at the bottom of the hall clock. This done, betook off his rubber boots and coat, and put them in their accustomed place. Barefoot he walked back to bis own room and closed the door softly behind him. Miriam listened outside, and she could hear him heaving a long sigh of relief, then muttering eomething aa he rolled over on the bed. It was now half-past two by the ball clock ; she sat in the library and waited till it "struck three. Then Bhe went to her father's room, pressed open the door without making any noise and entered His breathing was slow and regular, and there was an expreeeion of profound peace and angelic beneficence on his handsomo face. "Thank God!- Thank God !" she said, in a fervent whisper. Low as were her tone?, and noiseless as was the fall of her feet, he must have been roused by her voice and have recognised it on the instant, for he half rose, and asked, in the gentle accents that had ever been sweetest music to her ears : •' la that you, my child ?" " Yes, dear father," she replied j and her own voice had a foreign sound. " I thought I heard you up, and feared you might want something." " Thanks," he replied j u but I have not moved since I came to bed. I cannot account for my heaviness and weariness of late. But you, my darling — why do you not sleep ?" •'There is a storm raging without, and the rain hag just began to pour down in torrents. Good night." "Good night, my child; and pleasant dreams," he said, with all his characteristic tenderness. Still she putyout the light and went through the form of going to sleep. As if in sympathy with her own thoughts, the wind roared in the chimney till the shrill whistle of the early evening sounded like the shrieka of the tortured, and the rain poured down like a deluge of tears, but there were no healing tears for her dry eyes. 11 Oh !" she cried, in her agony, " God help me ! God show me the right path from this dark and horrible abyss !" She had pledged her word to have no secrets from Clarence Ash worth in this matter when she promised to devote her life to proving him innocent, She loved him ; this she had known since the minute of bis arrest. But in this the hour of her awful discovery her love for Clarence dominated every other thought, like a key note ; not because she had ever doubted of his innocence, but because she now saw that he was in possession of this secret, and that he suffered imprisonment and disgrace for her dear sake. Wita a promise that to her was as Bolemn as an oath, sho had said that she would help to prove to the world that he was as pure and noble as she be,ieved him. " How am I to do it ? How »m Ito do it?"' But while her love for Clarence Ashworth grew stronger, her allegiance to her father never weakened. He was a criminal, but he was an unconscious, and therofore an innocent one ; but, above all, he \tas her father. , Clarence Ashworth must be exonerated. But how was it to be done ? Could she go before the officers of the law and say : "I have the proof of this man's innocence ?" She imagined that she heard one saying : . "We must hold Clarence Ashworth to be guilty till we have incontrovertible proof of his innocence. The only proof the law can accept is the evidence that will overshadow that which we hold, by showing beyond all doubt that another committed the Crimea, Could she say : "Another did commit the crimes, and that other is Dr. Berisford, my father ?" "Oh God ! what can 1 do? What shall I do?" Only the roar of the wind and the rush of the rain came in response. No lightning flash cut through the darkness without. No ray of hope came to her tempest tossed soul. But at length, slowly, slowly, the wind died out, and wearily went to sleep ; and the rain became a drizzle, then a mist, then was still. And the darkness, that had been like the darkness of the tomb, began to fade, fade, till she could see her own trembling hand bend up before her face. Then it grew brighter, and through the parted curtains she could discern the forms of the trees, As she stood there looking at, but without seeing the wondrous transformation going on before her eyes, the Hanging Bock came into view. And where the clouds had been the sun appeared, and smiled peacefully down on Berisford Manor. ,