CHAPTER III.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 273, 24 April 1873, Page 7

CHAPTER 111.

A December sun, like a red moon in the murky heavens, strove to give light and warmth, and strove in vain.

The aspect of the morning chilled Armand Gleichen to the heart as he looked out upon it from the window of a house in the shadow of St. Hugh-the-Less ; yet when he turned from the window, and surveyed the room in which he found himself, there wtis little to cheer or exhilarate.

It was a poor mean room, with a scanty fire burning in its huge grate. The walls were bare, and the furniture common and insufficient. It was a place to hide in, not to live in. Perhaps that had been its attraction to the fair woman with the golden hair in a tangled mass about her white face, who lay sleeping on the rug before the fire?

That was Evaline, and this was her apartment !

The people of the house knew Armand as visiting their strange lodger, and had admitted him an hour ago. He had found Evaline sleeping as she theu slept, and had not the heart to wake her.

" Poor wretch !" he muttered, gazing at her from a distance. " She may be innocent and happy in her sleep ; I will not bring her back to guilt and misery."

Unconsciously he uttered the wor^s aloud ; they struck on the Bleeper's ear. Perhaps the tone of that voice thrilled to her heart. With a long si<rh she turned, raised her heavy eyelids, and looked up into Armand's face. A cry of joy escaped her ' she rose and went towards him. Only a step or two ; then she stopped. Something in his eyes, something in his manner, startled and confounded her. The dawning smile died out of her face, the half-raised hands dropped to her side.

" What— what?" she faltered, trying to speak, and trying in vain. " vVhat am I doing here?" you would ask," said Armand coldly. "In a word then — all is known ; all is discovered. In God's name, Evaline, what drove you to dye your hands in blood ?"

A spasm of agony passed over his face, as he averted it and put out his hands as if something loathsome were before him.

The girl — for she was as yet only on the threshold of womanhood — stared at him, petrified with amazement. By a great effort she controlled herself, and in a hollow voice demanded what had happened, and what the reproaches meant. He saw her agitation and misinterpreted it.

" Your astonishment is natural," he said; "detection seldom follows thus quickly on the heels of guilt."

Frightened by his words, frightened yet more by the look which he regarded her, she sank at her lover's feet, and looked up with clasped hands and boseeching eyes.

"Tell me all," she cried; all— all that you accuse me of !"

" What should I tell you ;" he asked bitterly. " You talked of justice and you have had revenge. You have taken Olympia's life ; justly forfeited, no doubt, but your guilt is none the less. It is still murder."

Her hands dropped ; she half-raised herself on one knee.

" Armand,?' she cried, " you —you are jesting with me. No ; Must I, swear to you that I am innocent — that what you tell me curdles my blood ? What shall I say ? Armand, Armand, what shall I say or do ?" Her pleading did not move his pity ; it excited his contempt.

"You protest your innocence," ho said. " Listen. When this woman escaped from the inn in disguise, ray vigilance was baffled. You, by arrangement, watched from a window opposite the inn ; you therefore must have seen all. . I can understand that, your suspicions beincr aroused, you followed your prey. What T cannot understand is, that on finding her likely

to escape, you should have let your feel'ngs so far get the better of you as to induce you to attempt her life."

" Armand, I swear to you — " she began, clutching at his arm with her outstretched hands.

"Enough, enough!" he inteip>sed roughly. "If you are innocent give me proof of it." " What proof?" "The diamond bullet — show it to me."

She relaxed her hold, and sank cowering to the ground. " God help me ! I cannot." That was her piteous answer.

" No," he returned with bitterness, "you cannot, because you dared to mete out to Olympia the same measure of cruelty she exercised toward her victim. It was the diamond bullet which gave her the death-wound. It was found glittering in the trunk of a tree at the foot of which she fell a corpse."

At these words the degraded girl gazed with a strangely- bewildered look ; then with a faint moan fell senseless before him.

After that interview the lovers met no more for years. Both quitted England. Armand travelled, volun tee ring for an African expedition, which helped him to forget bis sorrow and thfi woman who had caused it. She settled in. Paris, a lonely heartbroken woman. The crime which had separated them was soon forgotten. Long afterwards Armand returning to Cape Town after protracted wanderings in the interior, had it suddenly brought under his notice by a few lines in a colonial newspaper. They were to the effect that a labourer, name not given, had just died in Sittingbourne workhouse ; but before his death he hud made this revelation. He said he was the first to discover the body of the lady who was supposed to have been mnrdered in the snow some winters ago. When he found her she was grasping in her hand a pistol worked with gold and set with gems, the sijjht of which so wrought on him that he secured it, and so left it to be supposed that she had been murdered, though in truth she had died by her own hand. Iv proof of his story, he added that, getting alarmed, he subsequently threw the weapon into a certain pond, the situation of which he indicated. There on search being made, the pistol was found.

The effect of this revelation on Armand's mind was terrible. He saw he had done the woman he loved a great wrong. To repair this, as far as practicable, he at once set out for Europe. On reaching England, he had no difficulty of verifyins: the newspaper statement ; to find a clue to Evaline's retreat jwas more difficult Many months were spent in fruitless search, but at last he succeeded. They met, and on his knees he besought forgiveness for his impetuosity, and the injurious suspicions which had separated them. Evaline listened with tears and a throbbing heart ; but she restrained a moment the impulse to throw herself upon his breast.

" Though guiltless,,' she said, I was yet to blame. Kemember I could not produce the diamond. Let me tell you why."

" Yon had parted with it ?"

" Yes ; in a moment of jealous folly. When I saw how we had tracked that woman to her doom, I could not restrain the burning desire to show then, without delay, that she was in our power, and that we were about to be revenged. Swayed by this girlish weakness, I enclosed the diamond in a bonhonniere her victim had used, and sent it to the hotel. Heaven knows how the sight of it worked on her crazed mind, and how far I was thus responsible for her miserable end. But, Armand, I have repented bitterly — O, so bitterly ! and if you can forgive me, I — I — "

The rest was sobbed out, as Armand clasped her tightly in his arms.