For Her Sister's Sake, OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8365, 22 February 1907, Page 2

For Her Sister's Sake, OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

"For Her Sister's Sake " was commenced on December 20th.]

CHAPTER XXVl.—Continued. "Then he refused to be frightened by the mere sight of the pistol, but' struggled to wrest the paper from you?" . , "Yes," answered Winnie simply. The large, thin lips of her questioner closed tightly for an instant, then parted again. "You meant only to show the re-I volver." pursued tier questioner, "so long as it was a question of the certificate, but to use it if you should be menaced with insult; otherwise you would have taken it unloaded?" "Yes." The girlish voice, nervous yet frank, fell movingly on the ears of all who heard it. "Yet when the man Garth refused to be overawed by the pistol in your fight for the certificate, a shot was fired by you?" Winnie swayed slightly as she stood. . "I—l did not know the trigger worked so easily," she said tremulously. .. „,, "You had your finger on it, then.' asked her merciless cross-examiner. Winnie put a hand to her throat. She felt as if she were choking. "I was very, very frighened, ' she said. "You see, he spoke about letting ''me look at the certificate if I would kiss him." She drew a sudden breath at the words, as if it hurt her to utter them. The great criminal lawyer looked at his rotes, hardening his heart to Vnq "fcflslc "You say that you have no recollection of the second shot?" he continued.. ' . "I cannot remember anything, said Winnie, rallying her self-con-trol, "except that he was twisting my wrist to get the pistol from me. Then the entire scene passed away like a dream, and when I came to myself he was lying there, dead."

"How long were you unconsciousfive minutes, ten minutes, half an hour?" Winnie reflected painfully. "When I got out into the street again," she answered, "I.,saw a clock. It was half-past twelve.'.' "Half-past twelve," repeated the lawyer; "and shortly before midnight your brother-in-law, David Garth, left Lavenden House to go to the Grammont Mansion. He was seen there knocking for admission at I a quarter or twenty minutes after midnight, and at half-past he was still there. How did you escape meeting him?" Winifred Lavenden's fingers closed in a convulsive clasp. "I went out by the other door of the flat, farther along the corridor," she said. "Wiry?" she was asked. She did not answer, and her questioner looked from his silent victim to the dozen faces in the jury box, and back again to that of Winifred Lavenden. "I put it to you," he said, "that it was to escape meeting the person in nurse's costume who was knocking at the door of the fiat. Is that not so?"

There was no answer. The point was pressed. "I put it to you that when David Garth, disguised as a .nurse, reached his brother's door, that brother, by accident or what you will, already lay dead?" * Still no answer, only a shuddering sob, and then Winifred Lavenden stretched out her arms toward Edward Agnew. He had covered his eyes with his hand; he could not watch her torture. "Yes, yes," she cried. "Oh! I should have, told you, I should have told you " The words failed on her lips, and she fell fainting into the arms of the wardress. CHAPTER XXVII. THE END OF THE FIGHT. .

"A few moments more and I shall have uttered the last words which it will be in ray power to speak on behalf of Miss Lavenden before you are called upon to declare her guilty or innocent. But when lam silent the facts will remain and remain to vindicate a brave and a generous, if an ill-starred woman." The speaker's voice trembled, and for an instant Edward Agnew stood mute. His handsome features were •drawn and set, and his broad shoulders rose and fell under the black silk of his gown as he picked mechanically at the ledge of the desk before him. A general sigh stirred in the court. Every eye was bent upon him. He. nerved himself and went 6n. He had been speaking for an hour, giving a quiet, searching analysis of the evidence of the prosecution, and in all that time his glance had not strayed toward the dock, where, between two wardresses, sat a bowed and girlish form. Nor had his gaze sought the spot--where, from the shadow of the jurybcx, Charles Ingram followed with tireless eagerness bis friend's utterances, still less had he glanced where side by side, George Merivale and •Constance Istria sat as they had throughout the trial. He had looked <only«a the twelve commonplace men whom fate had appointed to judge her. "The charge against the prisoner, ihe continued, "is one of wilful murder. That charge the prosecution cannot claim to have established so long as the facts of the case are consistent with the possibility thafc, James Garth met his death by the accidental discharge of the revolver which Miss Lavenden was within lier rights—~" Edward Agnew paused. He had emphasised the word almost defiantly and he repeated it. *■ -"Her rights," he' said, "in taking

By R- Norman Silver, thov of *>A Double MasJc," "A Danghterlof ]My sit * i "MeldlApart,' "The Golden Dwarf," etc.

with her. A young and beautiful woman compelled, for her sisters sake, to risk a midnight visit to a dangerous scoundrel, who was endeavouring to force her into an infamous marriage, Miss Lavenden was within her legal rights in arming herself. That being so, her possession of the weapon must not itself be invested with any sinister significance. _ls there, then, a single fact which necessarily demaiftls that you shall attribute the death of James Garth to the deliberate premeditated act of Winifred Lavenden? It is your duty to ask and to answer that question, and I have shown vouttat you must answer in he negative." Again a sigh stirred in the court, and died away. It told Edward Agnew how powerfully his words were affecting his hearers. "But " he added, "if there were anyldoubt in any of your minds, that doubt is not enough . Your duty is to find a prisoner innocent unless you are convinced that the facts prove, beyond doubt or uncertainty, his or her guilt.'' He turned suddenly, and flung out his arms—one toward the jury-box, one toward the dock. >f "Which of you will dare to say, he asked, "that there is no doubt in this case? Which of you will dare to affirm bis conviction that when this poor girl set out on her chivalrous errand she had no other thought or aim than that of committing a planned and deliberate murder? Which of you will dare on 1 the strength of his own interpretation of so manv strange and tragic facts? to place the rope about her neck and her feet upon the scaffold?" Edward Agnew sat down abruptly. It was as if a blow had fallen upon the listeners; a shudder as strong as that caused by an electric shock seemed to shake the silent, serried* crowd. The young lawyer's head dropped puon his breast. His terrible task finished, he appeared to have been overtaken by an absolute col'lapse. Suddenly the tones of another voice attracted their attention. The great counsel who led for the posecution had commenced his reply. He spoke in slow, clear, simple sentences. They broke the spell of Edwar Angew's words, and a rustle passed through the court. It faded into stillness, and once again the crowd was listening strainedly. But Edward Agnew sat with his head upon his ; breast, and>from the dock, her : whole soul in her wide, blue, brooding eyes, Winifred Lavenden watched him. So absorbed was she tha she might almost have been oblivions of the fact that the thin lips of the famous criminal lawyer had once more begun to weave about her their net of calm, passionless reasoning. . < 1 Methodically, and with amazing brevity and precision he sketched the history of he case and the circumstances which had led up to it. The sisters' poverty-stricken life m a London suburb, the secret marriage of Julia Lavenden to David Garth, the birth of her child,, the arrest and trial of her husband, the escape of his brother, the events that made ! Julia Garth, the acknowledged wife i of a Dartmoor convict, a peeress of England—all these he reconstructed with swift, pictorial touches down to the day when James Garth, alias Garside, was introduced to Julia, Viscountess Lavenden, by her own cousin, George Merivale. Then he paused—a marked, long- ! drawn pause—and studied the fixed, ' pale countenances in the jury-box. "What, from that moment," he asked, "threatened these two 1 women? You will say,and say cor- , rectly, 'social exposure.' But who I was it that had most to fear from the exposure—Lady Lavenden, a woman already shattered in hope and ambition by the tragedy which had befallen her, or the prisoner, a young, a beautiful woman, with the world, socially speaking, at her feet? To her the prospect of being associated in the public mouth with the vulgar criminality of the Garths must have [ confronted her like a sentence of ' social doom. Nor would the mere ' destruction of the marriage-eertifi- ! cate, upon which the defence has laid so much stress, have delivered 1 her from the danger of social dis- ' grace. While James Garth lived 1 the danger remained." The great lawyer wiped his thin ' lips with his handkerchief. "We have been told," he went 1 on, "that the dead man had made ' overtures of affection to the prisoner, : that he had returned to pursue those ' overtures. To Winifred Lavenden, 1 in her new s'phere of life, her old wooer, James Garth, blackguard, 1 card-sharper, and criminal as he was, must have seemed a person of 1 evil omen indeed. Let us consider " his cold and blighting shadow ! thrown across some other and more : favoured wooer " , " (To be Continued). * ■