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she was too scrupulous to take even the price of a gownv 
I tell you she has wandered away ill, and out of her 
mind.” 
Bradley, through this passionate and tender outburst, 
had not spoken, scarcely breathed, for the shock of Vir- 
ginie’s flight had fallen upon him with stunning force. 
Now his eyes fell on a piece of folded paper that lay on the 
table, and he took it up mechanically and placed it in Win¬ 
nie’s hand. As she unfolded the scrap which was traced 
with weak wavering lines, and literally blistered with tears, 
she read the following : 
“ Try to forgive and to forget me. I have not meant to 
do you wrong, for I have loved you dearly. I have prayed 
and wept and struggled against temptation, but I am weak, 
and must fly, for sooner would I die a thousand deaths 
than harm a hair of your head. You may revile me and 
scorn me, but my heart will always adore your goodness, 
and breathe out prayers for your welfare. Farewell for¬ 
ever. Yirgixie.” 
Winnie’s hands trembled so violently that the paper- 
fluttered down to the floor. 
“ What does she mean by doing me wrong, and fleeing 
from temptation?” she asked, with a convulsed face. 
“What is this mystery that is enveloping me on every 
side ? ” 
Bradley had turned his face to the wall; ho could not 
speak, and the misery of his weak conduct in paltering 
with truth planted its fangs deep in his soul. Winnie 
seemed to tower far above him; he dared not meet her 
eye ; and seeing him thus crushed and beaten down with 
a secret load of grief and remorse, she cried out passion¬ 
ately: 
“ Why in Heaven's name don’t you speak ? ” 
“ I thought it was strange he should want to keep that 
girl in the house," volunteered Mrs. Braithwaite, filling 
the doorway with her bulk, “ and I told him so, but I sup¬ 
pose he was taken in by her, just as vou were, Winni- 
fred ? ” 
“Do be still, mamma,” cried Winnie, with hopeless im¬ 
patience. “ I won’t hear Yirginie accused of any crime ; 
but there is something behind all this, and I will know the 
truth.” 
Kdgar Swayne had come up the stairs unheeded in the 
excitement of the moment. His face was haggard, and his 
great-coat was splashed with mud, as if he had ridden 
hard. Now he pushed past Mrs. Braithwaito’s form, and 
presented himself to Winnie. 
“ Miss Braithwaite,” said he, abruptly, “ I have just 
heard of the robbery from the gardener, and I think I can 
tell you who it was that rifled your safe last night. If it 
had not been for that man,” pointing with undisguised 
scorn at Bradley Halcourt, “who stepped in to shield a 
criminal from justice, I should have had him behind prison 
bars before he found the opportunity to rob you.” 
“Who are you speaking of?” Bradley asked, facing 
him .with haughty coldness, though pale as ashes. 
“Of Walter Freeborn.” 
“Walter Freeborn?” repeated Winnifred, in a dazed, 
bewildered tone. “ Why, that is the name of Yirginie’s 
uncle.” 
“Yes; and do you want to know who Walter Free¬ 
born is? ” returned Edgar. “He is an escaped convict 
who broke, prison more than six months ago, and for the 
past few weeks has been skulking about this place, holding 
secret interviews with his niece; and now it would appear 
that she has become an accomplice in his crime. It was 
doubtless through her aid that he rifled the safe, and then 
they decamped together.” 
“ You lie in your throat,” cried Bradley, turning upon 
him as if he would rend him. 
“ Oh, Bradley,” cried Winnifred, joyfully, springing be¬ 
tween them, “ how glad I am to hear you defend her.” But 
why,” wringing her hands, “ did she not tell me the truth 
about this dreadful uncle ? Why did she deceive me ? 
I would have forgiven anything. I never would have 
thought evil of her. I would have sheltered her in my 
arms, and saved her from him. Oh, why has she gone 
away with these terrible suspicions clinging to her 
skirts ? ” 
“She did not confess to you,” said Bradley, “I am as 
sure of it as I am that I live, because that man terrified 
her into silence with threats and menaces. I aided his 
escape because I detected Llii3 dreadful secret, and knew 
that the horror and fear shadowing her life were killing 
her. I divined it, though she never told me the truth.” 
The color left Winnie’s lips . Something in Bradley’s 
tone had struck an icy foreboding to her heart. 
“But why did she go away?” asked Winnie faintly. 
“Why, if she was innocent of all complicity with this 
man, .as I believe before heaven she was, did she steal out 
of the house like a culprit in the middle of the night ? ” 
Bradley felt pushed to the edge of the precipice; he 
must take the fatal leap. He nerved himself for it, and 
was outwardly almost calm, as he turned and said in a low 
voice, low but distinct to every one present : 
“ She went away because I love her with my whole 
heart, and soul, and strength. I told her of my love when 
I knew it at last. I did not mean to tell her,” he added, 
humbly, “ and it was a fatal act. It has driven her out of 
this house, God knows where, when she was ill, and scarce 
able to drag herself away, because she would not stay 
here to wrong you, and her conscience was killing her. 
I am the criminal, but she is guiltless before heaven. If 
she is found dead in the fields, it is my selfishness that has 
done it. Oh, my God 1 ” 
The burning tears welled up into his eyes, his voice was 
choked with sobs. 
The effect of this revelation on the different faces of the 
group was a strange study; but everything swam in 
blackness before Winnie’s eyes. A thunderbolt had 
crashed down on her proud young head, as it falls on the 
leafy top of a stalwart young oak in the forest. It was 
such a moment as makes a vigorous creature suddenly 
old, hurtling a life out of self-satisfaction, and false secur¬ 
ity and triumph, into an abyss of pain and despair. She 
covered her face with her hands, and tottered forward to a 
chair. In a moment she had started to her feet again with 
a sharp lonely cry of anguish : 
“You duped me, you cheated me, oh, fool, fool that I 
havo been! You have carried on a love intrigue with her, 
my friend, here in this house, while presenting yourself 
before the world as my affianced husband. And she lis¬ 
tened, well pleased, to your love tale, and responded to it, 
while I betrayed myself, all unconscious, in her bosom. 
Oh, my God! who would have thought I should live to 
see this hour? Oh, it was cruel, cruel.” 
Again she sank down and covered her face, and terrible 
resistant sobs shook her whole frame. 
Bradley stood almost over her, pleading in tones of 
passionate entreaty. 
“ When you have calmed yourself, Winnifred, you will 
see all this sad story in a different light. You are noble 
and generous, and the time will come when you will be 
just to her, when you will even pity her for the terrible 
struggle through which she has passed in trying to be true 
to you. For myself, I expect nothing but your scorn and 
contempt. I cannot make you understand my cruel posi¬ 
tion. You have loved her dearly, but there is no such 
feeling in your heart to plead forgiveness for me.” 
Winnie was crushed as by a sudden stroke, and she 
trembled convulsively through her whole body. 
“ I do not understand you, Bradlejq” she said, in a 
strange tone; “ my brain seems frozen.” 
“ I mean,” he returned with gentle sadness, “that there 
was no question of love between us. Our union would 
be merely a marriage of expediency, a thing that nature 
abhors. I meant to show you my heart that day Yirginie 
was taken ill—to throw myself entirely on your generosity, 
and to ask you to release me from an artificial bond that 
would soon gall you as it galled me. I told you when wo 
talked of this that I would release you from your obliga¬ 
tion, should you desire it, even were we standing at the 
altar. I had not waked then to the meaning of my feeling 
for her. The knowledge came when I saw her suffering. 
But now I claim your generous forbearance. I ask you 
with deep contrition for the pain I have caused you, to let 
me go in search of her, that I may prove to you and to the 
whole world that she is the innocent victim of a base man, 
and no less,” he added, in a stifled voice, “ the victim of my 
love.” 
Winnifred was stunned and almost incapable of motion. 
The life had ebbed out of her, and Bradley’s words ap¬ 
peared to come from a long distance. But pride and will 
were still alive. She struggled up to her feet, rigid and 
erect, looking taller than her wont, her face like marble, 
and her eyes shooting out terrible glances of scorn. 
“ Go,” said she emphatically. “ You have cheated, and 
tricked, and deceived me; now go to her. I will not de¬ 
tain you longer.” 
The strength went out of her limbs, and slowly she sank 
down fainting and almost insensible. The mute signs of 
suffering weie so visible in her, that Bradley paused with 
a terrible cloud of pain sweeping before his eyes. 
“ Winnie,” said lie. in tones of entreaty, “ if what I did 
not dream of is true, if I have wounded more than your 
woman’s pride, I beg your pardon even on my knees. No, 
it cannot be that you are'suffering the pangs of unre¬ 
quited love. Oh, Winnie, I am all unworthy of you ! Hate 
me ! scorn me! revile me! ” 
The hard sobs again convulsed her bosom. She did not 
weep easily, and the emotion seemed to rend its way out¬ 
ward. 
She made a sign with her hand that he should leave her, 
and slowly turning with one long, sad look, he went away. 
Edgar had rushed out of the house the moment of Brad¬ 
ley’s declaration of his love for Virginie, and now when 
the numbness and the sense of shock had a little passed 
by, Winnie lifted her head and gazed about her. The 
daylight hurt her eyeballs, and shot sharp darts of pain 
through her brain. Slowly she got upon her feet, almost 
groping forward with a sense that all support was goDe. 
The old satisfaction and feeling of predominance, the old 
triumphant self-confidence had been struck away. She 
was alone save that her mother still sat there in heavy 
silence, with her large helpless hands crossed in her lap, 
and a bewildered look of stupifaction, a dim groping kind 
of distress glimmering in her face. 
Winnie looked around. Bradley was gone. Virginie 
was gone. They were both lost to her forever. As the 
terrible consciousness swept over her, her eye fell on her 
mother, and suddenly she tottered forward, and fell on the 
floor near her, and clasped her knees, and laid her head in 
her mother’s lap. By an instinct long unused, the poor 
dull-witted woman put her arms around her child, the beau¬ 
tiful, brilliant, triumphant creature, who, after years of in¬ 
difference, had at last come creeping as a suppliant to her 
knees ! With plaintive murmurs she timidly touched her 
hair and chafed her cold hands. 
“There, don’t cry, don’t cry, Winnie. I always knew 
that foreign girl would bring harm. I said so from the 
first, when you began doting on her. But I am beat about 
Bradley. He was the best little boy I ever knew; but it 
did seem strange he should want that girl kept here; and 
I suppose all along she was using her arts to get him away 
from you.” 
“ Don’t, don’t,” said Winnie, wincing, as if the blunder¬ 
ing speech had stung her. “You can’t understand that, 
mamma, and I cannot explain. But you see how I am 
beaten down to the earth. Love me a little, and comfort 
me if you can, mamma. I have been wicked to you, and 
have neglected and hurt yon. This is my punishment. 
Cau you forgive your child? Oh, this trouble is heavier 
than I can bear." 
The poor woman began to sob, and her face worked 
with unwonted emotion. Some frozen feelings were again 
softening her poor, lonely old." heart. 
“ You were a pretty baby,” said she, simply going back 
into the dim past. “You were fond of me then; and I 
often wake nights and think I feel your little soft hand 
against my face. But when you got old enough to senso 
things your father took you away from me, and I- never 
had any more comfort. I was your own mother just the 
same, though,” with a pathetic touch of humility. “ I 
never did pretend to be quick about things, but I had hu¬ 
man feelings for all that.” 
“ Don’t, don’t,” cried Winnie, moaning out her despair. 
“All the past has been hideously wrong. I have made 
you suffer, and I am sorry, but I can’t think of it now. 
Love me a little if you can. Let me feel that all is not 
taken away, thatthere is something human to cling to oven 
if I have been wicked. ’ 
A new strength and purpose seemed to come into the 
poor mother’s soul, and she lifted up her child, ami took 
her in her arms, and laid her head down on her bosom, 
where it had not rested for years. Furtively she put her 
lips to Winnie’s forehead, and smoothed the rich dark hair, 
and an hour passed and still the girl was lying in her 
mother’s arms. 
At last she was roused out of her lethargy by the sobs 
and groans, and loud laments of old Nanna, as she came in 
hauling Steenie by the arm. though he resisted this vio¬ 
lence with all his might. His frightened wool stood more 
on end than ever, and a pale ashen hue had overspread his 
face. 
“ Oh, little Miss, I knowed if dar was mischief goin’ dis 
lim of Satan must be in it shore. I kotched him chokin’ 
over his brekfust. He couldn’t swaller a mossle, honey, 
and den I sarched him, as wid de bosom of ’struction, and 
look here, honey,” letting the whites of her eyes go into 
total eclipse, while she opened her great black hand, and 
displayed an elegant little lady’s watch, enamelled in blue, 
and with a spray of diamonds on the cover. “I foun' dis 
on his pusson, honey, and lie’s got his foot in wid de bug- 
lums, shore. Git down on your knees to your missus and 
’fess," and she pushed the boy 'down trembling and shiver¬ 
ing in every limb, and held him with her strong hands. 
Winnie roused herself in a bewildered way, and took the 
little watch. 
“ Where did you get this watch, Steenie? ” 
“ He gived it to me,” his teeth chattering as if they 
would fall out of their sockets. 
“ And who is he ? ” 
“ Dat dar stranger man. Oh, you’ll have me hung on de 
galluses like Gandy says. Oh, oh! ” 
“ Stop crying this minute, and tell me where you got the 
watch, or I shall send for an officer.” 
“ Oh, don’t send for no ossifer. I’ll tell, I’ll ’fess de liv¬ 
in’ truf. Dat man gived it to me in de barn; an’ he gived 
me suffin sweet to drink—rum mebbe; an’ he scart Gaudy 
about de spooks; an’ he got me to put notes in Miss Jin¬ 
ny’s room; an’ he coaxed me to tell him dem Aggers on de 
safe. I heard you tellin’ ’em over to Miss Jinny, an’ I 
knowed well enuff what dey meaned; an' den he gi’ me 
de watch.” 
Winnifred stood holding the watch in her hand. 
“ Oh, Virginie! ” the cry seemed to escape her involun¬ 
tarily. Then she rallied her forces, and pushed back the 
long dark hair from her face. “ Something must be done,” 
she said, half to herself. “ My God where shall I find 
help ? ” 
f To be continued.) 
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