THE BRANDED FOOT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 94, 22 April 1902, Page 6

THE BRANDED FOOT.

(By a Famous Axtthoe.)

• CHAPTER Lli. ANOTHER SCENE AT DR. KRAFFT'S. It was in the last hour of this day of manifold events —the day that had seen the baffled departure of the real Hester Millburn from Pinemere Beverly: the day ■ that had ■witnessed the betrothal of Hilda and Sir Franklin Gresham; the day when Hilda had unwittingly taken the poison that was now working insidiously against her lifeThe last train to leave Boston for j New York on that day had the real \ Hester Millburn among its passen-; gers. When she left the grounds of Pinemere, after that strange warning to Hilda, she hurried to the Beverly railroad station, arriving there just as a train drew in. She' pausecl at the ticket-window to buy a ticket for Boston, and then, so agitated and anxious to .proceed that she could not wait to ask a question, the hastened to the train and got aboard just as it was starting. It was not until the conductor asked fr\r her ticket that she learned that it was bound away from Boston. ' The first stop was at Newburyport, where Hester waited for the next train to Boston, not venturing meantime to leave the station to ■get refreshment in a restaurant. When she did arrive in Boston, it was only by inducing a cabman to overdrive his horse that she got across the city in time to catch the five o'clock train for New York. There is no through train between these cities after five, in the afternoon until midnight, and Hes* " ter could not wait till the next morning before trying to carry out the plan she had formed. The train was due in' New York at eleven, but it had been delayed to the extent of half-an-hour. , So it happened that when she stood breathless at the door of Dr. Krafft's house in Grove street, it was exactly midnight, and at that same moment Jane Beaseley was stealthily forcing her way into Hilda's room at PinemereA light glowed within the doctor's study, but it mattered not. If the house had been as dark as the grave Hester would have tried to arouse its inmates. She rang-, and almost immediately the doctor himself opened the door. Hester drew aside her veil and pressed into the hall. "I want to see Dr. Krafft," she cried, "^re you Dr. Krnfft?" "I am," he answered, quietly, as he opened the door to his consultingroom. After the manner of good physicians, he was wholly unmoved by signs of urgency on the part of his callers. Hardly-had she entered the room than ohc burst iortn with the same '• choking eagerness in which she had first addressed him. "I am sorry to call you at such a late hour, but it could not be helped. I have just come from Beverly, ■Massachusetts, from the estatethere called Pinemere, and there is no itime to lose." At the .mention of Beverly and Pinemere the doctor's composed face showed activ interest, and he *elt a throb of anxiety. i "From Pi:-emere?" he queried. "From Pinemere, sir, and your niece." ■ , Anxiety d. -pened on the doctor s ■ .----■:•-features. Before -lie could ask a ~>-^question, the woman held ©lit.Hilda's note, whioh she had taken from be- •-.„-*> 'tween her glove and the palm of her hand. . , The doctor tore it open and stepped ' .under the lamp. At the first glance he breathed a utAJUdjeigb. oi' relief. "My niece," he said," after he had read the note, "appeals to me in your fcehalf. What can Ido for you?" "Sir," replied Hester, clasping her hands in entreaty, "I want you to ■take me to Commodore Schuyler's house and let me see him." Dr. Krafft was profoundly amazed, and Hester's heart faltered as she read Eis answer in his eyes before he spoke It. i "Impossible!" he said. He was quite disconcerted when the woman fell upon her knee, and grasped one of his hands in both of her own. "For the love of heaven, sir," she cried, "don't say that! Let me see him! They say he is better. Perhaps he could speak, or write words that x know he is praying God to permit nim to speak. It might be tliat my presence would give him the power to say what he longs to ' say " She checked her appeal, for the doctor had answered a second time by a denying shake of the head. She released his hand, bowed her head and .uttered a long, wailing cry. Its profound misery was heartbreaking, and even the doctor, schooled though he was to manifestations of human sorrow, was touched by it. ■ He lifted her hastily to her feet and placed her in a chair. She sprang up instantly. "Look at this!" she screamed. With this she tore open her shawl and unpinned a newspaper clipping that she had fastened on the inside. She thrust it violently into his hand, • and he started when he saw what it ■was. Hester at last had won his attention. So great was his amazement that

A ROMANCE OF A MONSTROUS PERSONATION FRAUD,

he read aloud the first line on the clipping: "TO THE WOMAN WITH THE BEAXDED FOOT!" "Yes!" cried Hester; "and, before God, 1 am that woman!" The doctor raised his eyes and looked sharply at her. His lips parted to speak, but she in-, terposed: "Read it! Eead it! Eead it all!" The doctor road, and again essayed to speak. Again Hester prevented him. "I am that woman!" she repeated, her hollcw eyes burning1 steadily on his face, and her voice trembling harshly over each word. "Commodore Schuyler is the man who wrote that advertisement. I found it too late! When I got to New York the commodore was worse than dead! Another had stolen my name, my crime, the very brand upon my foot!" There was so much in this to recall certain circumstances of the past to the doctor's mind that he did not determine what reply to make before she broke forth again: "I tell you T must see the commodore! I must! That fiendish woman at Pinemere—that false girl posing as the lost May Schuyler! Mrs. Schuyler. the. helpless victim of a terrible fraud! I tell you, I must see the I commodore!1' This was incoherent, and yet suggestive, and the doctor felt that something musj: lie behind the raving that should be investigated. He had no faint glimmer of the truth, but the mention of a branded foot naturally appealed to him. "Come, madam," he said, calmly; "you must try to speak coherently, else 1 cannot pay any attention to you. Explain yourself quietly, and I may believe you. What is this mys-tei-ious talk about your crime, your name, your branded foot?" Hester gulped down her excitement, well knowing, from previous disastrous experience, that wild haranguing served but to defeat her own ends. "I am Hester Millburn," she said, firmly, repressing her agitation. "I mean that the truth shall be proved and the falsehood exposed. I mean that Mrs. Schuyler has been imposed upon by a woman who has foisted upon her affections a girl who is not her daughter. I mean that this woman Has stolen my name, the crime of which I alone, am guilty, and even the horrid brand upon my, foot. And, ■ most of all, I mean that Commodore Schuyler is the one person who can right this awful- wrong! Will you let me see him? Will you take me ; tp ; him? The shock of seeing me may,; through heaven's mercy, restore some' L power hy which he can make the truth manifest." The very effort to speak calmly exhausted her, and she sank into the chair in which the doctor had first placed her. An-interval of silence followed. The doctor stood as one petrified. Suddenly he spoke. "I must see your foot," he said. "Kemove your shoe and stocking, please." Then he turned his back and strode to the farther end of the room. "Can it be possible," he asked himself, "that I have been instrumental in consummating a fraud such as she suggests?" He pulled open the door of a cab-* ■ met and stood looking into it until 1 Hester's voice called him. Hurriedly, then, he turned about, crossed to her and bent over the bare foot that she had placed upon a low chair. Next instant he pressed his hand to his brow and staggered back. "Don't tell me," cried Hester, harshly, "that I branded myself! Don't tell me it is a fresh wound! That was what Mrs Schuyler said, but —" "No physician would tell you that," he interrupted; "but who die] it?" ''Ask no questions," she cried, "for I will answer none." "So?" said he. "Then wait a minute." There was impatience in his tone, and also an accent of confidence, as if he believed he could easily shake her resolution. Hester was surprised, and silently she watched him got to the cabinet, where he opened the dra wev in which lie had locked away the branding iron on the night of Jane Beasley's visit. Presently he returned with .the iron in his hand. "Dc you see this?" he asked, and he held toward her the end that bore the raised letters that had been burned into Jane's foot. She started violently as she perceived what they were. "With this." said he, "I branded a woman a few months ago, precisely as you' are branded." "Why did you do that?" she fiercely demanded. "Where did you get that . iron?" "The woman brought it to me," answered the doctor. "I branded her because she asked me to do so, and paid well for the operation." "Who was she?" "I do not know." "You don't know!" "She gave me no name and her face was heavily veiled." "Ah," moaned Hesfei', "I might have known! Of, course, she would not expose her features. But was she tall and —>? "She was tall, and I would know her voice among a thousand." "It cannot be any other," muttered Hester. He handed her the handkerchief that Jane had dropped on that memorable occasion, and pointed to the initials "J. 8." Hester shook her head despondently-. ■"I have no friends and few acquaintances," she said, "and it doesn't matter. She is an entire stranger to m^- I never saw her until she cpnfronted me at Pinemere and told me ' Tier name was Hester Millburn. I [ wonder I did not go hopelessly road 1 as sne stood there claiming my name, , my dead husband, my dead daughter, my crime, my entire history!"

"Well," said the doctor, calmly, ■" you see that I am interested, do you not?" "Yesiand j will you—" . "One moment —one thing at a time, please. If you count upon my aid in righting your wrongs—", "•Not mine! not mine! The wrongs of others, doctor! of Mrs Schuyler—" "It comes to the same thing with me at the present. Sit still, Mrs Millburn, and listen calmly." It is hardly possible that Dr. Krafft realised what a clever stroke he played in addressing her as "Airs Millburn." The harassed woman had been so persistently and successfully denied a right to her name that it was like the voice of an angel'from heaven to hear herself addressed by it. This doctor, then^ believed! Instantly tears filled the frenzied eyes and a peace took possession of her such as she had not known in many dreadful years. "Sit still," he repeated, "and compose yourself sufficiently to tell your whole story in a connected, comprehensible manner." "I will,'' she sobbed. "That's right," he continued, soothingly. "You must remember that all this is new to me; that the imposition you refer to, this suggestion of a lost daughter, of. a crime, and all that, have no real meaning to me. I cannot connect them. If I am to help, I must understand the facts. You comprehend, don't you?" "Yes, sir, Ido now. At first I couldn't stop to think that everybody didn't understand the matter as I do." "I do not wonder. Now, there is no such pressing hurry as you intimated at first. We have all the night, for if it should prove that we ought to go to Beverly we cannot start until the next forenoon is well along. So, compose yourself, think over the, incidents and get them in order while I find you something to eat. It is only too clear that you are exhausted.?'' ' Without waiting for any response he put away the handkerchief and branding iron and left the room. He returned in a few minutes with a well filled tray. "I am sorry," he said, then, "that I can't give you anything hot, for my housekeeper is asleep and I dislike to rouse her, but there is wine here and substantial food. I will not listen until you have made a meal." Hester ate obediently, and when she had finished he put the tray aside and took a. chair in front of her. "Now," he said, "begin at the beginning, and make it as short as you possibly can, for at three o'clock I must start for Commodore Schuyler's house." "Xh!" she said, wistfully, "before I begin won't you tell me that you will take me with you? For the sake not only of poor, duped Mrs Schuyler, but for the sake of the commodore himself? I shall tell this wretched tale so much easier if I know that you will let me face the commodore!" Eagerly, but without any trace of wildness, she looked at him and waited ,for his answer. (To be continued.)