THE FOOL'S TAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13648, 16 January 1908, Page 3

THE FOOL'S TAX.

JHJBtISHBD at SPBCIAt, ARRANGEMENT.]

" BY LUCAS CLEEVE, Author of "The Hosa fleraatam," "The Fool-killer," Etc, Etc. CHAPTER XXH.—(Continued.) The Senate was packed the Thursday later, tho afternoon ho had selected on which to appeal for justice to his peers. Mary had gone to the Senate with him, but she felt tha> she could not bear to go inside. " I shall wait here," she told him; then, as ho moved away, hie face looking white and drawn: "It will be all right, you'll see, dear. Courage 1" But it was not all right. Nothing that he said could efface the fact that he had accepted money for a transaction which had held fraud in it, even if he were not directly connected with it. Nothing could condone his want of wisdom in witnessing the inspector's signature to an error com itted in the face of Williams' assurance that tho land had been reported as timber land, reserved by the Government, without assuring himself of the fact. Yet his simple straightforwardness impressed a good many, who felt vaguely that ho had not been guilty, but that ho had involved himself in complications, from which ho would never be able to extricate himself. It was an impassioned speech he made, while tho silence of the members of the Senate seemed to make the air tense and drawn, vibrating with motions which did not dare express themselves in sound. "Is there anyone here who thinks that anything in 'my past life, in my dealings with them, would justify their' imagining that I would do such a thing?" he asked, with tears in his eyes ; while he acknowledged: "That I was unwiso, wanting in cautiousness, a fool, it you will, that I will concede, but in the presence of God, in whom I believe, by all that I hold most sacred, I swear that I believed that the statement made and written by the inspector was a truth." When ho ended, there was a profound * silence. No one spoke, no one cheered, no ono uttered a sound, nor stepped toi his side, as, after glancing one moment around, as if certain to meet ono friendly gaze in the great crowd, the senator stepped from his place and walked across the room, and out by an opposite door. Even after ho had gane the men talked in low voices. It was without precedent that a senator who had been indicted by the Grand Jury should appeal to the House. ;' JTor quite ten minutes they discussed it, and phrases such as: "I believe he's innocent," "Why, the feUor's a fool," "Of course Y'h guilty," were 3 heard here and there, I£' 1 tho noise of stones being splashed into water repeatedly. Then the business of tho House was resumed, each one having more or less come to the conclusion that everything lay with the Grand Jury, and that the kindest thing was to - say nothing more about it till the verdict was prot)unced. Yet his speech had done this much" good, that the idea of expelling him from the Senate before the verdict was given was not mooted. The next da., the papers declared that the idea of afAsealing to the Senate was sensational and dramatic, but not likely to lead to a better feeling. A few days (later he went to' his own town tojace the trial, and Mary went with him. Shi dreaded what might happen if he were left to himself. She had written imploring her mother to return and be . with him, but Mrs. Holland had put forward the plea of having to remain with Bertha, and there seemed no one but hergali to stand by him. v In bis own State, in the imrn near which fee had been born, a better -.eling existed; there, was, a* least, • less antagonism. He had returned to face the trial, and his electors wished to justify their choice, and to • Bee him cleared; and his address had. been frank and straightforward. ■»'•'"; Then, as if fate still exacted dues, ( as if uttermost farthing"of the fool's tax was ■ to be wrung out of him, nothing spared him of humiliation in his hours of mental an- ;' guish, when it was braver to live than to die, when every fibre of his being quivered with sensitiveness as if with pain, an article appeared in a Republican paper giving the history of his first marriage and - the desertion, of his wife. < It was Marv who saw it first, and she laughed as she handed the paper to her •father. , , .„ "I wonder what else these scurrillons papers are going to invent," sho remarked, with a laugh. ~-,-, j j It had come, the moment he had dreaded, the moment which he felt now he had spent his life in hurling himself against. It had come, and it found him calm, collected, unable to suffer more—this fresh misery, seeming to glance off him, like bullets. off a metal surface they cannot pierce. And Mary took his silence, his ghastly pallor, for anger. ■ . : Would they spare him nothing in his old age, her poor old father, who had sufsifceo much)? ''jsuti for oii?j instant the old fear came back to him, tho old attempt at secrecy which had become part of. his daily life, which he had thrown off once when he made a complete confession to his wife, but which returned in the presence of Mary, his beloved child, who had implicit faith in him, who had, never deserted him, even when the clouds,of shame enveloped him. There was one moment of hesitation, while he thought to still act the part which had made of'life a counterfeit to him, to laugh, and tell her that it was a lie; then something seemed to arrest his speech, a new chrism was upon him, a chrism in which he realised that shams had como to an end, that after walking in half-shadows for so many years a searchlight had been turned on him/ which revealed his folly, nd revealing it, travestied n, distorted it, and made it look like crime-and it would look like crime to tho daughter who had believed in him all her life. # But it was without flinching, with a species of defiance, born of desperation, that he looked ncr iu the face, and said: "It is true."

CIIAPTER XN n JAnd now it Vail ever. i«J Grand of the Federal Courts have brought in their verdict, and Senator Morland is pronounced guilty, condemned to two years » the penitentiary, and to pay a fine of five thousand dollars; and his place m the &enate is vacant for ever. He is hardly aware •f what the judge says in addressing the fairy, of the pain he expresses at having \o advise them not to take the great position of the man, the prominence of his name in the Senate, all over the United States, into consideration, but rather to consider that because he held that position, Waif* of his acquaintance with the laws of because of the responsibilities *hich that position entailed,, responsibilities which it behoved him, above ail men, to hold as a trust, it enlarged the character 'i the crime, which brought discredit on .' ae executive administration of the country. Ie did not notice that his attorney gave itice of appeal, and pointed out ,„:.:.„.„ in the case, while he SjSKdthX till the appeal had been Sd his client should be at large. If he bought at all, it was to wonder how it was possible that so many people should i eijure themselves how t was possible that even S the Knth hour Senator Frawley should not have come forward; and togj• jith these thoughts a huge wonder surging to his brain that he should be so fnendless, who had always wished everyone ™ • He cannot Dear the old house any longer the old house in his native town, where he and Maiy and her husband have taken up their abode while tibial lasts.andwhere he lias so often visit.dhis grandfather as a child. Mary will bo there, waiting to hear the verdict. Even now, she has not deserted him but since the revelation abet . his first marriage, he has been conscious ot a feeling of strain. , , So many things seem different to her now; her mother's coldness, herfathers sombre manner, and the iM«ck which seems to have fallen on their house, and family, and name. , A „.„„^ She has not deserted him.-but he -doesnt want to see her again; he doesn t want_ see any of them again,, on whom he WW brought shame. Of himself, he doesn t think at all, because there can be no futmc

for him; and mora, because, knowing himself a fool, ho yet realises that the tax requited has been too great, that what with him was folly, with other men was crime, and yet that the wicked flourish and are happy and respected and glad, and that he alone has been the sport of the gods. They let him go free, after he has paid his fine and found bail; they will wait till after the appeal, and he leaves the courthouse with his attorney, who is furious at the miscarriage of justice. At the corner of the street he turns and clasps his attorney's hand and thanks him, then, as the other wants \o see him home: "I'm not going home just yet," he says. "I think I'd like to be quite by myself for a whilo."

The attorney doesn't think it's safe to leave him alone, and he clasps his hand with some feeling. He thinks he knows what he is going to do; and who shall say that it is not, perhaps, best not to interfere? How could a man bear lifo after this?

And quietly, unnoticed, alone, Henry Morland, no longer senator, leaves by the night train for Philadelphia. He hardly knows what takes him there, except that he is following somo instinct which has lain far down in his mind for years, like the fragments of a song he has heard in his youth. But when he reaches Philadelphia, he does not leave the train. He is too illheart failure, the doctor saysand they take the man to the hospital, for no one knows who he is.

And when he rallies, he asks them to send for Mrs. Dewbridge. He hardly knows how it is that he remembers the address after all these years. And Grace Volner, an elderly woman, with streaks of grey in her hair, comes and leans over the man they say has sent for her, leans, and looks, then gives a start. Ho has come back to her.

And as she sits there he tells her that he has tried to make provision for her son ; and she thinks that he is wandering in his mind. She has no son. And ifi broken phrases, sometimes talking, sometimes dozing, sometimes falling into swoons, followed by unconsciousness, he makes her understand, and she sees it all. ,He has been cruelly blackmailed by the woman who is living with the husband who deserted her. That, too, is part of the fool's tax. And with Grace's hand constantly in his, he lives through the night, and far into the next day. Now and then he murmurs "Bertha," now and then he says, "Poor Mary/' but the name of Adele never crosses his .lips. And she, the woman he has deserted, never leaves him, while the shadows fall outside, and the stillness of the evening breeze seems hushed, to hear their last farewell. The night falls outside on the city, like a purple veil let down upon an agitated scene on a stage, and the great, deep shadow of death stretches across the man who has been chosen by relentless gods to pay the last, the final farthing of " The Fool's Tax." [the end.] NEW SERIAL STORY. In Saturday's issue we commence publication of a delightfully romantic story, " The Case of Lady Broadstone," from the pen of Mr. A. W. Marchmont, whose novels are always welcomed and read with keen appreciation. " The Case of Lady Broadstone" will be continued in daily instalments till its conclusion.