In the Shadow of Guilt.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17318, 5 January 1928, Page 3

In the Shadow of Guilt.

By M. C. and It. LEIGHTON.

CHAPTER XLV

LADY HBATHOOTE’S CONDITION

BECOMES CRITICAL

He stood speechless tor several moments—absolutely speechless, while his mind digested this curious fact which it had so suddenly and unexpectedly learned. Then his heart —or the organ which in him did duty for a /heart — gave a. great bound of joy. He had hated Sister Rachel from the first day of her entrance into the Market Barton hospital. He had especially, hated her since the affair of Higg’s 'arm, when she had ventured to dispute his judgment and thwart his intentions, and had succeeded in the enterprise; and now, after the first dazing shock of astonishment, he saw, as in a flash, that lie had the Sister in his power; that the news which he had just heard meant nothing less than the removal from the hospital, and consequently from her high pinnacle of honour, of the woman who, by her actions, had cast ridicule on his medica 1. know* ledge, and had lowered him in the estimation of the town.

And Dr. Musson had his way. An urgency meeting of the hospital committee, was held. The members of the board were as indignant as they were amazed at th : e- facts which were brought before them. To their minds the idea of a tieket-of-leave woman occupying an honoured and trusted position as Sister in the hospital was little short of revolting. They were shocked, horrified, wrathful, and also a certain extent Inundated in that they had not discovered earlier what manner of person it was whom they dwere harbouring and extolling Gratitude for what the wonderful nurse had done for the poor and sick around them seemed to have passed out of their souls; nothing that she had acoinplished during her sojourn among them, and nothing that she might have it in her power to achieve in the future, could ever annul her terrible past or undo the fact that she was a branded convict. The curse of Cain was upon her, as they _believed; the curse of Cain, the heaviest curse of all, whose blackness a whole eternity of righteous deeds and bitter, repentant tears can hardly suffice to efface.

Nothing that Sister Rachel said m her own defence and justification could move them to pity. Tim opinion, of the majority of these sedate gentlemen was strogly against her, and, in spite of the protests of Mr. .Jolly, she was dismissed. The chairman signed her dismissal at once, and handed her so much of her salary, as was diie to her. Then she was sent forth again, homeless, into the world. Furious in so far as it was possible for one of his mild and genial temperament to be so, Mr. Jolly resigned his seat upon the board and refused all further connection with the hospital. Then he informed Sister Rachel that she must come to his house; and forthwith proceeded in great fear and trembling to break the news of her expected advent to his sister.

So accustomed had Market Barton become to surprises that the news that Sir Aubrey Heathcote had been found lying unconscious on the floor in his private library on the evening of the day on which Sister Rachel had been dismissed from the hospital scarcely sent an additional thrill through the already electrified town.

||#;ogjEßjALjToßl|^

CHAPTER XLVI

FATHER AND SON

Who shall fully tell all that SilAubrey felt at this time ? Who, shall tell what thoughts crowded into the brain of the proud, silent man when he heard that the beloved woman tor whom during nearly twenty years he had in ( secret so consumedly and bitterly yearned had for a long time past been, living within two miles of his home P

It had been Horrocks who told him, and after telling him the perturbed old butler had shuffled quickly out of the room, leaving liis master , alone. It was two hours after that when they found Sir Aubrey lying unconscious on the floor of the room where for nearly a score of years he had vainly attempted to shut out from his soul by sheer force of study, all memory of her who, despite himself, despite the arguments of his reason and his keen sense of honour, was still dearest to him of all human creatures in the world.

' On the following morning Jack came • home. Simon Renshaw had taken the I place of disgrace which he had occu- ! pied. He entered the baronet’s room ' with a very resolute expression on his fair-skinned young face. “Father,” he said, in a low voice, “I am going to iny motner. My place henceworth is beside her. I have come to ask your consent to my going; but whether you give it or withhold it, I ; am bound to go.” / 1 At his' son’s announcement a visible trembling seized the baronet. Yet the j father’s grave dark eyes met the son’s ! resolute blue ones authoritatively and , steadily. _ • . , “Your mother?” he said, in a voice which he tped to keep calm, but 1 which was so unlike his own that Jack i started at the sound of it. “Where is she?” “She has gone to London,” the young fellow r replied. “Mr. Jolly very; kindly offered 'he r a. temporary home at Oldfield Lodge. He is a very good i and generous-hearted man —how good ! you and others who have refused, to associate with him cannot understand. But she would not go there. She wQ.uld not remain in Market Barton.” There was an interval of oppressive 1 silence The baronet shielded his face j with his right hand. He spoke at last from behind this shield. “You speak of going to her and re- [ maining beside her. Am I to under- • stand that you intend never to return here?” “That is my intention,” came the slow, firm answer, “unless she returns here with me.” “That is impossible,” rejoined Sir Aubrey. There was something likg a wail in his strange, strained voice. “Impossible! Impossible!” he repeated hoarsely. He looked up at his son anew. “And have you no ties to bind you here?” lie asked, with a ring of reproachful sternnessdn his tone. “There is your sister; there is myself. What have we done that you should regard it as vour duty to forsake us for a woman who, though she is your mother, and was once the dearest in the world to me—the very light of my life”—again his voice changed and trembled—“is now, nevertheless.- a guilty creature, with blood upon her hands and upon her soul —a creature who has disgraced and eternally • disI honoured her name, and mine, and

yours.”

rather! Father!” Rebuke ‘,condemnation, appeal, all were mingled, in Jack Heathcote’s cry. “All that was a mistake—a fearful mistake. As-P' for me, I only needed to see her and hear her speak to know that guilt and she could never be associated. I felt this—l, who was heipson indeed, but still no better than a stranger, since I had never consciously seen her lace to lace ceiore; and yet you—you- who had known her and loved her ' and wedded her, and learned ■ 11 he tuitlifuless and sweetness of her nature by living for years at her side—you did not believe, you closed your heart against her, you forsook and repudiated her, you heaped up the measure i of her agony until her heart almost broke. Woi;st of all, you made us, her children, motherless; you made us orphans while we had a living mother, a-.d that mother the best and noblest and bravest of women. You made no ; attempt ot remove the curse of Cain from her, though it branded Pauline/ and me with <a curse as dark. Our- J names have been a byword in the mouths of the people; and all for no-

thing, for no reality, but only for a shadow. May Heaven forgive you, father! It is you who have transgressed—not she. T say again. ...with or without your sanction, I have been motherless—nnd she has been childless—long enough.” “Wait!” Sir .Aubrey put out his hand to detain hini as lie was leaving the room. “Listen to me for a moment, my boy. Your mother has deluded you. It is natural that you should believe in her, since she is yourmother, and no doubt she appealed to you with all the- irresistible earnest-! ness which she had years ago. Buj| she was playing a part, nevertheless; 1 have lately learned, to my amazei

ment that she was never falsetto mo| and that the divorce was got illegally: —though by no will or fault of mine; Heaven knows. She was never guilty; of infidelity, and in believing Tier'to he so I unconsciously wronged her. But she was assuredlv guilty of your, uncle’s murder. The law if England is. not blind; the proofs of her guilt were incontestable. It was to spare her 1 memory that you and Pauline were taught that she was dead. Better far would it* have been for you both’ ,if she had been dead indeed.” , He ' waited a little and then added: “If you have set your mind upon gang ti her, I will not even attempt to prevent you. But I warn you against her ence.”j (To be continued.)