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Show r68 Again I felt my poor darling shudder. " What is it ? " I asked. " Has he threatened force? " "No not force but--" her lips began to quiver...:._" but he__.:he made me wish that I were dead!" She pressed her face against my breast and began to weep. I looked to Mrs. Sen by. "He has not threatened openly," she explained. " There are so many ways. Lucy declined all the gifts he sought to shower on her. Next he found that she was not to be flattered into complaisance by his attentions and would not go carriage riding or to any more balls. Then there were long discourses on her spiritual welfare and the certainty of salvation and glory in being sealed to the Prophet." " He thought that would move her ? " I exclaimed. " It was not- not all! " sobbed Lucy. "Only the beginning," went on Mrs. Sen by. "Yet he never ceased to reiterate it and to hint that her assent would bring a blessing of worldly prosperity to her uncle. You, too, were to be favonred. That was after she refused to believe the anonymous notes that insinuated your interest in another woman-a married woman." " Married woman ? He stooped that low? " " I knew who was meant, dear David," whispered Lucy. " How could those base letters affect my trust in you, when I knew that it was only because of xour pity for her? " ' Pity? Yes, pity. That is the truth. Had it not been for pity--" "I knew it, David. The notes did not grieve me. They only vexed me and made me stand all the firmer. No, what grieved me were the letters from Waller." " From Waller ? " " The first said that you were very well and cheerful and had sailed with-your cousin's husband for THE MORMON LION San Francisco, and that he, Waller, understood you were to be stationed at the Church mission there for an indefmile lime." "Perhaps that was Chilcott's intention. He may have been given the power to counsel me to stay. But you spoke of letters- more than one." "The next came nearly a month later-f1ve weeks ago yesterday. He wrote that you and your cousin's husband had gone to the mines ; that there were rumours of the murder-" she clutched my dusty lapel- "of the murder of two men answering your descriptions, and that he feared it might be you." " The slick liar! to put it as a rumour. I warned you that any letters--" " Yes ; but it was the clever preparation. Had he written the lie outright at the first--" " He wrote again ? " " By the next mail- to tell me that be had heard that what he had feared was true." "The liar ! I 'll make him pay for that- unless -- Did all three letters look alike outside, and was the paper and writing the same? " "Exactly the same. I shall show them to you." "No. lt makes no difference whether or not they are his. He is only a tool- the Lion's jackal, h1s cor,ote! What next-after the last letter? " ' l-Ie- he came to call. When Aunt Ellen asked him if he had heard anything of your party, he hesitated and asked if we had heard. Aunt Ellen showed him the last letter. He shook his head and made believe he did not wish to say anything. Finally he admitted that he had heard the same re~ort from another source." ' From the black depths of his heart I " I muttered. "How could 1 know, David? Oh, I feared so much that it might be true. He told how lawless are the mining camps-and Uncle Norton had to agree that many men are murdered out there. I was ill with dread. And all the time he has continued to come |
