Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, July 7, 1909, Page 8

Revenge BY GUY THORNE The Thrilling Story of a Mother’s Love and a a woman.”—Lord Byron. CHAPTER VIII—(Continued. “Dear Mr. Grant: I must apologize for this, I fear, unwarrantable intru- sion. Although we have never been friends, you must not imagine that my present action is dictated by any un- kind feelings toward you. It simply means that I could not bring myself, for several reasons, to die in a railway station waiting room; and there are other reasons, which you are doubt- less by now well-acquainted with, why I could hardly, at the present time, quarter myself for this last moment or two upon any of my regular friends. “I do not, moreover, belong to one of those institutions known as ladies’ clubs, nor do I approve of them. I have, therefore, taken the great lib- erty of arriving here while you were out, being let in by your valet, who, of course, knows me. You will remem- ber that I and my niece have been to tea with you on two occasions. My motives for suicide you can, doubtless, make a guess at. I will not enlarge upon them here. Believe me, dear Mr. Grant, yours very faithfully, —‘Augusta Decies.” Grant passed the letter to Marriott. He read it. Then together they look- ed at the grim, cynical death mask before them. “She must have chuckled as she wrote that letter,” Grant whispered. She was a terrible woman. There are dark secrets in her life. She has out- witted us all. She has done her work —her foul work in kidnapping the duke. She has destroyed all traces by which we can find him, while, silent and mocking to the last, she has gone beyond the reach of all mortal hands, or all human laws.” They stood there in absolute silence once more. Both started like frightened hares. The key was being put into the latch of the front door. : Then they heard the door open and some one enter, whistling to himself. It was the valet, who doubtless im- agined himself alone in the flat. Michael called him, t The noise ceased at once, and the man hurried into the room. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said. “I thought——” And then he stopped. The horror in the chair confronted him. “What is the explanation of this?” Grant said. “You see, Miss Decies is here. She has killed herself.” It was some, minutes before the man could speak. His eyes seemed bursting out of his head, his teeth clicked like castanets, When at last he found words his voice was a whine of dismay. “Tt was just leaving the flat, sir; in fact, I had already closed the door— about an hour and a half ago—when Miss Decies came up from the landing. Of course, I knew her, sir, for the aunt of the duchess—the aunt of her grace the Duchess of London. “Miss Decies said that she wished to write a note upon an important matter, and then she would wait ten minutes on the chance of your coming back. I provided the lady with the necessary requisites, sir, and then she insisted upon my going out. ~‘T can manage very well by myself, Parker, she said, sir. Though even then I should not have gone, sir, had she not been almost peremptory about i He stopped. The story was simple enough. No blame attached to him. “Well, you see what has happened, Parker! What dreadful thing has happened,” Grant said. “Go down at once, tell the porter to come up; then telephone to the nearest police station and to the nearest doctor.” The man hurried away. Grant turned quickly to Basil, still holding the paper. “what are we to do?” he said, point- ing to it. “A terrible responsibility rests on us. The scandal is enough already that affects the house of our friend. Should we not destroy this?” “I think not,” the sailor answered. “The mischief is.done already. It is almost impossible that these happer- ings can be kept from the press. The suicide can have but one meaning—it 4s the direct consequence of the’disap- pearance of the duke, Keep it to pro- tect yourself” “and the duchess?” Grant whisper- ed, while the look of pain and terror deepened upon his face. “She must know, and know at once,” Marriott replied. “But she can bear it. This is the first time I have seen the duchess, Grant. You know her well, but I know a plucky woman when I see her once, and she will even bear this additional blow for her son’s sake.” Grant’s face lightened a little with pleasure. “Oh,” he said, “there is no one like her in the world! There will never be any one like her in the world again. Heaven help her!” Then, in a few minutes more, the room seemed full of officials, doctors, police and attendants. The rigid figure in the chair was taken away. “Sweet is revenge, especially to a Woman’s Hate CHAPTER IX. Daisy. The train swung away out of hid- eous Liverpool Street station, which, even in the yellow radiance of a sum- mer midday, seemed an excellent mod- ern substitute for one of Dore’s illus- trations to the “Inferno.” Capt. Basil Marriott was already seated in the luncheon car of the fast train which was running down to Es- sex. It was the day after that of the terrible discovery of the Baroness von Ravenstein’s body, which Basil had made with Michael Grant, in the lat- ter’s flat. What had happened was this, briefly summarized. The body had been taken to the Westminster mortuary. An hour or two after dinner both the young men had arrived once more at 100A, Picca- dilly, and there had been a long and intimate conversation with the -duch- ess. The poor girl, both of them had found, was bearing up wonderfully well. Messages of sympathy and of- fers of help had,poured in upon her from all quarters, for by then it was hardly too much to say the whole civ- ilized world knew of what had occur- red, a oeees ys ET: She told the young men of this uni- versal sympathy, and that she had .been especially touched by the fact that, just before dinner time, a little black, single-horse brougham had dashed up to the house, and a tall and gracious lady had entered the strick- en home, remained there some fifteen minutes, and then driven away. Even the journalists had not yet got hold of this fact, though hour by hour special editions—full of the, most astonishing misstatements and the wildest con- jectures—were being hawked about the streets of the town. The duchess had told her two hench- men exactly how the matter stood at present. The detective agencies of Scotland Yarg and the continent were employed to their fullest power, but, from the very nature of the case, the duchess had felt herself quite unable to place in the hands of these people the whole story of what she feared, which must necessarily involve the opening of old wounds and the recital of the mysterious history of the past, when the late duke was alive. Strangely enough, the suicide of her aunt had not added very much to the burden of misery and terror under which the duchess suffered. The moth- er in her was awake and fierce. All her affection for the grim and singu- lar old woman who was dead was turned to the fiercest hate and resent- ment, Nevertheless, from the fact of the suicide, the duchess drew a certain consolation. What she had said, in effect, to Grant and Marriott was that she believed Miss Decies, or—to give her her right name—the Baroness von Ravenstein, had successfully accom- plished her conspiracy of getting the little duke out of the house, and then was not concerned with it any more. Terrified at the magnitude of the evil which she had wrought, torn both ways by conflicting impulses, she had found the struggle too great for her, and—old, seared, never too much in love with life—she had quietly made an exit from it which was not lacking in the elements of sardonic dignity. The duchess had made many things plain to her knights, and they had left Piccadilly primed with all the informa- tion that it was possible to obtain. One thing only remained. To see Miss Hobson, who had so lately been re- moved from the position of under nurse, for, in view of her appearance at Michael Grant’s flat and what she had stated there, it might well be that she held some clue. It was for this reason that Basil Marriott was traveling down to Essex —In order to interview the girl in the seclusion of her father’s rectory. Grant had offered to undertake this office, but the captain had been mark- edly anxious to do so himself, and had carried his point. It lad been ar- ranged for a conference between the duchess, Grant, Marriott and Sir An- thony Hellier that the two young men should pursue their own investigations absolutely apart from those undertak- en by the officials. They would have a free hand, and unlimited command of money to do exactly what seemed best. to them in the matter. In short, they were embarked upon as romantic and dangerous a quest as might well exist in all the tangled life and by-ways of our modern civiliza- tion. So Basil was going to interview Daisy Hobson. He would be back in London by 7 or 8 o'clock in the even- ing, and by the midnight mail the two adventurers would leave Victoria for Ostend, and catch the great through train into Germany. There had been a difficulty, and a very great one—the inquest upon the body of Miss Decies. England is not a bureaucratic country, nor can indi- procedures to their own provate ends, as is possible in some countries: In| incident in Washington Restaurant this case, however, the interests in- That Ended Career. of Imag- volved were so vast, and the people Ined “Bad Man.” who had to do with the affair were so highly placed, that the inquest had been held that very morning. The true facts were thoroughly well known, wit they were not given to the world. The jury was discreet—a breath had blown upon the dingy ‘Westminster mortuary from an exalt- ed quarter. Sir Anthony Hellier was not president of the local government board for nothing. As Basil sat at his meal, and the short-jacketed waiters staggered up and down the gangway with the courses, he heard all around him con- versation on what was the absorbing topic of the day. The well dressed, first-class passen- gers, as they lunched, had no other topic of talk. “The little duke this” —“The little duke that’—“They say the duchess has gone out of her mind”—“Michael Grant, the great ath- lete, is mixed up in it somehow, I hear”’—“The ‘Daily Wire’ says that it is now generally known that the old aunt was seized with mania, and threw the little duke into the Thames. They are going to drag the river.” And:so on—and so on—and:so on. Capt. Marriott heard all this with a grim smile. He was in a singularly cheerful frame of mind; it was ‘true that he was mixed up with a terrible tragedy, yet he had entered it as an outsider— not from concern with any of the per- sonalities, to whom it meant much. It was therefore a sporting interest that he took in it all, and—well, he was going to interview Daisy Hobson. He lay back in his seat and recalled the memory of the tall and gracious girl. Why was it that the touch of her ‘thand had sent his blood pushing and rushing through, him? Even now, as the swift train bore him nearer and nearer to the little vil- lage where he should find her, his spir- its were rising—rising, his whole be- ing was quickening with a sense of éxpectatict, or was it a sense of an ing. ~ Ryerss He descended from the train at Chelmsford, and, after some inquiries in the station, was told that.the vil- lage of Trink was six miles away, in the pleasant corn’ county of Hssex. He had already advised Miss Hob- son of his coming by telegram, and had received an answering wire to say that she would await his arrival. Accordingly he engaged a carriage from the local mews and set out for the village. It was a perfect day: The corn was not yet ripe, but tall and strong, and rustled sweetly in the summer air. Far up in the sky larks were pouring out their little joyous: hearts in a per- fect ecstasy of song. The trees were in full green of summer. The sky was like a hard, hollow turquoise. Sweet scents came from the flowers in the cottage gardens, and all the summer world was fair and well. As he lay back in the landau the young sailor felt almost as if he were driving home. His father, Sir Her- cules, had no country house. Years ago, on the death of Lady Marriott, Sir Hercules had disposed of his place near Bath and lived entirely in Lon- don, like the old society campaigner that he was, alternating between Hom- burg and the Riviera at the right seasons, and always a guest in Scot- Jand for the shooting. So Basil for many years had never known a home. His advancement in the navy had been singularly rapid, owing to his influential connections and also to the fact of his personal achievement. But “home” had meant for him either the spacious cabin of the cruiser he commanded, temporary chambers in London, rooms at an ho- tel, or a welcome in the houses of his friends. (To Be Continued.) “One of the bravest men I ever saw in battle,” said a retired colonel in the United States army, “was a native of Ireland who had served in the British army and was captain of United States volunteers during the war with spain. After that scrimmage he settled down to business in Wash- ington. Thath tis man, whose name I will not mention, could be brave on all occasions was proved by an epis- ode in a leading restaurant on F street, at the capital, one day. “There was a big bully, an ex-prize fighter, as big as Jim Jeffries, who, when in his cups, had the cheerful habit of shaking hands with a man in a friendly way, and, at the same time, smashing him in the jaw with his left. He pulled off this trick one afternoon upon a friend of my army ac- quaintance—Capt. Smith, we’ll call him—and the bully’s victim, on the way to the hospital, ran into Smith. A few minutes later Smith entered the restaurant. Nodding to some acquaint- ances, he pushed his way through the crowd and walked straight up to Mr. Bully, who. weighed a hundred. pounds.}. more than Smith. ee ““Hello, Smith, shake hands,’ the big man. “Yes, I'll shake hands with you,” replied Smith, his steely eyes glitter- ing dangerously, ‘but if you try that stunt that you did to a friend of mine a while-ago I’ll go home and get my gun and I'll kill you. You wouldn’t be here when I came back, because you are a coward, a cur and a bully, but I’d get you, anyhow.’ “Declining to drink with the pug, Smith nonchalantly walked to the other end of the bar to join a party of friends, while the alleged terror of F street, who always went armed, hu- miliated by this call-down before about thirty men, slunk out of the place and wasn’t seen in Washington for about three months.”—Philadelphia Record. HAD TOLB ALL TO OFFICIAL, Daa ee ees axcaeetitit Visiting Postmaster Unaware That He Had Been Telegraphing His Conversation. A postmaster from way down south somewhere went into Fourth Assistant Postmaster General De Graw’s office at Washington just the other day to get some inside information on a mat- ter of considerable importance to him- self. Mr. De Graw was busy in his sanctum, so the caller, who had never been in Washington before, told his business to a gentleman sitting at a large ornate desk, tapping idly with his index finger on what appeared to be a hard rubber inkwell. At the mo- ment that the visitor had finished stating his case the door opened. Mr. De Graw walked out, stepped up to the southern postmaster, whom he had never seen, called him by name, re- peated all the things he had said and the questions he had asked, answered them, gave the visitor a friendly shake of the hand and disappeared into his Hoffice again. The postmaster’s jaw dropped down on his wishbone and his eyes bulged out of his head. “My gracious,” he cried, “is he one of those mind readers I’ve been hear- ing about?” And the visitor wouldn’t be pacified or admit that he was sane and sober until it was explained to him that De Graw used to be a crack telegraph operator and even now likes to finger the keys. All the branches of his of- fice are fitted up with telegraph desk sets that are very small and nractical- ly noiseless. _As will be observed from this incident, they serve a very useful purpose on occasion. said His Start in Finance. Maj. Alexander McDowell, clerk ot the House of Representatives, is the president of a thriving bank up in his home town of Sharon, Pa. In his younger days he ran a country news- paper. A party of friends were sitting in his office recently when one of them asked: “Major, how did you become a finan- cier?” “Well,” said he, “when I was a boy and went to Sunday school they gave us a red ticket for every hundred verses of the bible we memorized. For ten red tickets we got one blue ticket and for ten blue tickets we gota nice leatherbound bible. It was hard work for me to commit verses to memory and after I had learned a few hundred of them I found that by shooting accurately with a marble I could accumulate more blue tickets than I would earn by memorizing in a_ lifetime. So I let the other boys get the tickets and then I played marbles for them. I had more bibles than any other boy in town.” “But what did you do with the extra bibles?” “I traded them for marbles,” said the major. A Good Name. After the Civil war many offers of places of honor and fame came to Gen. Robert E. Lee. He refused them all, says Thomas Nelson Page, in his biography of the soldier. The only position which he finally did ac- cept was the presidency of Washing: ton college, with a small salary. On one of these occasions Lee was approached with the tender of the presidency of an insurance company company at a salary of $50,000 a year. He declined it, saying that it was work with which he was not familiar. ‘But’, general,’ said the representa tive of the insurance company, “you will not be expected to do any work. What we wish is the use of your name.” “Do you not think,” said Gen. Lee, “that if my name is worth $50,000 a year, I ought to be very careful about taking care of it?” English Fish in Australian Waters. Great sucecss has attended the work of Lionel Le Soeuf, who some two and a half years ago placed a number of English perch, tench and carp in western Australasian lakes between Perth and Yanchep. Where the waters had receded a couple of two pound golden carp were recently found lying in a furrow, and the billabongs and creeks leading into the lakes, as well as the lakes themselves, are said to be simply swarming with fish. Dr. Haynes, a land owner in the vicinity, says they are so thick that it is easier to shoot them than to catch them with a rod and line. He has seen some weighing as much as ten pounds. True Logic. The ball had gone over the palings as balls will in suburban gardens and a small but unabashed batsman ap- peared at the front door to ask for it. Then appeared an irate father. “How dare you ask for your ball? Do you know you nearly killed one of my children with it?” “But you’ve got ten children,” said the logical lad, “and I’ve only got one ricket ball.”—Penny Pictorial. Not. “Jinx and a couple of us boys are arranging for a-little pleasure trip next week.” “Are us wives going along?” “I said a pleasure trip.” Humor in the Jungle. Lion—Here comes Roosevelt with his gun, Skip before he sees you. Leopard—What’s the use! Can’t you see that I’m already spotted? constituent, wear handsomer trousers than those.’ swered reproachfully: they cover'a warm and honest heart.’” fields to golfers, but they are strongly opposed to women.” losing hairpins and hatpins and stick- pins in the grass. a@ woman’s foursome with a pincushion and I'll guarantee you a cushionful of pins at the end of the ninth hole.” that?” and cattle graze in those fields they swallow pins. are injurious to the health.” specialists in the country agree that alcohol will not cure consumption. Dr. S. A. Knopf says: “Alcohol has never cured and never will cure tuberculosis. It will either prevent or retard recov- ery.” and Dr. Vincent Y. Bowditch, ex-presi- dents of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tubercu- losis; Dr. Lawrence F. Flick of Phila- delphia and Dr. Edward L. Trudeau of Saranac Lake, the founder of the anti- tuberculosis movement in this country, are all of the same opinion. dreadfully.” giving him such a raking over.” “But, Minna, you shouldn’t flirt with all the men as your are doing! Re member—you’re not married!” HANDS RAW AND SCALY. itched and Burned Terribly—Could Not Move Thumbs Without Flesh Cracking—Sleep Impossible. Cuticura Soon Cured His Eczema. “An itching humor covered both my hands and got up over my wrists and even up to the elbows. The itching and burning were terrible. My hands got all scaly.and-when I.scratched,-the surface would be covered with blis- ters and then get raw. The eczema got so bad that I could not move my thumbs without deep cracks appearing. I'went to my doctor, but his medicine could only stop the itching. At night I suffered so fearfully that I could not sleep. I could not bear to touch my hands with water. This went on for three months and I was fairly worn out. At last I got the Cuticura Reme- dies and in a month I was cured. Wal- ter H. Cox, 16 Somerset St., Boston, Mass., Sept. 25, 1908.” Power Drug & Chem, Corp, Bole Props, Boson, An Anatomical Wonder. Senator Beveridge was criticisine® the ludicrous speeches of a certain up- right but hot-headed congressman. “He does make queer blunders, doesn’t he?” said Senator Beveridge. “Have you heard about his latest? “Well, it seems that a constituent, visiting him recently, complained of the shabbiness of a pair of ink- stained crash trouset's that he had on. “*& man of your position, said the reproachfully, ‘ought to “The congressman, offended, an- “My trousers may be shabby, but Objection to Women Golfers. “Farmers don’t mind renting their “Why?” “Because woman golfers are always Follow the trail of “But why does the farmer mind “Because afterward when his sheep Pins, I needn't tell you, Alcohol and Tuberculosis. The most prominent tuberculosis | Dr. Frank Billings of Chicago Bucolic Rebuke. “Pa is scoldin the new gardener “The man is such a hayseed.” “I suppose that is the reason pa is Is distinctly different from any ether sausage you ever tasted. Just try one can and it is sure to become a meal-time necessity, to be served at frequent intervals. Ubby’s Vienna Sau- SAVE just suits for breakfast, is fine for luncheon and satisfies at dinner or supper. Like all of Libby’s Food Products it is care- fully cooked and prepared, ready to-serve, in 's Great White Kitchen= the cleanest, most scientific kitchen in ‘Weite for free booklet, —'‘How to mike-Goed: Things to: Bat’ For Any Face or Any Beard NO STROPPING NO HONING The Marital What is a grasshopper? definition comes from western Aus- Grasshopper. The latest tralia. Domestic servants are almost unprocurable there, and wives haye to do nearly all their own household work. The consequence is that they are compelled torecuperate at the sea- side in summer. In their absence the husbands have to prepare their own meals and do domestic duty generally. Husbands so engaged have come to be locally known as “grasshoppers.” No doubt the word is the husband of the more familiar “grass widow.”—Lon- don Chronicle. Lazy Men Power Generators. Learned Justice Betts of Kingston, N. Y., says: “Lazy men have a right to live.” Our lazy men are our most potent. History shows that as a rule, with a rule’s exceptions, our greatest men had either indolent or shiftless fathers, as fathers of Shakespeare, Lincoln, Napoleon, Bismarck and other worthies indicate. On the other hand, great men’s children are few and far between. Power in a lazy man is accumulating, as in a coiled spring, but the great man has little or nothing left for offspring —New York Times. Less Precarious Also. Scott—So Rawson has become a preacher. Last time I saw him he was in doubt whether to be that or a law- yer. I wonder what decided him. Mott—He probably recalled the say- ing that it is easier to preach than to practice—Boston Transcript. Charms Children Delights Old Folks Post Toasties The crisp delicious, golden-brown food, made of Indian Corn. A tempting, teasing taste distinctly differ- ent—all its own. “The Taste Lingers” Sold by Grocers, Popular pkg., 10c. Large Family size 15c. Postum Cereal Co, Ltd Battle Creek, Mich,