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CHAPTER XXXVI.
S
YLVIA’S father! Now, I know
your brain is wrong! Sylvia’s
father is dead. He shot himself in
a California prison years ago.”
“He shot himself all right, and
he was believed to be dead. Many
a man who is believed to be under
the ground is walking on top of it.
I am one of them. When I knew
the minions of the law had come to take me
back to hang on the gallows for a crime I nev
er committed, I put the pistol I had concealed
to my head; my brother standing outside my
cell door thrust his arm throng'll the bars and
knocked the weapon to one side. The bullet
plowed a furrow along the left side of my
head —there, you see the scar?’ I fell to the
floor unconscious, blood flowing from the
wound. My brother summoned a surgeon —
his friend—l was pronounced dead and the
sheriff and deputy went back to Altamont. I
was carried to my brother’s lodging on the out
skirts of the town and secretly attended until
I was well enough to travel. Then I went with
my brother to his ranch in Southern Califor
nia. Six months later we went to the gold dig
gings. There we worked at intervals —mining
and prospecting with small success—for five
years. At last we struck luck. We chanced
upon a rich vein of gold, kept the find to our
selves and secured our claim. But the vein ran
deep and we had no means to work it properly.
Either we must sell it or go shares with some
one else who had money to operate a mine. My
brother decided to go to England and find a
purchaser or a partner with capital among the
people we knew around our old home. He
wished me to accompany him, but I had just
learned that my wife was dead and my daugh
ter was in the home of her stepfather at Glen
wood. I determined to see my child and ob
tain possession of her if possible. I ran no risk
in going back to where 1 had been tried and
condemned. I was believed to be dead, and,
besides, I was so changed no one would rec
ognize me. Tropic suns had burned me brown.
Care and hardships had prematurely grizzled
my hair and beard, which 1 had purposely al
lowed to grow long. Still, I assumed as a dis
guise, a stoop of the shoulders and a deeper
tone of voice.
“I went to Glenwood and saw my child. She
was in her sixteenth year, the image of her
sweet mother, whom I had fondly loved and
who I know had loved me to the day of her
death. Mysterious instinct drew Sylvia to me
from the first. I obtained permission to build
a hut on Mystic Island and to fish in the lake.
I stayed there at intervals for more than three
years, going back to the mines for a few
months at a time. I had the great comfort of
being near my daughter, of knowing that she
cherished my memory, and that she was hap
py in a good home. I had no means to take
her away secretly, as I hoped to do. I could
not give her the comfort and advantages she
was having.
“There came a change. The serpent entered
the Eden. Anabel came. Sylvia’s home was
no longer happy—no longer safe for her. I de
termined to get her away. Os course, I could
not claim her openly, but I believed she would
go with me when she knew I was the father
she idolized and pitied for the wrongs he had
suffered.
“I wrote my brother to sell the mine at once
—even at a sacrifice. A few days before Sylvia
was stricken with fever, he wrote me from New
York that the mine was sold. I went at once
to sign the purchase deeds and receive my part
of the money. He had sold the mine fairly
well. My share of the proceeds was fifty thou
sand dollars. There was now nothing to pre
vent my obtaining possession of my child. I
hastened back to Glenwood. 1 had
TRIAL AND IRIU7TPH
A Story of the Conflict of Good and Ebil —By Mary E. Bryan.
The Golden Age for February 9, 1911.
shaved off the long hair and beard and had
these made up artificially to wear when I wish
ed. When removed and a pair of tinted glasses
assumed and my shoulders straightened up 1
could be another person.
“1 came to Mystic as Nemo and found Syl
via at the crisis of the fever and watched only
by Anabel. I saved my child’s life that night—
and I made up my mind to take her away as
soon as she was able to travel. Thinking it
might be a help to me in my plan I assumed the
name of Yent and bought the cottage on Mys
tic Lake, also a good horse and a covered bug
gy. Sylvia’s health had improved rapidly. I
waited only for an opportunity to tell her my
story. The opportunity seemed to have come
to me that night when I started to walk home
with her from the Vance Cottage. Then Glenn
appeared to my great disappointment, just as I
had begun to speak. A little later, chance fa
vored me. My daughter was delivered from
the gates of death. I held her in my arms; I
could feel her heart beating faintly against
mine.
“My joy was mixed with fear. For days her
life hung in the balance. It was while she lay
—-a breathing stature on the bed, covered
smooth by the coverlet that the searching par
ty went through the house looking for the
missing girl.
“When at last, she became conscious, her
senses were still clouded, she dimly recalled the
drama i nthe woods, and saw herself attended
by Dr. Yent, —and asked no questions—seemed
dreamily content. Fever had supervened—but
it was not serious. When she was well enough
to wish to know all that had happened, I told
her, and when she shudderingly declared she
would never go back to Mystic Lodge, 1 said,
‘You shall never live there again ; God has giv
en me my own.’ Then I told her I was her
father, and that as Nemo I had watched over
her for the past three years. She believed me
instantly. Instinct had made her care for me
as Nemo, and had attracted her to me as Dr.
Yent, in whom she had seen a resemblance to
her father’s picture and to her memory of him.
“She consented to go away with me secretly,
but she pleaded to let her nearest friends know
she was living and was going away. This I
could not permit, but 1 was obliged to seem to
agree that she should write to you and to Stan
ley King when we had arrived in England. We
went away at dusk one evening three weeks
after her disappearance—driving off without
suspicion in the covered buggy, after I had de
livered the keys of my house to Charley and
told him goodby. We drove to Altamont and
took the night train to New York, leaving
Zenio to dispose of the horse and buggy and
follow us on the next train.
“Not until we were in New York, did Sylvia
confess to me that she had stolen away the
night before, and gone to your home, made her
way into your room and looked at you as you
lay asleep, and had even placed on your pillow
a curl of her hair that had been cut off during
her illness.
“She wrote to you and to King as soon as we
arrived in England, but I took care that the
letters were never mailed. I felt that the risk
was too great. After an interval she wrote
again, telling as in her former letter, that she
had come away with a near relative and was at
her grand-father’s in England, and enjoining
secrecy from them, —and again I saw that the
letters did not start to their destination ! I felt
confident that new scenes, new friends and the
love and cheerfulness that surrounded her
would make her cease to pine for the friend and
the lover, whose silence would pique and pain
her at first.
“But I could not turn her thoughts from the
ones she loved. That her letters were not
answered hurt her deeply. Her spirits and her
health failed, and I took her traveling—on the
continent —in Switzerland and Italy—settling
at last in the South of France. She was inter
ested in the scenery and people, but her health
did not improve. One day, I found her weep
ing passionately, and she acknowledged that
her heart was breaking over the treatment of
those she had thought loved her, but who had
turned from her because of her secret flight.
“There was nothing for me to do, but confess
to her that her letters to her friends had never
gone to them —and to assure her that they did
not know what had become of her. Her relief
—her joy was so great, that I was filled with
remorse and told her that she should go back
to Glenwood without delay. Her uncle would
accompany her, and explain that she had gone
away with him and had been at her grand-fa
ther’s home in England.
“We started for America at once—after I
had telegraphed to my brother who met us at
Marseilles. Tomorrow, he and Sylvia leave
for the South; she will see Stanley King and
if he still loves her and wants to marry her I
will not stand in the way of their happiness. I
have had so many checks up in my life, that I
reckon I can bear one more disappointment,
though it was hard to give up my child after I
have had the happiness of feeling that she was
mine. Os course, I can’t acknowledge myself
her father, and to live with or even near her
when she is the wife of a near kinsman of the
man who ruined my life —would be impossible.
I should always feel the criminal’s handcuffs
on my wrists. So I will go back to the West
and find some place wild enough for a fugitive
to live in and feel a little free in the solitude.’’
“But you need no longer shun your kind”
’cried Faith eagerly. “You need not hide your
self in the wilderness. You have been vindicat
ed. I am so glad I can give you the good
news.”
She opened her satchel and pulled out of it
the paper that contained the confession of Ed
ward Barton. She handed it to him and he
took it wonderingly. As his glance caught the
conspicuous headlines in which his name occur
red, the blood rushed into his face and his
hand shook as he held the paper. When he
had read the story, he sat silent for an instant,
then he raised his eyes and met Faith’s look,
full of happy sympathy. She held out her
hand and he grasped it tightly. “God is better
to you than you thought, she said, “1 thank
Him,” he uttered fervently. His eyes shone
through a mist of emotion. “Oh ! it is good to be
able to feel like a free man.” he exclaimed. “It
is good to be able to drop the mask of decep
tion, and face your fellowmen once more! How
glad Sylvia will be! I rejoice for her sake more
than for my own !
He looked ten years younger. His air was
almost boyishly gay as he walked about the
room, his hands thrust in his pockets, his chin
lifted. Faith smiled as she watched him; she
could imagine how he felt.
“You will go with Sylvia to Altamont now,”
she said.
“Yes, indeed. I will go and I will give myself
up and demand an immediate trial. Os course,
it will be a mere form. I want to shake off
the clutch of the law to the last finger hold. I
want to hear the shackles drop.”
“And you will forgive poor Mr. King for
being the nephew of a man who is dead, and
give Sylvia your blessing at her wedding?”
He gave her a quick, half quizzical look. “I
suppose so” he said after a pause. “Yes, I'll have
to. It would not do to break this merry-go
round. Truly this has been a day of good tid
ings.”
“But they have not reached some who are
most deeply concerned,” said Faith. “If Char
ley could know at once—he and his father—it
would spare them a night of sleepless wretch
edness. Why can’t they know at once? It is
only eight o’clock; could we not wire a mes
sage that would reach them to night?”
(Continued on page 14.)
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