LITMIR.BIZ

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did it," I retorted.

      "It's a lie," he screamed. "You did it, you did it."

      It was not the first falsehood he had told by many to get me into trouble. Panting with rage, my stepmother ran back to the house, and returned with a cane she had often used upon me.

      "I will punish you for the lie," she said. "How dare you say my darling would do such a cruel thing? You are a disgrace to the name you bear."

      She flourished the cane; I stepped back.

      "I have told the truth," I said, "and I don't intend to be punished any more by you for faults I do not commit."

      "You do not intend!" she answered, advancing towards me. "I will teach you; I will teach you!"

      Swish went the cane across my face; only once, for as she was about to repeat the blow I wrested it from her, broke it, and threw it over the garden wall. In a frenzy of ungovernable fury she seized the first weapon that caught her eye—a gardener's spade—and attacked me with it, and at the same moment Louis ran at me with a three-pronged rake. He slipped and fell, and in his fall wounded himself with the prongs. His cries of pain diverted his mother's attention from me; she flung away the spade, and caught him in her arms. Alarmed at the sight of blood dripping from his face I stepped forward to assist her.

      "Keep off, you murderer!" she shrieked. "You have killed my boy! You will come to the gallows!"

      She flew into the house with Louis, and I saw nothing more of her that day. Louis, as I afterwards learned, kept his room for a week; it was not till months had passed that we met again, and then I noticed a scar on his forehead which I was told he would carry with him to the grave. From that time I was made to feel that I had two bitter enemies in my father's house. Arrangements were made to keep me at school during holidays, and I was not sorry for it. Once a year only was I allowed to visit my home, and then I was shunned; my meals were served to me in a separate room, and not the slightest attention was paid to my wants. I grew to be accustomed to this, and took refuge in study, longing for the day to arrive when I should be free. I recall the conversation which took place on that day between my stepmother and me.

      "You have made arrangements, I presume," she commenced, "for residing elsewhere?"

      "I have been thinking what I had best do," I said.

      "That is not what I asked you. It is perfectly immaterial to me what you have been thinking of. I presume your arrangements to live elsewhere are already made."

      As a matter of fact they were not, but I could not pretend to misunderstand her.

      "You wish me to leave the house soon?" I said.

      "At once," she replied, "without a moment's unnecessary delay. You shall not eat another meal here. Your presence is hateful to me."

      "I have known that all my life," I said, mournfully.

      "Then why have you remained so long?" she asked, speaking with angry vehemence. "A man with a particle of spirit in him would have gone away years ago, but you, like the creature you are, have sponged upon me to the last hour. You are twenty-one to-day, and I am no longer legally obliged to keep you. Go, and disgrace yourself, as you are sure to do."

      "I shall never do that."

      "It has to be proved," she retorted. "As if any one knowing you would believe a word that passes your lips! We shall see your name in the papers in connection with some scandalous affair."

      "You are mistaken. I bear my father's name, and I would suffer a hundred deaths rather than see it dragged through the mire."

      "Swear it," she cried.

      "I swear it. But, hating me as you do, why should you be so sensitive about my good name?"

      "Your good name!" she said, scornfully. "It is only because I bear it, because Louis bears it, as well as you, that I exact the pledge from you. Otherwise, do you think I care what becomes of you?"

      "Truly," I said, "I believe it would rejoice you to hear the worst."

      "It would." %

      "I hope to disappoint you. On my solemn word of honor nothing that I do shall ever make our name a theme for scandal or reproach."

      "I hold you to that. We shall see whether there is any manhood in you, or the least sense of honor. Now, go!"

      "Cannot we part without enmity?" I asked.

      Persecuted and wronged as I had been, some touch of sentiment—of which I was not ashamed—moved me to the endeavor to soften the heart of my dead father's wife.

      "No, we cannot," she answered. "To ask it proves your mean spirit. But do you think we shall forget you? We have something to remember you by Be sure—be sure that it will not be forgotten while there is blood in our veins."

      "To what do you refer?"

      "There is a scar on my Louis' face inflicted by you, which he will bear with him to the grave."

      "No, no," I cried. "It is not true to say I did it. I deplore the accident, but it was caused by his own cruelty."

      "How dare you utter the lie? It is not the first time; you said as much on the day you tried to kill him. Yes, you would have murdered him had I not been by. We shall remember you by that, and it shall be evidence against you if there is ever occasion for it. Cruelty! My darling Louis cruel! He has the tenderest heart. You coward—you coward! Had he been as old and strong as you you would not have dared to attack him. But that is the way with such as you—to strike only the weak. Time will show—time will show! You are going into the world; there is no longer a check upon you. There will be a woman, perhaps, whom you will beat and torture. Oh, yes, you will do it; and you will lie to the world and whine that the fault is hers. Let those who stand by her come to me and Louis—we will give you a character; you shall be exposed in your true light. I hate you—I hate you—I hate you! May your life be a life of sorrow!"

      And she flung herself from the room.

      The time was to come when these cruel words were to be used against me with cruel effect; there was something prophetic in their venom.

      I did not see Louis before I left the house, and on that day I commenced a new life.

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      For three years it was uneventful. I lived much alone, and made a few friends, with one or another of whom I took a holiday every year on the Continent. Then an event occurred which gave birth to the startling incidents and experiences of my life.

      Ten years ago this month Barbara Landor and I were married. I was twenty-four, and Barbara was three years my senior. To a young man in love—as I must have been at that time, though my feelings for my wife soon underwent change, and I look back upon them now with amazement—such a disparity is not likely to cause uneasiness. It did not cause me any. I was swayed entirely by my passionate desire to make the woman with whom I was infatuated my wife.

      I had known her only a short time before I proposed, and was accepted. Our engagement was of but a few weeks' duration, and during our courtship I observed nothing in Barbara's manner to disturb me. No one warned me; no friend bade me pause before I bound myself irrevocably to a woman who was to be my ruin. Occasionally her face was rather flushed, and she was eager and nervous, which I ascribed to the excitement of our engagement. Her sparkling eyes, her rapid speech, the occasional trembling of her hands—all this I set down to love. She confided to me that she had no fortune, and that she had thought of seeking employment as a governess or as a companion to a lady. She possessed great gifts, which, of course, I magnified; she was a good musician, could speak French, German and Italian fluently, and sang to me in those languages with a rich contralto voice.

      "Had it not been for you," she said, "I might even have got into the

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