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HERR STEINHARDT'S NEMESIS BY J. MACLAREN COBBAN. 5niv iv iv iv iv iv v iv iv iv iv itf fV.IVJVJVJV.IVJ VJ.,'.l.".l.,r.l.' CHAPTER XII. I was fo taken aback I could for tin1 moment neither Ktir nor speak, while a new feeling, a feelinir of shame, arw in me for appearing in that woman's presence a Steinhardt's representative. After her outburst of surprise she looke.l at the letter again, and at me. I rose, uncertain. "Fraulein, " I said, "I do not know what to say. I did not eeek to come litis journey myself; Ilerr Steinhar.lt asked me to undertake it. He though:, and I thou'.'lit, too, that your adver tisement, in which, of course, you could not use many words, signitied that you were very ill and alone perhaps, and that you needed a "(I did not quite know hoiv to put it; I added hurriedly) "a friendly hand." "He did not think that I could wish to see him for his own sake, I mean for the sake ot his own peace?" Her German was becoming too rapid (or me to follow without an effort; I was not sure I understood her. "He lias business," I said, "which prevented him from coming himself." "I suppose," said she, with some touch of bitterness, I thought, "he is still always very busy making more and more money in your rich England." "It is now," I answered, "a lawsuit that keeps him in England." "A lawsuit? A trial?" she ex claimed, with a strange anxiety. "Is he in danger?" "Indeed, Fraulein, I do not know. The other party to the trial thinks him self in danger from HerrSteinhardt; he accuses Ilerr Steinhardt of using, and making much money by using, his patent for chemical dyes." "I think," said she, simply, "you are not Emmanuel's friend." To this I had nothing to say for a moment. I took refuge in an evasion. "Ilerr Steinhardt," I said, "has sent me to act as his representative. But it appears there is nothing for me to do." (I was standing uncertain, but readv to go.) "What shall I say to him when I return. '?' "I wonder," said she, more than half to herself, "if you are the person I have seen lately?" I was startled; I stared in blank be wilderment. Was the woman a mani ac? The pupils of her keen eyes seemed to rapidly dilate and contract, while she gazed into vacancy, and at the same time kept a referring glance on me. "A man," she continued, "who goes about and about, and evidently causes Emmanuel great anxiety about some thing." Conceive the sudden turmoil of thought and feeling, of imagination and hope into which I was thus thrown: I lie Lacnox tnvstery was until then almost absent from mv Diind; I seemed to have left it in Eng land, and though 1 certainly thought of it sometimes, it was as of something waiting in the distance for my return. Now here was I presented with an allu sion of it a vague anil uncertain allu sion, perhaps, hut still unmistakably for me an allusion here in an attic of an old house in Basel! What strange coincidence was this? Who was this woman that brought it before me again? I was afraid to speak or to stir, lest I should break or dispel that filmy some thing her fancy or her vision had got touch of. "You are a pastor," she continued, looking at me with more natural eyes; "Emmanuel calls you 'Reverend Mr. Unwin.' It is surely, sir, a pastor's duty to bring repentance and forgive ness and peace to the hearts of men, and not pride, and (ear, and condemna tion!" "You say very strange things, Fran lein," I answered; "I think I hope I understand what you mean. Perhaps I deserve your rebuke. But are you sure you altogether know the terrible mystery?" "Ach!" she cried. "There is then a mystery and part of the burden of it is with me! Ach! mein Gott! mein Gott!" "If you know" I impulsively be can. in ill-suppressed excitement. "I do not know anything!" she cried suddenly interrupting me, and spring ing to her feet. She paced nervously up and down the room, her fingers wildly playing with each other, or about her arms and her head. She stopped and looked at me, trembling in every limb and nerve. You must go away, sir!" I lingerd uncertainly. "Please go av.ay, sir!" she urged. cannot Dear more now. Lome again tomorrow. It may be that my God has sent you to me! I withdrew without a word, some what awed by the emotion of the strange woman. As I closed the door I caught a glimpse of her with hands clasped and face raised, as if in en treaty or thankfulness. After leaving the house I walked for a long time, without knowing whither I went, about the streets of Basel and along the Rhine bank. t In spite of my excitement I slept well that night. I spent the next day until evening wandering about the town, examining the windows of its sleepy shops, wondering at the content- eu, ui-iinguai siiopKeepers, and gazing at the glorious Swiss mountains which I was so near, yet which I must not think of visiting. I was again at the old house with the watchful, but heavy eyes soon after five o'clock. Poor Fraulein Haas tteemed to have passed both a sleepless night and a weary day. She was evi dently ill at ease and anxious, and J pitied her. tv iv iiv iv v iv iv iv iv iv tvi i ,.l.".l.,'.l.,,.l.".l.".l.".l.".l.,,.l.".t.,'.l.,l- "I fear, Fraulein," I sail lne I thought of pie and my presence given ymi pain. What you may have to say to nie I do not know, I am not al: to guess, hut it seems saving it will give you great pain." ' We must not cire if we give our-si-he-.- pain to do right. must we, Ilerr Pastor?" said he with a smile of sing ular sweotne-s. "No," I answered; "but 1 would w ish to lighten your pain, Fraulein, if I can." "I thank you," she said; "it may le that you can. lint first I must say this one thing: Emmanuel Steinhardt of Brisach was very much to me many years ago. He went away to England, but you will understand, Ilerr Pastor, I have never forgotten him. For the first time I knew he was in very great damrer and anxiety about a year and a half ago;" (lam almost started from my seat; that was the very time of Lacroix's disappearance!) "I learned it in a dream, indeed, dreams, which the Almighty God sends oftener and clearer to his chosen ones than to other persons." (She was then a Pietist, if not a maniac.) "His danger and anx iety then, 1 suppose passed away, for soon I saw no more of them. But now for many weeks I see him and feel him more and more anxious than before, and I am made to feel there is alwavs now another man near him making him anxious and afraid, and the other man seems to be you, I think, Herr Pastor." I sat silently marvelling. "I tell you all this plainly, Ilerr Pastor," she added, "because vou are not one of those who laugh at dreams; for you know that the Sacred Scripture says that the great God reveals to those who are ready to see, many strange things in dreams and visions of the night." "You have, indeed," I said, "seen strange thnigs." Will you now, she continued, "be plain with me? Tell me, if you know, exactly what is the thing, the serious matter, he is anxious and afraid about." "I can tell you, Fraulein," I said, a very serious matter, about the dis covery of which I suspect he is very anxious. A little more than a year and a half ago Herr Steinhardt's partner in business went to London from Lanca shire, and it was thought he never re turned; no trace of him could be found. So his fate remamined altogether a mystery for a yeai, until I went to be cure in the village. Why the mystery should have been left eo long, I cannot say, because it was no great cleverness in me that alter that made it less ot a mystery; perhaps the Almighty left it so long to give Emmanuel Steinhardt time to repent. Soon after I came to the village certain things made me sus pect that Herr Steinhardt's partner did not stay in London, but came home and then disappeared. I now know, from evidence that I have got, that he did; but what became of him I cannot tell. I suspect that Ilerr Steinhardt put him out of the way, but I do not vet know that he did. I am sure, how ever, that the Divine Vengeance, which has thus far revealed it to me hit by bit, will yet make clear the whole hor rible crime." She heard me through in silence, gazing intently at me the while; but when I came to the end, she drew back and looked at me in anger and aston ishment. "But," said she, "who are you, Herr Pastor, to make yourself the minister of Divine Vengeance?" I was dumb for a moment under this warm rebuke. "I think, Fraulein," I said a length, "you mistake me. I do not put myself forward as the agent of Divine enge' ance. I first began to look into the mystery at the request of the missing man's orphan daughter, who longs to know what has become of her father; since then all I have learned concern ing his fate has been revealed to me with little or no effort on my part. "Ach! Mein Gott!" she exclaimed. "The poor man has left a daughter!" "Yes," I replied; "and Ilerr Stein hardt. who is her guardian, uses her very cruelly. If it were not for that, think I should let the whole matter rest, and taice no more part at all in bringing the crime home to the guilty man. But so long as she is in danger I must do what I can, I must let the Divine Power use me. God has sent me to you, Fraulein; if you then have bad anything more revealed to you than I yet know, I beg you will tell it me. "Ach, Herr Pastor!" she cried, "you know not what you ask! You ask me to condemn Emmanuel Steinhardt! me to condemn him! Ach! Gott! mein Gott! why hast thou laid this on me!" She clasped her hands in her lap, and looked fixedly before her. "Fraulein, I ventured to urge only wish to hinder Steinhardt from going on his cruel, unscrupulous way "What you may wish, Ilerr Pastor," she said, with tier look still hxed on vacancy, "will not matter very much The great God, I know, is a God of justice as well as a God of mercy, and he will work his own will with both you and me! I have prayed for Em manuel, as a mother might for her only son! Surely my God will hear me! If he only had time and warning to re pent! Oh, was not that why 1 wished him to come! "What can I say, Fraulein, to les' sen your pain? "You can say nothing, Herr Pastor.' Leave me for tonight leave me, if you please! I cannot speak to you more nowl" Hers was such distress and emotion as could onlv lie calmed by-her being I let alone alone, or only with that L'n seen Presence in whom she was doubt- l'. less wont to seek st re: gth and peace. I I therefore ent away without another i word, and accompanied for a time by : ; mo painiui ioutt whether it were well ' ' III l,lirllt mi liiiinirv. eineu if .'oiioa.1 "cr Riu n pain ; whether mere was not even something vindictive in following up evidence which would lead to the incrimination of even such a villain as Steinhardt. But all doubt was dispelled by a let ter I received next morning from Bir ley. "Thou must come back, my lad, at once," he wrote. "1 was mistaken in mv notion that Manuel would bring you know who, hack home. Frank came home the same day you left; and his father went off to London next morning. I managed to get to see Frank. He is in very low spirits, poor lad. His father has almost scared him into marrying the girl; but I don't quite think he can bring that about without asking me, at any rate. I shall not be at all surprised if lie does ask me one of these days, for he has not yet come down near so hard orT me you know what I mean as I expect ed. I fancy he wants to reserve the chance for a last big squeeze. Kut don't thou be afraid, lad; I'll stand by the lass and thee. Well, I prevailed on Frank to tell nie the Blackpool ad dress, though I had to promise much his father shouldn't get to know he had told me. I went straight away, and tound her; and she was main glad to see me, poor thing. 1 told her what I had come for; and the end of it was she packed up her little traps, and came back with me and here she is with me now. But I've not tome to the den yet. 'Manuel has onlv gone to London for the week, I find. He will be home on Saturday; and then I ex pect he will want me to square up with him. So I say you had better come back at once." Here, surely, was matter for the gravest anxiety ami apprehension. though it did not appear what there was to fear exactly, except that Stein hardt might somehow reclaim Louise from Birley's charge, and again hide her away. But the fact is, my dread and suspicion of Steinhardt were such that I was prepared for his committing the greatest and vaguest enormities. It was now Friday morning, and there was only another day during which I could think of Louise as at rest in Bir ley's house. I could leave Basel that night by the mail train, and probably reach Timperley lateon Saturday night. Greater speed could not be made. But was I, after all, going to leave without knowing what was that damning some thing concerning Steinhardt which Fraulein Haas's "dream, or dreams," might reveal or suggest? I must en deavor to win it from her. I called that morning, but was told. as on the first occasion, she would not be home till five o'clock in the after noon. I got everything ready at my hotel for a prompt departure, and called again soon after the hour named. "So you have come again," she said, wearily, when she saw me. "Yes, Fraulein," I answered, "and I have come in haste." "To urge me, I know. But why is it necessary? It is a terrible law "that quick death should be brought upon one man because he brought quick death on another! a terrible law. I am not sure it is God's law. Think you it is, Herr Pastor?" "Fraulein!" I exclaimed, alarmed at her continued disposition to consider too curiosly and abstrusely, "I am sorry I cannot linger to discuss such things with you. I must travel back to Eng land in a very few hours, on most anx ious business, and I entreat you to re solve to tell me what you say has been revealed to you concerning this crime. I have said it already, Fraulein, and I Bay it again: what the great God may have in store for Herr Steinhardt for all his wickedness, I cannot judge, and I do not seek to put out my hand to force; I say I do not desire to bring punishment on him, I only wish to be able to make him withdraw liis hand from the perpetration of more cruelty and oppression." "Is he to wicked, then?" she cried in an accent of the keenest pain. (To be continued) Muskets Ten Feet Long. Gen. F. C. Ainsworth, chief of the record and pension division of tin army, is in receipt of several interest ing relice from friends in the Philip pines and China, comprising a collec tion of arms of different varieties, mod ern and archaic, u.-ed by the Chinese. In the collection are two jinjals, which look a gcod deal like overgrown mus kets. They are too heavy for soldiers to carry about the field, and are usually rested upon a parapet. One of these weapons is more than 10 feet long, with an iron barrel of one inch caliber. Both guns 8re in good working order, and Gen. Ainsworth has had them burnished and added to the ornaments of his office in the war department. Miking Artificial Diamonds. TheChemiker Zeitung describes some experiments in the making of artificial diamonds. Carbon was heated in an atmosphere of inert gas in an iron flask raised to a high temperature by the elec trie arc. fiits me size ot a pea were obtained having the hardness and crys . 1 1 . . i . ,. lamne lurrn oi a uiamonu. me crys tals have a gray tint that makes them worthless for jewelry, but their use in drills seems promising. A French chemist has made minute diamonds by heating pure car Don under pressure Odd Idea in Jewelry. One sees curious things in jewels these days, especially in the cheaper line. A girl on a street car the other day wore a brooch which looked exact ly like a set of false teeth in brilliants. New York Letter. HOW A VOLCANIC EXPLOSION IS CAUSED. N.S''-or u OO-VS.' --WHICH ACT5 A5A9T "trvvx A study of the above picture, reproduced from the New York World, will show how the molten mass iu the mountain's interior met the water, and how the steam generated thereby, following the Hue of least resistance, blew off the top of the volcano. The calamity which has overtaken two islands of the Windward group in the Antilles will unquestionably lead to a fresh discussion of the causes of volcanic disturbance. As to the extent to which water operates there is some lack of harmony among voieanists. Shaler. Milne and others hold that substance largely, if not entirely, responsible for the trouble. They point to the fact that many volcanoes are situated near the coast of continents or on islands, where leakage from the ocean may possibly occur. Kussell, on the other hand, regards water not as the initial factor, but as an occasional, though important, re-enforcement. He suspects that when the molten rock has risen to a considerable distance it encounters that lluid, perhaps in a succession of pockets, and that steam is then suddenly generated. The explosive effects which ensue are of two kinds. By the expansion of the moisture which some of the lava contains the latter Is reduced to a state of powder, and thus originate the enormous clouds of fine dust which are ejected. Shocks of greater or less violence are also produced. The less severe ones no douht sound like the discharge of artillery and give rise to tremors in the imme diate vicinity. In extreme cases enough force is developed to rend the walls of the volcano itself. Russell attributes the blowing up of Krakatoa to steam. The culminating episode of the Pelee eruption, though not resulting so disas trously to the mountain, would seem to he due to the same immediate cause. To this particular explosion, too, it seems safe to assign the upheaval which excited a tidal wave. PRENTIS CHOSE ST. PIERRE. Why the American Representative Went to French Island. The death of Thomas Prentls of Massachusetts, United States consul at St. Pierre, who with his wife and chil dren perished lu the Martinique ca tastrophe, recalls the story of how Mr. Prentis was dropped form the consular service a few years ago. In Mr. Cleveland's second term Mr. Prentls was consul at Mauritius, where he had married Miss Louise Fry, the daughter of a wealthy English resi dent. According to the story, a Mr. Campbell, an American, who was en tertained by Consul Prentls during a visit to Mauritius, spending some time as a guest of the Prentls family, asked President Cleveland, a close personal friend, to appoint him to Prentls' place. Mr. Campbell was then consul to one of the West Indian posts. Mr. Cleve- 7 1 ouia. R-etttrj TJ. 8. CONSUL PBEXT1S AND FAMILY. land was lust eoimr out of oHice. nnd. according to the current account, asked his successor, Mr. McKinley, to trans fer Campbell to Mauritius. Mr. Mc Kinley granted the request, but seat Mr. Prentls to Itouen, France, and later to a better post, Batavla, Java. On reaching Batavla with his family, Mr. Prentls found there a dispatch from the State Department saying there bad been a misunderstanding, and that another man had previously been given the Batavla consulate. So Mr. Prentis and his family came back to the United States, and on reaching Washington was offered the choice of a number of places In the consular ser vice. He chose St. Pierre, and his appointment wa9 made out, dating from Oct 10. 1900. A grown son of the consul residing In Chicago Is the only survivor of the Prentls family. The other children, all of whom lost their lives at St. Pierre, were two daughters and a son. Mr. Prentls served in a Vermont regiment In the Civil War. He had been In th consular service off and on for more than thirty years, having reeclved his first appointment In December, 1S71. Annie Laurie's Grave. Public notice has been directed In England to the grave of Annie Laurie, and the fact that It has been snillv nBr. lected and has remained all these years without a tombstone Is attracting at tention. The St James Gazette re marks: "Many people are under the decision that Annie Laurie was merplr a figment of the poet's brain, but thU was not so. She was the daughter of Sir Itobert Laurie, and was born in Maxwelton Ilouse, which stands on the "braes Immortalized In sonir. fT welton House Is still full of memories of this winsome girl, and In the long drawing-room still hangs her portrait 9T0?CEH Her lover and original author of the song was young Douglas of Finland, but whether he, as Is common with lov ers of poetic temperament, did not press his suit sufficiently, or whether she desired a stabler husband, she gave her hand to a prosaic country laird, her cousin, Alexander Ferguson. They lived the rest of their lives at Craigdar rock House, live miles from Maxwel ton, and when she died Annie was burled In the beautiful glen of the Cairn. Lady Scott Spottiwoode, who died early In the past year, was respon slhle for the modem version of the song. Ten Children, All Hii-ringered. Unique In the history of freaks Is the six-fingered family of Drcsbach, Minn. The family now consists of Mrs. Gas kill and ten children. The peculiarity belongs to the mother's side. Mrs. CasklU's maiden name vm Olive Cooper. She doesn't know where sue was born, hut the family is prob nhly of Now York origin. She remem bers only that she was a wanderer with the Cooper family at an early age, and that the Cooper family were basket makers and venders; they led gipsy lives and crossed the continent from New York to San Francisco several times. In the Cooper family there cnuuren. r lve of them had six fingers and five of them had not. The great est peculiarity is that every alternate child, In point of ase. has the PYtl-,1 fill. ger, and those who are not six-lingered are blessed with an extra toe, and those wno have six toes have webs between their toes: The extra flnrrpm u.i t. have well-developed nails. Exactly the same conditions are found In the Cas n.u mill ivra ual ramiiy. Mrs. Gnsklll was married to Zacheus Gasklll thirty-two years ago, and bus resided in Dresbach since then St. Paul Dispatch. He Showed His Contempt. A short time airo a nortmit i.,...i Perclval, a former otlicer of the navy was presented to the detmrtmont -i-.. ' captiin, who died in MiK!, was an odd character. He was known as "Mad Jack" Perclval. because of eccentrlel- iiicu on many occasions brought him in conflict with the naval author!-' u. ine portrait was sent by Mrs William Nicholson, but who she is the department is unable to discover. Cap tain Perclval was sent to Morocco with his frigate to brlmr Jackases for the government, and In lo suow ms contempt for the em ployment of a war vessel for such a mission, on entering New York harbor he ran In all his guns and placed the head of a Jackass through each part as the ship hailed in. The sight of a double row of Jackasses' heads protrud ing from the nlacea rhnr .. ..c fcuua were looked for created a sensation at the time and "Mad Jack" narrowly es caped a reprimand. Church with a Corkscrew Steeple. The steeple of the parish church at Chesterfield. England. Is often called the corkscrew" steeple, for It has got quite a big twist This is due to She action of the sun on the wooden and iron materials, and the warping Is more pronounced In the case of Chesterfield church than In any other church In the country Barnstable and Bristol and one or two otter place8 have , steeples, but their tendency is dechfi to "lean" and not to "twist" w church of Chesterfield 13 the nearest rival ln the United Kingdom to Z leaning tower of Pisa. HmM,?'n0f""K a" a llward Smoking Is permitted In the nri TROUBLES OF A CONDUCTOR. Mix-Up on Ionlont-tnnlbns in th Matter of Making; Chanse, ' It was upon nu omnibus that tar own personal acquaintance with him began. I was sitting beside two ladies when the conductor came up to collect fares. One of them handed him a u. pence, telling him to take to Plccadit ly Circus, which was twopence. "No." said the okber lady r.0 her friend, handing the man a shilling, "i owe you sixpence; you give me four pence and I'll pay for the two." The conductor took the shilling, piiuched two twopenuy tickets, and theu stood trying to think It out. "1 hat's right," said the lady who had spoken lust, "give my friend four pence." The conductor did so. "vow you give that fourpence to nie." The menu nnnuen it to her. "And you" she concluded, to the conductor, "give me elghtpeuce. Then we shall be right." The conductor doled out to her the elghtpeuce, the sixpence he had taken from the first lady, with a penny and two halfpennies out of bis own bag distrustfully, and retired, muttering about his duties not Including those ot a lightning calculation. "Now," said the elder lady to tbt younger, "I owe you n shilling." I deemed the Incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman on the op posite seat called out In stentorian tones: "HI! cond'ictor, you've cheated those ladles out of a fourpence." "Oo's cheated 'oo out o' fourpence?" replied the indignant conductor from the top of the steps, "It was a two penny fare." "Two twopences don't make eight pence," retorted the florid gentleman, hotly. "How much did you give that fellow, my dear?" he asked, addressing the first of the young ladies. "I gave him sixpence," replied the lady, examining her purse. "And then I gave you fourpence, you know," she added, addressing her companion. "That's a dear two peh-oth," chimed a common-looking man on the seat be hind. "Oh, that's Impossible, dear," re turned the other, "becnuse I owed you sixpence to begin with." "But I did," persisted the first lady. "You gave me a shilling," said the conductor, who had returned, pointing an accusing forefinger at the elder of the ladles. The elder lady nodded. "And I gave you sixpence and two penules, didn't I?" The lady ndmltted It "And I gave her." he pointed to ward the younger Indy, "fourpence, didn't I?" "What I gave you, you know, my dear," remarked the younger lady. "Blow me If It aUu't me as 'as been cheated out of the fourpence." cried the conductor. "But." said the florid gentleman, "the other lady gave yon sixpence." "W'lch I gave 'er," replied the con ductor, again pointing the finger of accusation at the elder lady. "You can search my bng. If yer like. I ain't got a blooming sixpence on me." By tills time everybody had forgot ten what they had done, and contra dicted themselves and one another. The florid man took It upou himself to put everybody right, with the result that before Piccadilly Circus was leached three passengers threatened to report the conductor for unbecoming language. The conductor had called a policeman and had taken the names and addresses of the two ladies, Intend ing to sue them for the fourpence (which they wnnted to pny, but which the florid man would not allow them to do), the younger lady had become convinced that the elder lady bad meant to cheat her and the elder lady was in tears. From Jerome K. Je rome's "The Man Who Always Inter feres." Happy Johnny Burns. They wuz a man in Sundy school last Suudy, snid 'at he Wished we would all be good and grow like Moses used to he, But I don't care so much for that, as others mebby does I'd like to be like. Johnny Burns, 'cause he wears gallus-uz. My maw she never wants to let me p'a7 with Johnny, fer . , She says his folks is ignerunt and aint the style fer her. And every time she scolds me when I w what Johnny does I wisht he wore my waist and I couW have his gallus-uz. My paw's almost the richest man they are In this here town, 'Cause we live in a big white house and Johnny be lives down , . Beside the railroad track I wisht 'at 1 lived where he does, 'Cause nearly all the boys down there are wearin' gallus-uz. I wisht my paw'd git poor "me liay' ni then we'd haft ta-f . And live down by the track and not M all stuck -ip, you know , Then mebby fiiay'd let me be dressed the way 'at Johnny wuz. And he'd be friend'.y with me, cause I'd have on gallus-uz. Chicago Record-Herald. Uer Opinion. "Some men," said Willie Wellington, "act like perfect fools when tbey In love." "Yes," answered Miss Cayenne, "and a great many more do not wait even for that excuse." Washington Star. Mot I'Jnoujth. Miss Passay Mamma said she would call here to-day to buy the candles for my birthday cake. Did she? Grocer's Clerk I guess not. She wa here, but she only bought two dozen. Phlladelphia Press. Some men are so worthless thnt it l a waste of time to talk about them- ,