Chapter 10 SNATCHED FROM THE GRAVE.

Back over that terrible road of drifting snow the old grave digger made his way as swiftly as his trembling limbs could carry him.

He had endeavored to mark carefully the spot where he had made that lonely grave, but the snow was drifting so hard with each furious gust of wind as to make it almost impossible to find it upon retracing his steps.

Quaking with terror, and with a prayer on his lips to Heaven to guide him, old Adam sat down his lantern, and by its dim, flickering light peered breathlessly around.

There was the blasted pine tree and toward the right of it the stump. The grave must be less than a rod below it.

With a heart beating with great strangling throbs, he paced off the distance, and then stood quite still, holding his lantern down close to the frozen earth.

For an instant his heart almost ceased beating-there was no sign of the little mound, with the leafless branch of bush he had been so careful to place there.

Then, suddenly a moan from beneath his very feet fell upon his ear, causing him to fairly gasp for breath.

"Thank God! I have found it!" he cried.

In an instant he had thrown off his coat, thin though it was, and set to work as he had never worked in all his life before-against time.

He had thrown in the earth loosely, taking care to leave the head exposed, for he felt as sure as he did of his own existence that life was not yet extinct in the body of the young girl for whom he was forced to prepare that grave at the point of a revolver in the hands of the two desperate strangers.

He had taken his own life in his hands when he had announced the work finished satisfactorily, for had the man stepped from the coach to examine the work he would have found the deep hole which left the head uncovered.

The cold winds and the drifting snow blew into the old grave digger's face, but he worked on with desperate zeal, realizing that another life might depend upon the swiftness of his rescue.

At last, after what seemed to him an eternity of time, he reached the body, and quickly lifted it from its resting place.

Half an hour later he reached his own humble cottage home, bearing the slender burden in his strong arms.

His good wife had waited up for him. She could never sleep when Adam was away from home.

She heard his footstep on the crunching snow and hastened to open the door for him, starting back with a cry of great surprise as she caught sight of the figure in his arms.

"Is it some neighbor's little girl lost in the storm, Adam?" she cried, clasping her hands together in affright.

"Don't ask any questions now, Mary," he exclaimed, delivering the burden into her willing, motherly arms, and sinking down into the nearest chair, thoroughly exhausted. "I'll tell you all about it later, when I get my breath and my nerves are settled. Do everything you can to revive the poor young creature. She is freezing to death."

As old Adam's kindly wife threw back the dark cloak which had enveloped the fair young face and form, an exclamation of surprise broke from her wondering lips.

"She is a stranger hereabouts," she observed, but she wisely obeyed her husband's injunctions, making no further remark, knowing she would hear all about it in good time.

In less time than it takes to tell it, the beautiful young stranger was put to bed in the little spare room up under the eaves, wrapped in flannel blankets, with bottles of hot water at the feet, and a generous draught of brandy, which the grave digger's wife always kept in the house for emergencies, forced down her throat.

"She will soon return to consciousness now," she exclaimed to her husband, who stood beside the bedside anxiously watching her labors; "see that flush on her cheeks. We will sit down quietly and wait until she opens her eyes. It won't be long."

And while they waited thus, Adam told his wife the story he had to tell concerning the young girl-this fair, hapless, beautiful young stranger whose wedding he had witnessed and burial he had assisted in within the hour, first binding his wife to solemn secrecy.

The good woman's amazement as she listened can better be imagined than described. For once in her life she was too dumfounded to offer even a theory.

As they glanced toward the bed, to their amazement they saw the girl's eyes fastened upon old Adam with an expression of horror in them, heartrending to behold, and they realized that she had heard every word he had said.

In an instant they were on their feet bending over the couch.

"Is it true-they buried me-and-you-you-rescued me?" she asked, in a terrified whisper, catching at the old man's hands and clutching them in a grasp from which he could not draw them away, her teeth chattering, her violet eyes almost bulging from their sockets.

"Since you have heard all, I might as well confess that it is quite true," he answered. "And God forgive that brute of a husband you just married. He ought to swing for the crime as sure as there is a heaven above us. There will be no end of the good minister's wrath when he hears the story, my poor girl."

Again the beautiful young stranger caught at his hands.

"He must never know!" she cried, incoherently. "Promise me, by all you hold dear, that both you and your wife will keep my secret-will never reveal one word of what has happened this night."

"It is not right that we should keep silent upon such an amazing procedure. That would be letting escape the man who should be punished, if there is any law in the land to reach him for committing such a heinous crime."

"I plead with you-I, who know best and am the one wronged, and most vitally interested, to utter no word that would cause the story to become blazoned all over the world. Let me make my words a prayer to you both-to keep my pitiful secret."

It was beyond human power to look into those beautiful violet eyes, drowned in the most agonized tears, and the white, terrified, anxious face, without yielding to her prayer.

"I do not know what good reason you may have for binding us to secrecy," he said, slowly and reluctantly, "but we cannot choose but to give you the promise-nay, the pledge-you plead for. I can answer for my Mary as well as myself-the story of to-night's happenings shall never pass our lips until you give us leave to speak."

"Thank you! Oh, I thank you a thousand times!" sobbed the girl. "You have lifted a terrible load from my heart. If the time ever comes when I can repay you, rest assured it shall surely be done."

She tried to rise from her couch, but the good wife held her back upon her pillow with a detaining hand, exclaiming:

"What are you about to do, my dear child?"

"Go away from here," sobbed the girl, again attempting to arise from the couch, but falling back upon the pillow from sheer weakness.

She did not leave that couch for many a day. What she had undergone had been too much for her shattered nerves.

Brain fever threatened the hapless girl, but was warded off by the faithful nursing of old Adam's faithful wife.

And during those weeks the good woman could learn nothing of the history of the beautiful young stranger, who persistently refused to divulge one word concerning herself. She would turn her face to the wall and weep so violently when any allusion was made to her past that the grave digger's wife gave up questioning her.

One morning the bed was empty. It had not been slept in. The girl had fled in the night.

Who she was, or where she had gone, was to them the darkest, deepest mystery. Would it ever be revealed? They could not discuss it with the old minister or any of the neighbors, for their lips were sealed in eternal silence concerning the matter.

"I feel sure the end of this matter is not yet," said old Adam, prophetically. "When the girl comes face to face with the dastardly villain she wedded that night, it will end in a tragedy."

"God forbid!" murmured his wife with a shudder; but down in her own heart she felt that her husband had spoken the truth; the tragic end of this affair had not yet come.