THE BABYLONIAN DIAMOND

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 450, 1 December 1904, Page 2

THE BABYLONIAN DIAMOND

BY AUSTIN FRYERS.

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER XL—^Continued.) ' She is coming here,' said Raven, with a deep earnestness in his voice. He had come to the window, and, leaning on Marnham Hardy's shoulder, was leaning over, and could seo the cab and its fair occupant below.. ' She is very handsome, Marnham, old chap. Can you tell me who she is?' . 'lean gues3, Raven, old fellow;', and Hardy, pressing Raven's hand, left the room. Raven hurried down the stairs (."; meet his visitor; for, although ther* were many flats in the building, Raven was not ofJhe nature to adopt the of hesitating to assume that the visit was to him. Miss Stanhope had dismissed the hansom and "entered the vestibule before Raven reached her. He advanced with outstretched hands. • I have surprised you, Mr Ferrett, by running you to earth like this,' said Maude, looking up at him archly. ' 1 am much too pleased, Miss Stanhope,' replied Raven, 'to feel surprised. Perhaps in a little while I may have time to feel surprised.' 'When you are less pleased, you mean ?' Raven laughed. * I am clumsy in compliments,' he replied. * I daresay my words may be twisted to infer that possibility.' Raven preceded his fair visitor, and soon they were seated in his little sitting-room. «You will let me get you a cup of tea. I hope?' said he, approaching the bell. 'Our housekeeper brews an excellent cup.'. ' No, thank you,' said Maude; ' I shall not have any. And I shall tell you at once my business. You know, I am half-inclined to think it is not quite proper for a girl to visit a gentleman friend in his chambers.' 'Don't have any fear about that, Miss Stanhope,' said Raven, gallantly. •Anything you do is bound to be proper.' 'Don't begin to pay me compliments," said she, 'or I shall not feel able to tell you what has brought me here. I want to keep quite calm and matter-of-fact, because I want to speak of something very serious.' ' It is very good o£ you to come here for any purpose,' said Raven; ' and I hope I need hardly say that if I can b3 of any assistance to you I shall feel very happy.' ' I want to go back to the other evening, Mr Ferrett,' said Maude, looking down in some confusion. 'I want to tell you that I know how true was every word you then said to me.' ' 1 am glad. Miss Stanhope, that you feel sure of that,' said Raven, a huskiness creeping into hi 3 voice; • but I hope that even then you had no doubt of it.' No; I had no doubt of it as a mere matter of the difference between truth and lies,' said Maude, with a suggestion of intensity in her tone, 'but now I can realise how deep and noble was the love you professed for me. I know it, because I have learned, myself, what love is. I think this jjreat trouble which has fallen on Albert has been a blessing in one way, because it has shown me how much"l love him. And now that you are setting yourself to help him, when it can only help him to win me, is a proof of the unselfishness of your live.' • Bat, Miss Stanhope,' said Raven, deprecatingly,' Mr Douglass has been a great friend of mine £or years. I should, under any circumstances, have done all I could to help him.' ' Yes, Mr Ferrett, under any other e:rq|)un§tance3 I believe it would have b-2c3 easy; but under these, it is heroic. Oh, yes, it is idle to deny it or try to hide it. I know that I should simply hats any girl who stole .Albert away from me. And 1 don't Live Albert more than you told me you love mo. I know exactly what

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you must feel, Mr Ferrett, and I know exactly what your temptation must be. I have come merely to tell you I know this, and that I thank you. And now, good-bye.' -".Raven could say nothing. It was the kindly incentive of a frank heart, Snd he accepted it in all its fulness. Maude held out her hand as she spoke. Raven took it, held it for an instant, and then silently pressed it to his lips. As he handed her into her cab, he whispered—- ' You may trust me to the end; I rball not fail.' •"CHAPTER XII. Maude Stanhope's brief visit to Raven's room left many after effects on their tenant. The brightness of her presence seemed to leave them dark and gloomy when she had gone; and, although the consciousness that she knew of the heart-struggle through Which he had emerged triumphantly encouraged and nerved him, there was also created a renewal of the old longing that, she would consent to share his life. Very bitter' indeed were Raven's reflections as he sat in the old embrasured window, gazing out at the slowly-moving tide. He had impatiently tossed Marnham Hardy's heap of cushions "on to the floor, and was sitting on the old polished black oak bench, leaning his chin heavily on his clenched hand. * What an iU-contrived affair is- the life we lead in these civilised days!' was Raven's reflection. The love Maude, which came unbidden into his heart, could not be a thing to be repulsed and crushed; Raven was too devout a believer in the purity and unerring instinct of nature to question its promptings ; and yet every step to gratify or appease the longings of bis heart seemed to be possible only by the adoption of courses which would win him universal condemnation. Even to think of Maude with any idea a closer intimacy than that of mere acquaintanceship implied a treachery to his friend. Think as he would, there appeared to be no way out of the difficulty but to assume that Nature was in the wrong. And then he thought bitterly of all that had been said and sung of love. How it makes a man feel younger, happier, and brighter; how it tinges the world with bright hues, and gives a new sweetness to music. Raven reflected with a bitter amusement on all he had read about the influence of love, and in his mind's eye, as he looked out at the vague grey atmosphere, he pictured to himself the vast heap of literature—essays, novels, poems—which was devoted to the eulogy of love, and be saw an inscription across all which read—'A Monument of Lies!' Love to him had brought no lightness of spirit, no charity of heart, no expanse of intellect. Its influence had been quite the reverse. It had suggested meannesses to him of which he had never previously dreamt; it had minimised treachery so that he had contemplated it without disgust; it had narrowed his views so that he questioned his personal advantage where he would otherwise have been animated solely by the desire to help: to him, as he examined his own mind and heart, love was not ennobling, but degrading; and with a sigh he concluded that the love of which the poet may sing in rapture is the successful, the gratified love, and not the crashed and blighted, disappointed love. It was well for Raven that Marnham Hardy entered at that moment. Had he been allowed to pursue his gloomy reflections he would have filled his heart with so much blackness that it would have taken a long bleaching in the sun to get it back to a pure healthy red, < Well, old chap,' said Hardy, as he

entered,' how have you been getting on? What did she want f * Ob, merely to thank me because I intend trying to make her future husband presentable in the eyes of tne world 1' said Raven, bitterly. ' Come, come, old chap,' said Hardy, ' don't look at it like that, it is not worthy of you. Douglass is your friend, and you know him to be innocent, and mean to prove it. Let your love for the girl be another matter altogether, and do this in spite of your love disappointment to prove how true your friendship can be.' * Yes, Marnham, old fellow, I will do it. If I think of Maude any longer I shall go mad, or do something desperate or despicable. I am going to make a start at once. I'll see* you again to-night.' 'AH right,. Raven, old fellow, I won't detain you, because you will be far better at work.' Raven took his hat off the peg in the hall, and, having hailed a hansom, he gave an address in Camden Town. The street was a quiet one, of the humble workman's quarters type, and the number to which Raven directed his cab was in no way different to the other houses I —exactly the same tw r st of curtains, with a garish ornament in the centre, being seen through the parlour window, and lending to the house the same air of squalid brightness. Raven had come to see the- commissionaire, who was on duty outside the strong-room on the day the diamond was stolen. The shock had thoroughly unnerved him, and he was now laid up. Raven made many kindly inquiries as to his health, and then gradually led the conversation back to the subject of the robbery. ' I al'ays had my dincsr at one o'clock,' said the invalid, ' and a cup of coffee at three. Then I used to read the ev'in' paper.' * Now, do you remember what you read in the paper on the day of the robbery ?' asked Raven. 'I think I can, sir,' replied the sick man, reflectively. ' There was that murder in Bermondsey, and a divorce case, and the burglary at Sydenham. That was all I read when I 'eard Mr Douglass coming down the stairs.' ' You read of the burglary last ?' ' Yes, sir.' ' Do you remember much about it V 'They go in through the back window, and—and—well, no, sir, I can't say as I did pay much attention to it after all.' 'Then you heard Mr Douglass coming down ?' '* Yes, sir.' ' And picked up the paper ?' ' Yes, sir.' ' From the floor ?' ' Yes, sir; it 'ad just slipped.' ' That is all I wanted to know. I can see now how the robbery took place.' ' You can, sir ?' 'Yes. You were asleep. That is how the paper slipped down. And now, if you only reflect calmly, you

will remember that after your cap of coffee every afternoon, and after you had read about the same amount in your paper, it always slipped down in exactly the same way.' The man stared, and Eaven saw that ho had made a step towards solving the mystery. He enjoined absolute secrecy on this point, and the maa, feeling he had contributed to the terrible incident, only too readily promised acquiescence. 'And now, one last question. What other visitors have you had from tbe bank r' ' Only one, sir—Mr Luker Hirst.' CHAPTER XIII. Sophie Darke had a very elegant suite of rooms in Bedford Square, elaborately furnished in a light and airy style. Sophie herself, a tall woman with coal-black hair, violetblack eyes, and a fair skin of sparkling lustre, through which shone the faintest suspicion of shade, was elegant, as her surroundings would lead one to expect, and there was a purring, cat-like adaptability in her every movement which indicated her fondness for the luxury by which she was surrounded. Her antecedents were vague. She did not actually move in good society

but she was received in many wellknown centres of smart society which lay on the borderland between good society and Bohemia. The accepted story—for there were many—was that she was the daughter of a North of England parson, now deceased, that she had enough to live on in the style she affected, and that she had very few relatives, and those quite distant ones. But certain it was that Sophie managed to get about a good deal, and to enjoy herself, to all outward seeming, amazingly. She was at one time with a gay party in a house-boat on the river; at another she was to be seen at Ascot. Wherever a swell gathering was to be found, the chances were that Miss Sophie Darke would be present as the member of someone's party. On such occasions her rather striking beauty attracted attention, and then rumour passed from tongue to tongue, especially of those who had not made her acquaintance. At one moment she was said to be an actress of a pettish disposition whom it was hard to manage ; at another she was the wealthy widow of a foreigner. Against her character, however, no one said anything. To do so was to depreciate the company among which the speaker mixed; and such rumours, too, are invariably applied to one's hostess. It was a bright morning as Sophie languidly rose from her well-cushioned-arm-chair near the window and went, with a slight, scarcely-concealed yawn, towards the piano. A man of dark and earnest features had been leaning on the back of the chair, and his eyes followed her with a wistful, hungry glance, The man was Luker Hirst, the principal clerk of Douglass, Pirn and Douglass. ' He looked for a moment, undecided after Sophie as she walked carelessly away from him, and then he followed her. ' Why will you torture me like this, Sophie ?' he pleaded, placing his hand on the piano beside her. ' Why do you let the common-sense of a little plain speaking annoy you ?' said she, with an affectation of surprise. ' I have simply repeated what you should know of yourself, and it should not therefore annoy you.' ' Not annoj me, when you tell me your love depends on my doing the impossible I' ' Now. Luker, don't be stupid; we are not children, and I have only suggested that you should attempt the possible.' 'Can you not wait?' he pleaded. 'lt will be only a little while—a twelvemonth, or, at most, two years—and then we can go away together and be happy.' ' You speak absurdly, Luker.' And Sophie threw herself on the ottoman with an expression of weariness. * You ask me to live on an income which will barely suffice to pay for the rent' of these rooms. How can I? Surely the fact that you cannot find an answer to the question is a proof that we cannot wait.' ' But what am I to do ? I have told you what Solomons has said '

'What is it to me what he says? I told you from the first that I cannot live without wealth and luxury. You promised me that I should have what wealth I desired ; you pictured to me the holidays we should have abroad ; the gay lii'o we should lead in London ; and now you coolly ask me to exist on a miserable £4OO a year.' 'But only 'for a time,' pleaded Luker, piteously; and it was a pitiable sight, this strong man of cold reserve bending before the dictation of the imperious woman. 'lt may be, perhaps, only for one year at most. Can you not wait a little for me? Have just a little patience now, so that we may live all the merrier in the bright contrasting hereafter.' ' What a horrid word —' hereafter 1' And Sophie smiled contemptuously. ' It sounds as though you were preaching. And perhaps you are; but preaching has always been lost on me.' ' Why can you not, Have pity ?' 'Because I must first have pity on myself, Luker. Butjlet us be reasonable,' said" she, sitting up alertly and facing hrm] -'and leave pity and sentiment' out: v of the question. I plainly told you that I should-consent to —to marry you, condition that you provide me with the style of life which is the only one I care to j live.* '■- y -r-

' And you knew how I was to secure the means.' ' Yes, you told me,' ' I became a thief.' 'Had you been a clever one you might have claimed me wholly as your ownl' 1 Yes, I was a fool; but, Sophie, you cannot even realise how terrible a thing it is to drift entirely away from all your early habits, your thoughts, your mode of life; to do. a thing you have been accustomed to execrate in others ! That terrible twenty minutes is to me like a dream of passing through fire. It was terrible—terrible!' ' And then you made a mull of it.' ' Ah, Sophie, you are cruel. I am not a practised thief; at that moment I was a madman; and I could only act without stopping to think. I might have secured a pocket-full—ay, filled my pockets with the lesser jewels ' ' Which we should have been able to get rid of by now.' (To be continued.)