A Wife for a Day; Or, THE FINGER OF FATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 36, 11 February 1905, Page 14

A Wife for a Day; Or, THE FINGER OF FATE.

By EMMA G. WELDON, Author of "Love and Diplomacy," "Genevieve's Triumph," "A Strange Bridal," "Friends and Rivals," "Cupid's Dilemma," etc., etc. « ■ •

CHAPTER 111. THE GIRL WITH AUBURN HAIR. Bob Annesleigh was glad to find that it was no longer drizzling; the wind was rising in little fitful gusts. He buttoned up his coat, and walked forward with a light, buoyan-t step, not knowing, not caring, whither bis footsteps might lead him, the slave of hi.s mood. He felt rather like a Haroun-al-Raechid seeking romance. And more romance and adventure awaited the. adventurous in New York's Tenderloin than ever in the capital of the old Eastern king—so why not for him? The theatres were emptying, though the hour was not much past eieven. It was a blaxe of life and colour and! movement along Broadway. Hansoms dashed by, their lights flashing like electric stars out of the darkness of the side streets, and back fnto the dark again; women, with jewelled hair and rustling gowns, crowded out from the playhouses, chattering and laughing gaily, into the glare of the brilliantly lighted thoroughfare. Annesleigh Btood watching; the fascination of it all stirred his imagination; he stood watching—listening, Was not New York singing her great song? Outside the vestibule of Wallaces, Annesleigh saw a. party of people he knew. His first impulse was to join the laughing, chattering group, ■but he changed his mind and strode down the street. He walked qtrite aimlessly; chance Bhould be his guide. Had he not till now been the. votary of chance? A curious e?nse of unreality dominated him. In r strange fashion "he felt the exhilaration of a truant schoolboy. Was he not playing truant from his responsibilities?— the responsibilities of tbe changed order of his life that, though he -might refuse to take them seriously to-night, would have to be taken seriously enough tomorrow. In a soberer mood he might have realised that it was a wild schoolboy's freak, this; bat the feeling of gay irresponsibility swept saner thoughts out of liis mind." Hp could not remembeT when. his spirits had felt so light, and unencumbered. Hp walked bTiskly forward, with the tvind blowing in his face, and covered ■dozens of blocks, still heading generally north, and. edging now and then toward the Hudson, as though controlled by some strange impulse. He had left the more frequented thoroughfares behind bow; the lamp of a night- coffee stand, gleaming like a yellow eye through tbe haze, issued an invitation. He felt in bis pockets. Yes; he still had a quarter and some coppers. He walked up to the stand. The lirtlc knot of loafers made way for him, looking at Annesleigh curiously, enviously- He drank a nup of coffpp; it vas a thick, muddy liquid, with the grounds of chicory floating on the surface. Bob remembered the Turkish coffee that Burke used to put before liini; yet, somehow, lie enjoyed this with »11 the zest of a schoolboy. '"You're leaving your change, sir." said the coffee-stand jnan, as he moved away. Annesleigfh turned. It struck him us amusing that, situated as he was. he should forget even such a sum as twenty cents, the change ont of his last bit of silver. Hi.s pyes fell on a woman, in the rags of what bad been once cheap, tawdry finery, who crouched near the coffee stand within the radius of the faint warmth from tbe stove. She had watched him almost wolfishly as he drank the coffee—a woman -whose face might have been handsome once, many years ago. only vice and misery had filched the beauty away. "Here, have somo. coft'en and something to eat, will you?" AnnoKlefgh said, to this wreck of a woman, lightly indicating the coins, for suddenly it had come to him to go thp limit without delay. She flung herself upon them nlmost like a famished, wild animal, with a few muttered words of thanks, in a voice that, strangely enough, might almost have belonged to one of the women of the world he bad moved in. Vice and degradation, that had stolen her beauty, had left her voice low, modulated, refined- But it was that, fact that made Annesleigh shudder as he walked away— the contrast between that voice and its owner that told him she must once have leen a woman of his own jeorld. He had told himself that be was going to see life, raw. at first hand: here was one of life's grim, naked realities. Tbe woman was drinking the coffee greedily, and eating ravenously the thick, coarse sandwiches. For the first lime, Annesleigh began to understand ■what pinching, hungry poverty was. Poverty had come to him; but until this moment it had been to him a fact without a meaning. He walked away, trying to forget the look on the woman's face! A sudden memory made him thread Jiis way toward a quiet back street, hidden away from the main thoroughfare— « street of large houses—old-fashioned, many of them—waiting their turn until fleases should expire, and tbe builder of the modern flat should have things all ihis own way. It had been a, familiar'street to Bob Annesleigh once, but, it was years since he had seen it. Would he find the house that was in his thoughts gonp? He walked down the street. No: if, was there still—an old house, long empty and neglected, that had been in litigation so long ago that the original litigants had been deceased many years, and, perhaps, were still carrying on the interminable case before some ghestlv tribunal of dead-and-gone judges! It stood detached, with a garden all around it—one of the strangest sights' in the upper city. Peeping in through the tall, rusting iron gates, one would have got scarcely more than a glimpse of the old house, so thick were the trees that shut it off from the street, even if the haze bad not blurred cverythiTi*. A curiou3 house to find in bustling Go--tham. CT ; So old it was. so suggestive of romance in its forgotten look, that a little girl peeping through the gates, had once said to the boy at her side«t."« +?"* •" tbe Castle in the w °od. i I W<ris ? tm6eS6 ' .T*b tell asleep for I t httn .^* d ye*™, alter pricking her finB prince shall come te £J K Z^ ■ now-a httle grayer and nwrc Z ■ perhaps—rs H had appeared

when, mere than ten years ago, the imperious little lady bad settled the matter once and for all that here was theeastle out of the fairy tale, where the sleeping beauty slumbered, awaiting the , coming of the prince. And the boy to whom she had confided this indisputable fact —a man now —stood gazing upon the wilderness of a garden, with eld memories stirring within him. "I wonder where you are to-night, little girl?" Annesleigh said to hiinseli "And I wonder what you'd have to say 1 to mc now if you saw mc, and knew ' what a fool IVc been, and how I have wasted my life? I wonder!" serious for ■ a moment. It was odd that this memory should have come back to him to-night. It was long since he had thought of her —the girl whose childish words flashed back on his remembrance now. It was when ho was staying in New York with his grandfather, while his parents were abroad, that he had known her. What chums they had been!—he, a. boy of fifteen; she, a girl of twelve, with great, round eyes and clustering masses of hair, that shone in the sunlight like burnished copper. He had told her that as soon as she grew old enough to have her hair "up" he should marry her. It was odd how these forgotten memories had leaped out from some dark corner of his brain. Sl]p. had so long ago passed out of his thoughts; her very name, even. Stay! What vcus the name by which he had called her? JMadgc. Yes, it was Madge. He knew it was only a pet name. What her real na-me was he could not remember. Boy and girl sweethearts; and now be was a man and she a woman, and, for all he knew, the whole wide world rolled between them. That chiWish romance was like so many things in life—beginnings that were never finisned; only loose, ragged threads left hanging. Madge! It was a quaint name. How exactly it had suited her. Bob Annesleigh felt he would like to know what the ten intervening years had made of the wilful., wayward Madge he had known. So -much can happen in ten years. She might be married, or dead, and he would neve.r know. He scarcely knew why; yet, somehow, the thought drew a halfregretful sigh from him. There was a sweetness about that awa.kencd mernorv like the lingering yerfurne of lavender laid by long-dead ringers in some old i press. - Yes; he would have enjoyed meeting her again. Then he interrupted the train of thought with a laugh, and told himself that he was mentally talking nonsense. The. gate -was standing a little ajar; he slipped through, and stood in the neglected garden. How deserted everything was! The old house had so neglected an air that it might well have been the enchanted casfle where the princess slept hei- hundred years' sleep. On an impulse, Annesleigh walked up the weed-choked avenue to the big, empty house. It rose up before him, dark, silent, and forbidding in the moonlight. The fitful gusts of wind rioted through the trees, and sighed about the great,, square pile. Of course, the door would be locked. In the fairy story, that long ago in his boyhood the girl of this sudden memory had nssoeiated for all time in his thoughts with this old derelict of a house, the prince would, no doubt, burst the bolts -with the butt of his lance. He had no lance, or he might have been tempted to play the part of the prince, he told himself, laughing at the absurd, schoolboyish fancy; only it was a pity that the prince was without his retinue, and beggared! Up turned the handle of the door, and, to his surprise., he found it yield to him. Ho opened it softly, as a rasping gust ; of wind beat round the house. The , impulse was irresistible. Annesieio-h passed swiftly into the hall, and closed the door behind him softly. "It would never do to* awaken' the princess by the banging of a door: the romamp would be dispelled at once," he told himself, gayly. He stood motionless in thp hall of the great soundless house. The blustering of the wind onlsidp, beating round its walls, sweeping last autumn's ' rustling, dead leaves like crying ghosts along the flagged terrace, shaking (he crazy old windows, seemed only to em- : phasise the brooding stillness within. Through a great, ghostly, oriel window above, the light of the moon, which had struggled out from behind the ragged clouds, filtered dimly into thp ball, "peopling it with fantastic shadows of its long-dead-a.nd-gone tenants. people, perhaps, of revolutionary times. He stole noiselessly across the hall, feeling a sense of uncanny eeriness, hi spite of himself; then, at the foot of the staircase, looking up. he saw amawdly a reflected light from a room on the second floor. He must see the adventure through now! Silently, and on tiptoe, he crept up the long flight of stairs; there, on the landing, through the partly open door of a room, dimly lit by one candle, he saw the sleeping "princess! For one moment, with the illusion of invited romance so strong- upon him. Bob Annesleigh felt, hardly surprised at this turn to his advpntnre. Inside the great room, furnished only with one or two odds and cuds of furniture, sat a girl by thp table, her face resting on her band, her eyes closed. For an instant he thought that she was asleep, and h« stood bs«k in the shadow, gazing into the great, bare room, ingA girl, yonng a?id beautiful, with wonderful hair —hair that was the colour of forests reddening to autumn; only the face was so white, so full of haunting trouble, that its mute sorrow went to Bob Annesleigh's heart. Though her eyes were closed, she was not asleep. He saw that she was sobbing softly to herself. It was clear she did not dream of his presence; she whispered aloud fiercely: "To-nig-ht I am free! Thank Heaven. I've cut myself loose!" Strange words, and a strange woman, to sit in this great, lonely, empty house at this hour of a wild night. "I am free! Thank Heaven, I've cut myself free!" Annesleigh's first impulse was to step forward to reveal himself, and try to comfort or help this gfrl with the auburn hair. But he refrained. He had no • right to intrude on her sorrow; he woald i only etartte—terrify her, it might be— t>y bis sudden appearance. I Hβ meet jo away as silently m he had *

come, and she need never know that he had been an involuntary intruder on her grief. Bob Annesleigh stole back, down the broad stairs, eobered out of bis mad mood by the sight of the girl's sorrowful eyes, haunted by a strange, elusive, half-familiar look in her face. The man who had never taken anything seriously in his past life was serious enough now. The stairs creaked a little, but the gathering storm outside that beat against the windows drowned the sound. At least, the woman overhead gave no sign of having been disturbed. It was, quite dark in the wide hall; vhe moonlight that had Jit it dimly through the Stained, window was obscured behind a drift of driving clouds. Annesleigh bad to grope his way carefully, anxious not to reveal his presence by so much a a a sound to the strange woman who sat in the room overhead, waiting—for what? He felt his way cautiously by the wall; then, in the darkness, to ached something with his foot—something that filled hhn with a sudden indefinable terror. He barely strangled the cry that rose in his throat. What wae it he had come upon in that stygian darkness? With trembling fingers he struck a match, and the full-revealed horror of the thing came home to him. Seeking romance, he had stumbled on a tragedy! In all his happy-go-lucky existence, Bob Anneslcigh had never received a shock equal to that which swept over him as his little wax taper burst into flame, and his horrified eyes fell upon the object with which his foot had come in contact. CHAPTER IV. AT DEAD OF NIGHT. It was only for a very brief time that Annesleigh's taper illuminated the scene of the tragedy, but even that had been a long enough space for him to realise that «he was in the presence, of death, as he stood looking down with horroT in his eyesA man lay huddled up by the. -wall; the very rigidity of the attitude seemed to tel! Annesledgh that he was dead. He lay on his face, one arm stiffly crooked under him: the congealed blood on a contused wound on the side of the head indicated murder. The dead man bad been lying in the shadow, or Bcb must have seen, him in the moonlight as he entered. What he was like, whether he was young or old, the matchlight had not revealed. Annesleigh bent down in the darkness, and groped for the man's he-Art. He could not fpel it beating; could not discern even the faintest indication of breathing. But, of course, the man was dead; the attitude had indefinably told him that. Murder! What an ugrly word it -was! And the girl with the wonderful auburn hair upstairs—she had been alone in the house with this! Why did she sii there, instead of raising an alarm, unless she had And those' suggestive. w.OTds sbo. had uttered; they seemed to pry aloud in his ears now, and echo throiifrb his brain: "To-night I am free! Thank Heaven. I have cut myself free!" There was only one thin<r that ho could think, or that any man could think. And yet it was such a pure, beautiful face! Could such a girl have done this terrible thing? And her eyes were so full of sorrow, her voice so full of tears. ' Whatever mad, desperate thing slip might harp done, he found only pity for her in his heart. Whtitevor she might havr done, ho must save her! H« had to conquer his repulsion as he put his arms around the dead man in the darkness—had to fight down the impulse to fly from this accursed house, before he nerved himself to half drag, half earn-, that terrible deadweight bohind the partly open door of an adjoining room, which the faint light of the moon, emerging from the rack of clouds, reveaJed to him- Hp felt physically sick, but the rhing had to be d"on«. Then he went swiftly upstairs. How his footsteps sounded through the house!—so loud seemed the echoes to his overstrung nerves that he wondered ii they were board out in the street. A fear ho had never know in his life before. held him —fear for this girl who to-night was free! Where could it be that he bad over seen her before? The lovely face framed in that halo of glorious auburn hair eeemp.d to mock and tantalise him like something held just, out. of rear.h. Of course she had heard him. Thp echo of his footsteps had sounded loud enough even to waken the dead man downstairs, hp thought, feverishly, as though the old house refused to keep silent about what he would have hidden from the world. On the threshold of the room thp girl confronted him with scared eyes- One hand was pressed to her breast; her breath came, in little gasps. "Who are ynuV she. cried, wildly, with sudden terror in her face. "Don't be afraid.'" hp answered, swiftly. "I am some one who wants to be your friend to-night.—to help you. Come away at once. Come home!" " •Home." She of the auburn hair laughed with bitter emphasis. There was still fear in her face, as though his words had not quite reassured hnr. "Do you know that to-day was uiv \veddin« day, and to-night -" "Hush! Come away. At once now! There is do time to lose. You may trust me—you may trust mc! I only wish to help you. No one shall ever know from mc that you were here to-night. Come!"" "But I don't understand. Who arc you? Why should you want to help mo?" she cried. He looked at her; the beautiful, sad eyes were puzzled. Could it be. after all—despite all—that she did not know of that terrible dead thing downstairs? Could it be possible? 'Don't seek to understand now; only come. Every moment that vera stay here increases your dangp.r. I* want to help—to save you!" be reiterated. '"To save mc from -what?-"' she asked again. "Oh, this is no time foT words! Every moment is precious," he cried, almost roughly, in his fierce impatience. "You don't know mc. and perhaps you are right to mistrust m*>. But, before Heaven, I only want lo be your friend now! Come!" She yielded passively at last. In silence they walked side by side down the broad stairs, through the hall —in the dim light Annesleigh's shuddering eyes saw the dark stain on the tesselatcd floor, and knew what it signified —out of the door, alony the shadowy drive. Overhead great shapeless blots of clour! drove through the sky, between ihe earth aud the moonlight,' like the battalions of flying armies. the gate, in the fitfu] darkness of the quiet by-street, the girl spoke: '"I don't know you. I don't even know why you have spoken so kindly to mc, or how you came to know that I was in the house; but I believe you mean to be kind, and I thank you. I think I have been mad to-night." She pauised; then, looking intently into his face: "Whywere you so anxious to take mc »way?"<

' 'Don't you understand that if you were found there alone—alone with the dead man "he began, impatiently- ■ "Dead man!" she cried, falling hack a 1 step. Her pale face whitened still more; a look of horror darkened her eyes. Was . she acting, he wondered, that she might blind him to the truth? Or was that ' look of incredulous horror real? "Dead man!" she vrhispered again. "I don't understand. What do you mean?" 1 "I mean this," Annesleigh spoke rap- ; idly. "I found the door of that house unlocked, and a mad freak took mc in- ' side, never dreaming any one was there. I saw you in the room, and I feared to startle you, and was stealing away when I discovered the dead man in the hall." "Ttoe dead men!" she turned swiftly, ' and was entering the gate again, when ! be laid a compelling hand on her wrist. ' "Where are you going?" he whispered. ' "Are you mad?" She paced him, panting. ' "I must see who that—that dead man ' is!" she exclaimed. "You shall not 1 stop mc!" "You must see who he is"?" he erf>oed, I still holding her wrist, despite her en- ' deavmir to release herself. "But don't you know already?" looking keenly mii to her fa«e in the dim light. "How should I know?" she cried, irnputiently. as though utterly unaware of 1 his suspicion. "Let mc go! I will see for myself! 5, ' Her words almost convinced him. She . could not have known of that dead j man's presence — could have had no j share or part in the crime, however , black the case looked against her. G-uilt could never have acted so well; and would guilt have, wished to go back as she did? He was almost convinced. And ho wanted to be convinced. t "No; fome away!" he persisted, as \ he looked fearfully up and down the street. So far as lie could see, it was deserted. Thank lieaven for that! Her teeth were set, aud her mouth ' hard and determined; her dark eyes burned as they looked at him. "I will go back," sno. said, firmly. Without further protest ho released his hold. ,' "Then I shall go with you,' , he said, quietly. "Yet, it's too horrible: it's . not fit that you—a woman—should go alone.'" She acquiesced ta-citly. WwifiJy tiiey rotrnced their steps through the forsaken ' garden, opened tbc door, and passed through again into tohe strange echoing house of shadows. Amaesleigfh shot the heavy bolt; at least they should be .' secured irom intrusiou. l< had been madness for the woman to come back. If the police found them here with a ' murdered man ■ ' lie struck a. match. '•Even now you had better turn back,"' ,he said. "It's not. a pleasant sight. ,. She shook her head. He opened the i door of the roo?n. and she followed. lie struck another match, and by its light the woman saw the dead man. "My Heaven! ,, she rried. with wide- . staring eye?. ''It is nvy- husband!" And simultaneously Rob Anuesleigh'a lips uttered "Ames!" as for the lirst time hr. saw the dead man's face. Ames! Would to-night's horrible surprises never end? Ii was George Amos. who, with Gregory and Elliott, had sui- . cecded in ruining him. For n brea-thinp space there was a ~ tense silence, broken only by the wind moaning drearily round the house. The j woman swayed: he thought she was yoing to faint, and ho put. his arm out * quickly. Tint, with a <]ocp. sobbing brpsuth, she conquered i!ie weakness. '"My husband!" shr> whispered n^aiii, as though sJie could hardly renlisa the J grim fart that hammered,a.t thp Uoar of her brain. Her eyes took in the fact, but it was too tremendous for her mind to accept it yet. "Tho man I ' married only to-day!' , Annesleigh stood silent. What could ' he say? What, -was there to say? She seemed for tbe tirap being to have forgotten his presence. She stooped suddenly, and she whispered—the words . came strangely to Annesleigh's ears: t "Dsad man. when I fled to this haven ) of refuge from you to-night I hated j you—hated you, Heaven knows with what cause! 1 hated you, even w-liilo \ you were lying liere dead, and I did not . know it." she cried, liyßteiJfealJy, ;>.5 though the shork had driven her to {.ho . edge of madness. As she spoke, fererI ishly shn stripped Lhf wedding ring from f her finper. and, with :i wild, excited % gesture, placed the band of gold in the half-clinched, senseless hand. "Dead 4 roan.] give you back your ring! 1 don't ( hate you now; I only want to forpet ( you. and to remember that 1 am free!" Annesleigh stood watching t-he strange j scf net. Hating match after match, fear- ( ful of interfering. Hp saw that Iho girl was on thp verge of hysteria. He j must let her emotion exhaust ifc?elf. ( She rose fco her feet; then, looking at . Bob, as though M 3 exclamation on" entering had only just, penetrated her b-am, she cried, feverishly: • /You called him Ames? Yon kmw him. then?' [ "Tes; I know him. I had good cause to Know xiirn." - lei'st- naTOC Aniiesld ? h - B °k Anncsprred cxc tcdly. with a krange. bewildered look crossing her face '-You , are Bob You— who want- ; I c<l to save jnr? -, > S£ r m . anner > her words, puzzled him. 1 ~c\ 0U DOW mjr name ' tht, n?" he. said. ' '' But ' or c ™Tse, Aroes has mentioned lit to you. What of it?" J •'This—that I wanted to see Mr Annosieigh; and we meet here.'"— -wkh a , shuddering glance downward at the ; dead man. , Quickly she drew a small packet from , the bosom of her dress, and pave it to bim. He saw. wonderingly, that his , name was inscribed upon it. An insistent feeling of unreality dominated ( rum. He seemed to have wandered out from the ordinary ways of life tonight into a world where'nothing was real. c '"Don't open it till you am alone." the woman's low, singularly miisipal voice was Baying; "but what it contains is yours by right—by every right! Youll remember when you " opcrf it, that it is yours." "Hush!" The sense of unreality was gone: Annesleiph found himself "brought faoe to face with a sudden genuine condition of alarm. An ominous sound had quivered through tbe silence to his ears, sending a swift thrill of fear through him. He stood listening intently, and again \ the sound came like a whispering' mon- ' acp. Someone was stealthily trying the front door. (To be Continued on Monday.)