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

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 43, 20 February 1905, Page 6

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

By EMMA G. WELDON,

CHAPTER XLL—(Continued.) Annesleigh felt that her conduct was not to be judged by ordinary standards, Lticause the circomstanees were not ordinary. Besides—his mind always came back to that one point—she had rest ored to him the inonev of which he had been' cheated. Only a woman of boncur would have made that voluntary restitution. And her face, with its grave, sad eyes —that face could not belong to any but a good woman, he told hunself. He did not answer the implied question of her last words. "I saw your advertisement in the personal column of the 'Herald.' It was yours?*" he asked, abruptly. She flushed suddenly, and his belief was confirmed. "Only I was sorry you chose to slip away in the fog as you did." A red spot burned on each of her cheeks. ' 1 could not trespass further on the kindness of the man my—my husband had robbed!" she said, in a low voice. 'is that so hard to understand?" "But you -were not to blame for your husband's acts," he said, gently. "And you had made that astonishing restitution; you should have given mc the chance, at least, to thank you." He hesitated; then he asked: "Tell mc one thing—l have no right, perhaps, to ask it: Why did you run away from your husband the day you married him? 1 think I can guess, but I should like you to tell mc." For a moment she did not answer idm. A shadow was in her eyes—the shadow of a memory that was still painful. "Yes, I think I should like yon to know,* for my own justification. It was because, for the first time, I had discovered his real character; that he iived by cheating you and others; that in marrying mc he hoped to find a partner who would help him in his evil planis-" H-Tnilfnjion and shame struggled in the low, clear voice; her eyes were turned away from him. "When I fied I went to that old house because —because I had nowhere else to go, and I was slightly acquainted with the caretaker. I could not find her, but the door was unlocked, and I went in. I learned afterward that the caretaker had been taken to the hospital that morning. I suppose my husband followed mc. but I knew nothing of that until—until you and I stood by his dead body." A little convulsive shudder shook her; she pressed her haaids to her eyes as if to shut out the horror of that mental picture. Then she cried quickly, as a sudden thought seemed to flash across her: "But you—you believe, don't you, that his death came through no wish or knowledge of mine? Tell mc you believe that!'' "1 do believe that," Annesleigh said, gravely. ''_ was sure of it on that night. It was because I was so sure of it that 1 was sorry you left mc as you did when I wanted to help you."

There was a pause before she spoke again. "You were so kind to mc that night." she said, hesitatingly, "when, perhaps, circumstances looked blacker against mc than the wrcumstanees under which you find mc here, that I want to ask one last favour. Don't tell your friends that I—l am here under false pretences, as it were; spare mc that exposure. Let mc make some excuse for terminating my engagement; it can be nothing to you, so long as I leave this house, and I promise to go," she said, wearily. ile looked into her face. How sad it was! He never felt so sorry for her as at that moment. By what" right did he sit in judgment on her? "Miss Allan," he said. '"I don't distrust you. So far as any word of mine is concerned, you need not' leave this house. I believe you are upright; I believe that with all my heart, and in your Daw life I wish you good luck." He held out Ids h_nd to her. For an instant she did not take it. Her eyes were turned away: there were tears in them. Then her "hand toadied his. "Than!: you!" she whispered. She turned and walked away. his eyes following her. The sunlight caught her hair, and seemed to change it to flame. Just such hair—the fanev came to him—as might have crowned the princess of the old fairy tale, who fell into that magic sleep of a hundred years. A little later Enid found him hk>winc cigarette smoke over the green insect? on the rose stems. They' lingered in the garden uniil the gong summoned ahem in to lunch. As they walked slowly back to the house they saw Mrs Cartarefs companion passing along the terrace.

"Being a somewhart uneer__onious person. 1 dispensed with formalities, and have introduced myself to Miss Allan," he told Enid. As he spoke, Miss Allan, looking across the cool, elm-embowered lawn at the two figures, was asking herself: "I wonder would he still wish mc good luck if he knew the real motive that brought mc to Edgemere Towers?" CHAPTER XHI. "THE MAN WHO MET US IS* CALIFORNIA." The tall clock, with its carved brassface, that stood on the staircase of Edgemere Towers, beat out the first stroke of midnight. The stillness tbat enveloped the old mansion seemed to make the metallic clang preternaturaUy loud. Nine—ten—eleven — twelve! Once more silence was absolute. Moe-e than half an hour ago the last light had varnished from the windows. Mrs Cartaret had retired even earlier than was her custom; iv her pretty white-and-gold bedroom Enid slept, with the smile of happy dreams parting her lips. "Throughout the house thr sounds of life were hushed. If anyone was moving within Edcemere Towers at this hour, it was with

Antiior of •*" I*rv« and Diplomacy," •' Genevieve's "A Strange Bridal," "Friends and Rivals," ''Cupid's Dilemma," etc., etc.

a footfall so soft and stealthy that the silence was: unstirredSome one was moving in the house, though all its other inmates might be sleeping—the woman who called herself Esther Allan. She stood motionless, in an intent, listening attitude, on the threshold of her bedroom doorway. For a moment there may have been an expression of hesitancy on her face as she paused; but, as if suddenly summoning all her resolution, she stole softly out into the corridor, holding high in her hand the heavy brass candlestick, with its lighted wax taper. She walked quickly; her feet, sinking into the thick pile of the rugs, made no sound. But before she had gone more than a few paces she again paused irresolutely; the old look of hesitation had come back into her face, as if another feeling was warring within her against the purpose that had influenced her in seeking to become an inmate of Edgemere Towers —a purpose she had not acknowledged in her interview that day with Bob Annesleigh. "If only he had not come here! If he had not been engaged to marry her!" she mused with a little frown on her face as she halted in irresolution. "It was like fate that I should come across him here!" Then she said to herself almost fiercely, as if to silence the last scruple: "You lifc_e fool! to let the thought of a man come between you and all you've striven for, and just because he was kind to you! The only man who ever has been disinterestedly kind, after all!" she added, with a .little tinge of "bitterness hardening her mouth. No; she had succeeded so far. She was an inmate of Edgemere Towers. The first and most difficult part of her plans was accomplished, lt was too late to turn bade. She would not turn back. Yet a slight shiver ran over her. She had to fight an inexplicable, almost unconquerable, shrinking from the task she had set herself. To her excited imagination there was something appalling in the hash that lay over the great house. But with a determined effort of will she nerved herself. She reached the end of -the corridor. As she came out upon the landing at the head of the broad flight of stairs she gave a quick start, lt was only the ticking of the clock, but it shocked her tensely-strung nerves for the moment. The silence of the night intensified the slightest sound. The ticking of the clock, tho sudden creak of a stair, the very rustle of her skirt, made her heart beat faster.

""There's nothing to be alarmed at," she whispered repeatedly to herself: '■there's nothing to be alarmed at!" as though she would Teason with her fear.

Through the coloured squares of glass in the door the moonlight fell across the hall. To her excited brain the shadows in tbe corridor beyond, tbat connected the hall with the "older )»rt of the rambling old house, seemed alive. Though she knew it was only a trick of her imagination, a ceaseless 'trembling shook her as she crossed the moonlight and entered the corridor. At t_e end of it three steps led tip to the door of the gallery where the portraits of the family hung. Much of Edgemere Towers had been rebuilt or added to during successive generations; but the great gallery, once used as tbe dining hall, dated back almost to Revolutionary days. On the top step Esther Allan paused I again, her hand on the knob of the door. I Her breathing came quick and fast. It needed all her courage to push open the j door. Surely the air had suddenly beI come very cold, or why should repeated little shivers run through her as she | stood straining her ears, she knew not for what ? Her will was stronger than the i physical shrinking at last. She pushed ■ open the heavy door. The creak it gave made ber start and almost drop the candlestick, it sounded so harsh and strident, the sound falling like a stone into this vast reservoir of silence—loud enough, it seemed to her. to awake evry sleeper in the house. But she would not turn back. The purpose that had drawn her here still dominated her. "He said I had pluck that night vrz were flying from that house in New York. I wont be a coward now!" she told herself. As she passed the threshold she seemed suddenly to pass with in the gaze of innumerable staring eyes. On the walls of the gallery hung the portraits representing several generations—some in massive, tarnished, gilt frames, others let into the panelling. Their eyes all seemed bent on her in the broken light. She had the uncanny feeling that numberless other eyes which she could not see were staring at her from the dark ness. On one wall four windows ran from floor to ceiling. The moon, shining on that side of the house, fell through the windows at an angle, and threw oblique shafts of light so clear-cut against the intervening shadows that they seemed to suggest the four fingers of some grotesque, ghostly hand without a thumb, lying outstretched across the floor. Beyond the Tange of moonlight the vast hall was lost in shadow. The crossraftered ceiling was invisible, except within the narrow radius of the light of the candle Esther Allan carried. The sea of darkness seemed to be trying to j overflow and drown those quivering' fingers of ghostly light. Fighting with , the eerie feeling that held her, she went, forward. ■ As she reached the remotest shaft of moonlight she paused in front of a por-1 trait—that of a handsome man of perhaps one-and-twenty at the time when it j was painted, thirty years ago. The j moonlight caught the inscription below, black-lettered on the gold, while it left j the face in shadow: I "Gordon Cartaret." It was the portrait of the younger j brother of Mrs Cartarefs late husband.' Esther Allan stood looking intently up at the portrait, holding the candlestick above her head. For the moment she seemed to have forgotten her fears in her absorbed contemplation; then quickly they returned with a rushShe turned and started. What was that ? A faint sound had reached her ears. Was it the Windsor *<o_ ii, s-> footak&r,

— tlie echo of one solitary footstep, ! hovering so faintly on the borders of ale— cc that if her faculty of hearing had not been abnormally intensiiied, she would not have caught. Was it inside or outside the ball? She stood rigid, listening. Silence everywhere ! Had it been the rustle of a dead leaf stirring on the flagged terrace outside? Surely it was some sound that, if her nerves were not so highly strung, could easily Ik; explained a.wa3'! So she reasoned with herself, while her ears were strained to catch a repetition of the sound. Silence everywhere! How like-a footstep it had sounded! T3;ere was some eld legend of a ghostly footstep in connection with this house. It recurred to her mind now; but she whispered to herself: 'it was nothing. My imagination has played mc a trick!" as if she would force herself to believe what she wished to believe. But she was trembling violently; her hand could hardly hold the candlestick. And she wondered if she could find the courage to proceed with the purpose that had impelled her—the task that was not yet begun. "No; it was noth " She suddenly seemed to hear herself utter a loud cry—though, had she but I known it, no sound had issued from her lips. The sound had come again. A rustling footstep, then the faint rattle of the handle of the door through which she had passed at the other end of the hall. Something or some one was moving in the night! A sudden paralysis of fear held the girl. rooted where she stood. Incapable of moving a limb, she had not even the power to turn her eyes away from the place whence the sound had come—from the door which, though she could only see it indistinctly in the gloom, she knew was being opened, though she dreaded what might meet her eyes. In the paralysing fear that hdd her as if spell-bound, she was incapable of extinguishing the lighted candle she carried; she was beyond ever thinking of it;_ but in this one particular fortune was on her side. In the spasm of terror produced by the sound of the hand on the door the arm that held aloft the candlestick fell to her side. Automatically her fingers, -clinched rigidly round the brass stick, still grasped it; but the candle, fitting loosely, was jerked nodi its socket and was extinguished as it struck the floor.

The door opened, and, coming through it into the line of moonlight, into the view of Esther Allan's staring eyes, advanced a woman's figure. A faint, tinkling sound accompanied the moving form, and Esther saw the moonlight glfnt on something bright that hung from the waist of the figure that was coming toward her—nearer, nearer, every moment The truth suddenly pierced the numbing terror that filled her. It was Mrs. Cartaret!" The sudden appeaxance robbed Esther of half her terrors. For one breathless moment she had feared she hardily knew what. But to have been discovered hy Mrs. Cartaret before her task was even begun was disquieting enough. She had lost her chance. What explanation could she give? She had lost her chance: perhaps it would never recur. Mrs. Cartaret had evidently suspected her —had followed her. To-morrow she would have to leave Edgemere Towers— her chance gone of discovering the important secret that affected her own life so intimately and strangely. The paralysis that had chained her faculties and limbs had left her, but it was useless Ito hope to escape or hide. Mrs. Cartaret knew she was there—was coming straight toward her, looking straight at her, the keys on her chatelaine tinkling faintly against a metal button on her dress as she walked. Esther Allan waited without moving; she realised that she was beaten. No! Her chance was not gone yet! She could have cried aloud in the exultation of her swift discovery. Her chance was not gone! As the tall figure came within a few yards of her, Esther Allan divined the truth. Mrs. Cartaret was walking in her sleep! The wade-open eyes, the lips that moved incessantly, the occasional muttered words, too low for the listener to catch everything told the watching airi. that, though her body was acting in mechanical obedience to the promptings of her dreaming brain, Mrs. Cartaret was asleep. Esther Allan stepped back into the shadow, with every faculty alert. As Mrs. Cartaret passed her she heard her mutter: "The man who met us in California!" It was as though the fact Bob Annesleigh had referred to so lightly thtr morning—the fact of Rushmore's recalling a long-ago meeting with some Mrs. Cartaret in California—was haunting her dreams, touching some secret chord of fear. Esther Allan was listening intently. Again tbe muttered words came: "The man who met us in California! That he should remember, after more than 20 years!" (To be continued daily.)