Heart of Gold.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1928, Page 18

Heart of Gold.

By

C. M. MATHESON

Author of “NUT IN THE HUSK,” etc. etc.

CHAPTER XV. Doreen, attended by the tall young fellow, walked across the park to the gardens. She tried to shake him off, she tried to snub him, but he would neither be shaken nor snubbed. And he had the satisfaction of seeing her smile against her will. At that faint radiance on her downcast face he said:

“Now we’re getting on a bit. You and I hit it off very well. I’ll be watching out for you every day right from now. You say to yourself now and again, ‘l’ve got a friend in Malcolm Adeane.’ You aren’t afraid to have a friend or two, are you, Doreen.” She answered: “I don’t think I have any friends at all except my lady.” “Lady Edith? Ah, she’s the proper sort! You’re fond of her?” “Oh, yes, very.” “Good. So am I.” Doreen accepted this statement without comment. She was anxious to be rid of her escort. He would not have many opportunities for talking to her, and still fewer, she decided, now that she realised what he was about. But she did not know the pertinacity of this young man, nor his colossal cheek. She was certainly not prepared for his arrival in her sewing room next morning, and she jumped up in confusion when he opened the door and coolly announced he had come for a chat.

“You mustn’t, Mr. Adeane. Really you mustn’t. My lady won’t like it.” “Say, I’m glad you don’t call me sir,” he said, sitting on the edge of the table. “What are you doing?” “I’ve a lot of work to do. Oh, please do go. My lady will be so angry.” “No, she won’t. Not if she sticks to her colours, and I bet you she will. She approves of you and me. Come now, sit down again and let me talk to you. I’m homesick and lonesome.”

“Why haven’t you goue with all the others?”

“They think I have. By the time they get to the coverts they’ll be hunting high and low for Malcolm Adeane. And I’ll be here talking to you.” “But you mustn’t ” “But I am.”

“But really ” “But me no buts there’s a good girl. When I came over here to have a look at England I was told to make the most of my time. I’ve been going all out, making the most of my time ever since I came ashore from the boat way back in the spring, but I realise I never hit a high ball until I met you.” Doreen said nothing. He would not go, and she could not make him go. She sat down and took up her work. Her face burned lyith embarrassment and anxiety. The situation in which she was now involved was precisely the kind of situation she knew she should avoid—which, in truth, she was most anxious to avoid. She had just recovered from one terrible scrape, and was she now, against her will, to be dragged into more trouble? If'her ladyship were to know of this and be angry with her, and perhaps dismiss her, what could she do? She would have lost everything then. She would never get over a second disaster.

“Doreen,” said the young man, after a period of silence, “do you know how lovely you are?” She asked in a stifled voice: “Would you leave me alone if I wasn’t?”

“I don’t know. No, I’m sure not. What’s caught me is your stupendous pluck. When I look at the little bit of a thing you are and remember what you did—l’m breathless.”

She lifted her eyes and steadily regarded him. What did he mean? “When I remember what you did.” Did h< mean the murder of Conrad Murray ?

“When I think,” he continued, “how you stood up and let out in front o‘ everyone that you were the only one re sponsible and stood your trial for it well, you’ve got me beat. Everyom knows you never killed the man.”* “Everyone knows it?” she repeeated. “Sure.” ■*l don’t think everyone does know it even now.”

“Well, I know it and so do the Scot leys.”

“Some people believe I could do any bad thing,” said Doreen with the thought in her heart of Jim.

“Is that so?” he queried. “Then some people must be de.rn worse fools than I’d give them credit for. ’ Doreen bent industriously over her work. The young man watched her awhile. Then he said:

“Say, Doreen, how’d you like to get right out of England for good and all? Go abroad and live there?” “I don’t see how I could.”

“You Eflglish people,” he went on, musingly, “seem to think your scrap of an island is the whole world. If anything goes wrong then , you’re done. You’re a has-been right away, with no future, no prospects. What do you think you’ve got in front of you now?” “I don’t know.” “Have you thought about it?” “Sometimes.” “Doreen, if a decent chap asked you to be his wife and go to the other side of the world with him, would you go?” Doreen glanced up very quickly, and again at her work. Her needle flashed in and out of the soft dark material she was pleating with swift skilful fingers. She had learned the young man’s secret in that one glance, and the intelligence threw her into some confusion. But of her agitation she gave no clue. In swift sequence the thoughts fled through her mind that he referred to himself, to his own intention; he was her ladyship’s friend, one of whom she thought very highly. Either he was amusing himself or—he meant what his words implied. And if he indeed harboured the thought that she, Doreen Mallory, might become bis wife, how would she wish to reply? She thought of Jim. ■ Indeed, he was never out of her mind, though thrust into the background.’ She could not rid herself of him—of the dream Jim, not the reality. The dear man she had loved, for whom she had gone through deep waters, for whom she had suffered. But he, she had long since decided, was no more. There might be, in London, some semblance of her beloved, but, within that semblance was no tender soul—the soul of the man whom she had known and who had loved her. She made no answer to Adeane’s inquiry. She sewed more swiftly and her face burned, but she neither spoke nor lifted her head again. Then Malcolm leaned across the table, laid his hand over her work and said:

“Doreen, I asked you a question.” “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“No? Well, I said to you if a decent chap asked you to marry him and go with him abroad, would you go?”

“I don’t see how I can answer that. It would depend who the man was, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, if you liked him?” “If I liked him I might.” “And be happy? Forget all the trouble you’ve had in England?” “1 might do that.”

The young nan hesitated. He was on the very verge of making the plunge. In another moment he would cast discretion aside and tell her bluntly he wished to marry her, that he was the very young man of whom he spoke. But Doreen, taking fright, jumped up and ran out of the room so suddenly as to leave him disconcerted and at a loss. He, staring at the shut door, said to himself presently : “Sure, I’m dead keen on that young girl.” He waited, hoping she would return, but she did not come, and at last he took himself off, somewhat at a loose end and with nothing to do. ' So he had a feeling of satisfaction when, an hour later, he caught sight of Doreen crossing the park on one of those errands Lady Edith was wont to send her, and at once he hastened in her wake.

Then it occurred to h s " that he would be wiser to make a detour and come up with her further on, and take her by surprise. In order to do this he plunged inf the thicket behind the rhododendrons that bordered the drive.

He came up quite unexpectedly with Doreen. She. all unaware that anyone was following her, had left the broad walk and had also entered the thicket, through a gap in the stiff outer growth. And she had cast herself down on the warm, sun-dried earth behind the shrubs and was weeping there, bitterly and without restraint.

Young Adeane seeing her thus—prone on the ground, and hearing her sobs, was almost persuaded not to interfere: but his desire to help her and the passionate chivalry that was forcing him towards her, overcame his scruples, and he hastened forward, dropped on his knees at her side and lifted her in his arms.

(To be continued daily.)