Lady Trebor'S Secret. OF THE MYSTERY OF CECIL ROSSE.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 219, 16 May 1877, Page 4

Lady Trebor'S Secret. OF THE MYSTERY OF CECIL ROSSE.

fßr Mas. Harriet Lewis.] CHAPTER VIL lady trevor’s resolve. Lord St. Leonards presented himself at the dining-table punctually at halfpr.sfc seven, at which hour dinner was served. His distinguished appearance, his immense wealth, his lofty position in society, rendered him the lion of the occasion* His arrival at Castle Cliff was a source of great conjecture to Lady Trevor’s guests. Her ladyship’s long estrangement from her grandfather was* well known in society, and his unlooked for visit was interpreted as a sign of reconciliation between the pair. He made himself agreeable to the guests, was witty and brilliant, although offeu caustic in his speeches, but upon the return to the drawing-room pleaded fatigue and withdrew to his private apartments Lady Trevor was congratulated by her friends upon her apparent restoration to the marquis’s favour, and she replied gaily as if the matter were quite settled. Scarcely a person present but envied her. Still young, handsome, immensely rich, a widow with many suitors, she seemed now to stand in the very flow of fortune’s favours. With the marquis’s unentailed property added to that she already possessed, she would be the richest woman in England. She appeared to appreciate her good fortune, ■vras unusually gay and full of laughter, but beneath that surface-brightness boat a heart as heavy as lead, a heart torn with conflicting and terrible emotions. A sword more keen than that of Damocles seemed suspended above her ] ie:i d. A deadly terror, a sickening apprehension, held her in thrall. All the good things of life, all that she held most dear and precious, were just within her grasp or held alluringly before her eyes, yet her possession of them was menaced; a great peril yawned before her; ruin, ignominy, and a felon’s doom stared her in the face. She was at the mercy of a man who knew no pity ; she could purchase safety only by surrendering her freedom and with it all dreams of love, pride, and ambition, and becoming the wife of a man whom now she loathed and hated. Mr Pulford saw beneath her mask of gaycty the conflict going on within her. Ho smiled grimly in the covert of his sandy beard, and his pale gray eyes gleamed with prospective triumph, and he thought in his heart: “ She will yield. What else can she do ? Bhc is in my pov»er and will never dare defy me. She is a coward, and conscious guilt makes her weak. She will fume and fret, struggle a little, and then, with an ill-grace most likely, announce her submission. By Jove, I’m a lucky fellow ! I shall stop into the shoes of my late employer, shall marry Sir Albert’s widow', and share in the possession of the great fortune of the late Lady Harry Ravendale. I shall become the grandson-in-law of one of the proudest peers of England. I shall b: master of my lady’s estates, and finally proprietor of Lord St. Leonards’ ancestral domains ! I shall become the friend and companion of peers. More, 1 may become a peer myself. With all my money and influence, having married the marquis’s granddaughter, why may I not aspire to a peerage ? But for Lord Glonham, I might step into the St. Leonards’ succession. All these things will arrange themselves after my marriage, which must be urged forward with all speed. I intend to enter upon the London season at my house in town with my bride, in the character of a man of society !” Ho regarded Lady Trevor with a critical gaze, as if she were already his possession. Her brunette face could not be termed beautiful, applying the word in its highest sense. It lacked the rare nobitity, the exquisite radiance, the purity of expression that glorified the perfect features of young Cecil Rosse. It was the face of a woman of the world, handsome, sensuous, with hard, black eyes and rosy lips and flushed cheeks, with the smile of a siren, and an air of well-bred repose, and Mr Pulford’s eyes looked approvingly upon it. He could be proud of her as his wife. Her appearance would rcflcqt credit upon him and make him envied by the men whose companionship he intended to secure for himself in the new life opening before him. “ A brunette is my particular admiration,” he said to himself. “ I always thought Lady Trevor uncommonly handsome. What control she has over herself! She’s laughing now, yet I, and I alone, know that at heart she is in a mood to gnash her teeth and tear her hair. Well, fret it out, my lady. By to-morrow night I may find yon sullen enough, but I’ll warrant you’ll be docile!”

Lady Trevor avoided her suitor throughout the evening. At eleven o’clock the party separated, the members proceeding to their various rooms. Mr Pulford departed with the rest, taking up his bedroom candle from the halltable, and smilingly ascending the great stair. Lady Trevor was left alone in the grand and stately drawingroom, and she to and fro, her smiles all vanished, her eyes glittering, her month set in a hard and rigid line.

"•, I ~;.t S. ill; 1 I;ti ! j ; ,Ts;-r, in a wi.il sh-spaii*. ” What c:.n I do ‘ * ... Xu liv.l.t dawned upon Jier tlur.ii£ the !i \; half liour. She kept lip her walk, a limited look growing in her eyes, and a desperate resolve gathering strength within her heart. The butler appeared, at length, fancying that her ladyship had retired, and he started back at the lurid light in the eyes she turned towards him, at the haggard look on her features. “ I beg pardon, my lady,” ho exclaimed, “ but I fancied you gone, and I came to blow out the lights.”

“ Very well,” responded Lady Trevor. “ I was just going to my room !” She passed him with stately tread, crossed the hall, and ascended the stair to her own apartment. A fire of pine knots and cones was was blazing on the hearth of her sitting room. A couple of wax candles in silver sconces, were lighted upon the mantelpiece. The curtains were drawn, and the oriel window hidden from view. Lady Trevor flung herself in an armchair and stretched out her hands to the blaze. The night was wet and chilly, and she shivered as if the cold were that of mid-winter.

Her maid, a sallow-skinned Frenchwoman, with gliding movements and a somewhat secretive countenance, entered from the adjoining apartment. The woman had been in Lady Trevor’s employ for some years, and although she knew nothing of her mistress’s secrets, yet the two being not unlike in disposition, they were upon unusually good terms with each other, considering the great difference in station between them. Lady Trevor submitted to the ministrations of her attendant, exchanged her dinner-dross for a scarlet cashmere dressing-gown, trimmed with swan’s down, permitted her long, black hair to be brushed and simply arranged for the night, and then said : “ That will do, Cerise. I shall want nothing more. You may go to bed,” “ Madame looks ill,” said the Frenchwoman. “ Shall I not remain—” “ No, no,” said Lady Trovor, impatiently. “I want nothing more tonight. You may go.” The maid obeyed, taking her departure. Then the lady walked to her window, drew her curtains, and looked out into the wet and starless night. All was blackness, relieved only by the gleam of light from the lantern at the mast-head of the yacht in the harbour be'ow. She turned from the contemplation of that outer darkness and sat down again by the fire. “ I am in the power of this man Pulford,” she said to herself, her face growing harder, her eyes more desperate. “ I cannot sec my way out of this danger. I must try to buy him off, even if I have to pay him half 1 have. If he refuses money I must temporize. I must gain time. If he push mo to the wall, I will turn upon him like a tigress, and rend him in pieces ! One thing I swear—l will never marry him ! ” She drew her breath hard, and her features glowed with a baleful light that indicated the warring evil passions within her. “ I must secure Lord Gleuham during our stay in Scotland,” she mused. “If I can but induce him to speak some words of interest and admiration, if I can but obtain the faintest pretext, I’ll spring a trap upon him by pretending to misunderstand him, and will force him into an engagement of marriage. He has tried to reconcile my grandfather to me. I think I might have won him but for this foreign entanglement. Who is this adventuress whom he desires to marry ? I must hear the whole story, and it will go hard if my woman’s wit and woman’s wiles do not succeed in securing him to me ! It’s a great thing in my favor that both my grandfather and his mother desire him to marry me. I have a difficult double task before mo, to win a man who does not love mo, but docs love another woman, and to rid myself of Pulford, a dangerous and powerful enemy, whom I fear and loathe ! ” She sat long in the ruddy light of the flaming fire, pondering upon these problems. The pine-knots burned to ashes and the heat became slowly dissipated, yielding to dull and damp, and still she sat there, dark and desperate, with gleaming eyes staring straight into the shadows of the far corners, and wicked thoughts deepening and strengthening into a wicked and horrible resolve. The little Sevres clock on the mantelpiece chiming the hour of two aroused her at last from her reverie. She arose, pallid and shuddering, casting fearing glances over her shoulders. “ If I am forced to it,” she whispered. “ I shall defend myself at all hazards. Horace Pulford little knows with whom he has to deal.”

She undressed herself and crept into her bed in the adjoining chamber, but it was a long time before she could compose herself to sleep. Yet when Cerise entered the room at a late hour on the following morning, her mistress was slumbering as tranquilly as a little child, with no token of a guilty conscience on her placid face, or in her careless attitude. At ten o’clock Lady Trevor arose and dressed for breakfast. She descended to the dining-room. The gentlemen had breakfasted early and gone out upon a shooting expedition, the day beingfine. The ladies were lounging about

i ■ i,i;iM', perfect freedom ■>-> «v-e t;ui\ or hivrk'oi.it at any Lour ih:.. 1 rii,, - i: t in* ]>l‘.“ 1'.■ Ji i t!, b-.-ing U.O htW J j'.uly To vor hud established at Castle Olid during her reign over it. fTO BE CONTINUED.]