Lady Trebor's Secret, OR THE MYSTERY OF CECIL ROSSE.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 267, 3 November 1877, Page 4

Lady Trebor's Secret, OR THE MYSTERY OF CECIL ROSSE.

fßv Mus. Harriet Lewis.] CHAPTER XXXIX. AN OLO ACQUAINTANCE. Hyde Park wore its most brilliant aspect upon that bright AXav- afterHOOll. The fashionable world was

sunning itself in luxurious carriages drawn By high-stepping horses, and attended by coachmen and footmen in livery. One of the handsomest equipages displayed was that of Lady Trevor. “My !” said a poor, consumptivelooking woman who sat upon one of the benches, regarding this equipage enviously. “ That lady ought to be happy !” And Lady Trevor certainly looked happy. She was dressed handsomely, her brunette face was at its brightest. She smiled and bowed as if she Lad never known a care. No one would have dreamed that beneath her velvet bodice were hidden two simple-looking phials, the coal eats of which were deadly poison, and that she carried them with her everywhere because she dared not leave them at homo.

Mr Palford felt himself very important ; he exulted in his power over his unwilling bride; he exulted in iiis prospective wealth and position; lie ordered the servants with the air of a master ; ho bowed to his friends with the graeiousness he deemed befitting' the future owner of Lady Trevor’s immense estates.

“ Edith, rny dear,” ho said, smiliagdy, bowing to an acquaintance, lightly lifting' his hat, " you see it is as I said. Every one knows of our intended marriage. Do you notice how people regard you ? I fancy many hopes arc blighted because I have snapped up the prize for which so many wore sighing.” I hate you !” breathed Lady Trevor, in a loir, hissing voice, too low lor the ears of her footman.

“ My dear Edith,” he said, softly, “ your pretty endearments are delightful to me. I shall remember them all and will return them with interest. Remember ! My darling, don’t you see Lady Glcnham ?” Lady . Trevor bowed to the stately, grayhaired countess,' who sat alone, and Mr Pulford raised his hat.

“Did you fulfil my injunctions in regard to your shopping to-day, Edith ?” inquired Mr Pul ford, m the soft tones that grated on Lady Trevor’s ears and aroused all her animosity to him.

“ Yes,” she answered, a little sullenly, hut with an evil gleam in her hard black eyes. “I went shopping !” And unconsciously her gloved hand wont to her bosom, where the phials she had bought were safely hidden. At that moment they passed the carriage of the old Marquis of St. Leonards.

The old lord, haughty and grim, his bristling white eyebrows and moustaches giving him more than ever a leonine look, averted his gaze from his granddaughter, appearing absorbed in the contemplation of a restive horse in front of his own. The Earl of Glcnham was with him. As the widow looked up Glcnham raised his hat, and the carriages separated, proceeding in different directions. With the remembrance of that fair and haughty face, so noble, so handsome, vividly in her mind, the widow stole a look at her companion. Pulford looked sly, secret, ami ignoble. They rode on in silence, bearing their part in the great parade with smiling grace. A momentary halt of a carriage in front of them compelled them also to stand still. They were at the moment very near a wayside bench upon which two women were sitting. One of these, an English servant in the white cap and apron of a French bonne, divided her attention between two or three elegantly dressed children who played upon the grass behind her, and the long lino of vehicles with their occupants in front. The woman who sat beside the nurse was thill and gaunt, with a pale, sickly visage, upon which was an expression of sullen discontent. /( It’s hard, ain’t it,” this woman had recently been saying, discontentedly, to the nurse, who was evidently an old acquaintance, “'that some can ride in carriage and some must go afoot % I’m tired of living. I’m that tired I’d like to die ! If it wasn’t for a hope I’ve got I would have given up long ago, that I would !” “ And that hope, what is'it?”

“ That’s my business. I’m always looking for a face that yet I never see. Winter and summer I’ve come to the park and watched the carriages come and go in the hope of seeing that one face, but I’m always disappointed. Now 1 am determined to come day after day for a mouth. I may be disappointed, as I’ve always been before, but my luck may turn at last, and I may see the face I want. I should know it at a glance,” muttered Mrs Peters, more to .herself than to her interested companion. “ It’s years and years since I saw the face, bvit I’d know it. I know that I shall find it some time, and when I do I shall not know poverty again !” “ Is the face that one of your relations, Surah Peters?” asked the nurse, curiously. No, it ain’t. Do I look like a per-, spu to have relations that might ride in ilyde Park ? It’s the face of one that’d

be no friend to me, that'd rather see a | snake than to see mo,” said Mrs Peters. “ It’s the face of one that’s in my power, and I can screw money ont of it’s owner to keep me in comfort while I live. Heavens !” she ejaculated, starting and growing white,-a.id clutching the nurse by the arm, “ there it is ! there it is now /”

It was at this moment that Lady Trevor’s carnage had paused for a second near the bench. And it was at Lady Trevor’s brunette face that Sarah Peters Was staring with wild eyes and livid countenance.

“ Where ?” asked the nurse, excitedly.

“ There ! The lady, in the black bonnet with the pink roses and pink feathers! ”

That ? Is that the lady ?” cried the nurse, in amazement.

The procession moved slowly on. Sarah Peters watched breathlessly the smiling visage of the handsome widow, and crouched back upon the bench, half behind her companion, as the hard black eyes glanced carelessly in her direction. “The same ! It is the same !” she breathed, softly. “ I know that I am not mistaken. I have found her at last! Do you know her ?” cried Mrs Peters, turning upon her companion earcrly. “ Who is she ? What’s her name ?”

“ If she’s in your power likely you know her name.”

“ I don’t know it, but I’ll find out I’ll follow up the carriage if you don’t tell mo—”

“ Thou you’ll get arrested. You’re crazy, Sarah, that’s what you are. That lady is one of the richest ladies in England—” “Rich, is she?” interrupted Mrs Peters, eagerly. “ I’m glad of that. Her name ?” “ She’s the granddaughter of the

great Marquis of St. Leonards, one of the greatest noblemen in England, and one of the greatest statesmen,” said the nurse, volubly. “ I’m here in the Park every sunny day with the children, and I know most of the great people 'by sight. The lady is a widow, and her husband was a baronet; she is Lady Trevor!”

Mrs Peters repeated the name. “ The gentleman with her is the one they say she is making a love-match with,” continued the nurse. “ lie’s below her, but lor’, when people loves they don’t always stop to ask a fortune and a pedigree. It does me good to sec a great proud lady like that fall in love with a man that’s below her !”

“ A widow, eh ? Then her first husband’s dead ?” said Warah Peters, musingly. “ Head more’u a year ago. He was wild and bad, was Sir Albert Trevor. Her ladyship’s grandfather, the marquis, was against the match, and never spoke to Sir Albert nor to Lady Trevor after her marriage till she had been a year a widow,” explained the nurse, delighted to air her knowledge of the aristocracy.

After making a number of enquiries, Mrs Peters endeavoured to turn the conversation and to obliterate the impression her words had made upon the mind of her companion. Having succeeded in convincing the nurse that she had been mistaken, Mrs Peters finally arose and departed, quitting the Park.

Once outside, she hurried swiftly to the nearest chemist’s shop and asked to see a London Directory. Her request was granted, and she hastily turned over its leaves in search of the name of Lady Trevor. She found it and wrote down the address upon a scrap of paper and hurried again into the street, her sickly face flushed, her manner full of suppressed excitement.

“No more work for me!” she muttered, “My working days are over. Lady Trevor can’t refuse to give me something for my support—even if the child is dead ! I will see her this evening !”