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

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 271, 17 November 1877, Page 4

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

[By Mus. llaiuuet Lewis.] CHAPTER XLIIL 01VEA1UNG THE WAY. Lady Trevor ami Mr Pulford arrived at the theatre just after the commencement of the second act of the play. Many lorgnettes were levelled at the handsome widow, who bore the scrutiny with composure, employing her own lorgnette in a leisurely survey of the bouse. Bbc seemed happy and selfsufficient, and the general belief of her friends was that she was making a ‘ love-match’ with the very satisfied and complacent-looking Mr Pulford. At the end of the second act several gentlemen,-who had been among Lady . Trevor's suitors, made the best of their defeat, and thronged in upon her. She was very gracious to them all. She' seemed in excellent spirits, and Mr Pulford played the devoted lover to perfection. As the music struck up the group of visitors separated, several members of it withdrawing to seek their seats or make other calls. They wore replaced by others, among whom was Maldred Grafton llis months of unavailing search for Cecil Rosse bad told upon the dark and saturnine visage of Grafton. Ho looked baffled, disappointed, troubled. Ho had a trick of starting at every sound. lie was perpetually on the lookout for some' trace of the lost girl or her servant. Ho never passed a slender, girlish figure in the street, or a clumsy old woman, but that lie started with a thrill of hope that was invariably followed by a deeper and darker despair. Ho did not relax his efforts in any degree. He called at Queen’s Crescent regularly to inquire if Mrs Thomas had received news. Ho was more intimate than ever with Lord Glenham, so that if the earl had found a clew to the lost ones, ho would have been informed of it nearly as soon as bis lordship. He had visited the theatre upon this night through sheer restlessness. Like most of Lady Trevors’ acquaintances, he had heard the rumours of her matrimonial intentions, and now hastened to congratulate Mr Pulford, and to offer her"ladyship his best wishes for her future happiness. “ You do not look very happy yourself, Mr Grafton,” remarked Lady Trevor, regarding keenly bis dark, thin face. . “ You "are grown a very shadow during these past few months. Are you still mourning for Miss Rosse ?” “ I am still searching for her,” replied Mr Grafton, quietly. “ Your search is hopeless, believe mo,” said the widow, with a shade more of earnestness in her voice than she knew. “ Miss Rosse will never be found !” Grafton’s gaze became a little more keen ; something of eagerness crept into bis manner. “ Have you heard something ?” he asked. “ Iso,” replied Lady Trevor, coolly. “ How could I hear anything ? Do you think that, after breaking her engagement to me, Miss Rosse could write to mo at this late day ? I judge from the long silence of months. All Europe has been searched for her. If she were living, some trace of her must have been found before this.” “ I cannot believe that she is dead !” said Grafton. “ I will • not believe it. It is incredible that she and Grotcben could both die so suddenly and leave no trace. Had they perished by some accident, their bodies would have been found.” “’Do you know, Mr Grafton,” said Lady Trevor, in a tone too low for other oars’thau those for which her words were intended, “ I have always bad my suspicions of that cabman who took Miss Rosse and her servant from my house?” “ You think that the cabman may have murdered Miss Rosse and her servant?” asked Grafton. “I don’t know what I think. But -certainly the cabman’s silence is very .mysterious.” " ■ Sonic one addressed Lady Trevor at ■ this moment and she turned from Craf;ton, smiling and gracious. He regarded her with a lingering, furtive glance. He had known of her love for Lord Glenhara, andnt the first suspected her of having, removed Miss Rosso from London .through motives of jealousy. These ■suspicions that had been lulled for a time now.recurred to him with singular 'force. Could Lady Trevor have sent Miss Rosse away ? It did not seem possible, the more especially as the widow was now engaged to be married to Mr Pulford. “ Yet she does not love Pulford,” mused Grafton, studying her, “ and I know that she does love Glenham with all her soul. There is some mystery about this sudden engagemeet of hers, else she accepts Pulford in sheer despair of ever winning Lord Glenham.” The music ceased ; the curtain rose, and Lady Trevor's visitors departed, all except Maldred Grafton. He took possession of a chair in the shadow of one of the silken curtains, and kept up a low-voiced conversation with the widow, Mr Pulford keeping his eyes fixed on the stage mid his ours open to the words . of his companions. “ YomOnght to get married, Mr Grafton,’' said Lady Trevor, playfully. “ Celibacy is going out of fashion. There is a charming young lady in the

opposite box—Miss Mandell, you know. Why don’t you turn your thoughts in that direction, instead of mourning for a girl so greatly your inferior in rank as Miss Rosso?” “ I can’t shift my affections about from object to object with the celerity you seem to suppose,” replied Grafton. “ With me to love once is to love forever.” Lady Trevor fancied a hidden meaning in his words—a sort of implied reproach to herself —and flashed hotly under her rouge and powder. “ You forget,” she said, “that Miss Rosso loves Lord Glenham. If you should find her, she might not marry yon.” “ Wc have no right to suppose her in love with the earl, since she was not engaged to marry him. Ido not despair of finding Miss Rosse, nor of winning her to be my wife. Whatever the mystery of her fate, I shall yet solve it. There lias been foul play somewhere ; of that lam sure. And woe betide those who have been concerned in it when I discover them !” added Grafton, speaking with sudden fury, through his clenched teeth, and looking with menace and suspicion into the hard, black eyes of the willow. “ Whoever has harmed that innocent girl shall suffer a frightful retribution ! I swear it!” Lady Trevor shuddered. Grafton saw that her eyes blenched, and that, in spite of a manifest effort at self-control, a look of swift alarm sprang into them. “ Yon are tragic !” remarked Mr Pulford, quietly, turning round. “ Did no one ever suspect before that you bad a turn for melodrama, Mr Grafton ? As to Miss Rosse, whether she be found or not, can matter very little to Lady Trevor. An embroideress more or less in the world can’t matter. Suppose we pay a little attention to the stage for a change.” He resumed bis contemplation of the loading actress. Lady Trevor followed bis example, plying her lacc fan with Spanish grace. Mr Grafton assumed a meditative attitude and watched her closely. That look of alarm, the sudden blenching of her gaze, had done much to strengthen his reviving suspicions of her. “ Can, it be that Lady Trevor is at the bottom of Miss Rosse’s disappearance ?” he asked himself. “It looks as if it might be so. And yet what cause could she have had for getting her out of the way except jealousy ? Would jealousy be a sufficient reason ? Lady Trevor is engaged to marry Pulford. Could her love lor Glenham have been deep enough to impel her to a crime to win him ?” He pondered the question seriously. At the end of the third act he made his adieux and withdrew to his own seat. [to be continued. J