The Road that Let Home

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 131, 24 August 1927, Page 14

The Road that Let Home

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Elizabeth York Miller.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CHAPTERS VIII. to X.—Mrs. Clayton enjoys her new status, but keeps her husband at arm's length. One Sunday morning Raymond meets Connover and Mrs. Gerald Methune, and these two Invite themselves to lunch with the Claytons Informed by ner husband of the two guests Nora becomes excited, dresses with care in order to Impress them, but finds that both Connover and Mrs. Methune are quite weight enough for her. Later she takes Connover to her boudoir, and is once more overcome by the old glamour. She tries to hold her own, but Connover takes the wind out of her sails by telling her that, in the long ago, the curate, James Prester, interfered between them, and took a message to him, Connover. that Nora never wanted to see him again. To Nora’s incredulity he replies, “Ask him.” A little later the Vicar of Riffmoor is taken ill and dies. The Claytons go to the funeral, and Nora stays on at the Vicarage to help her sister to straighten things out. Alison intends to carve out her own future. Nora visits James Prester in his little cottage. Jim comes to the door. He invites her in and she challenges him with the statement made to her by Connover. He is silent. CHAPTER VXV (Continued) “If you open that door I’ll shoot Clayton,” he said. “I shan’t wait to be murdered.” As the glint of the steel caught her eye, Nora screamed and tried to wrench away. Hard upon her cry there followed the sound of the splitting of wood, the door to the hall crashed open, and then the sittingroom, as Raymond Clayton’s huge figure burst into the room. Behind him could be seen the pale.faqe and glittering eyes of Cora Methune. It was Mrs. Methune who cried: ‘‘Look out, Raymond! He’s got a revolver!” and Clayton dodged just in time to miss the bullet that whizzed by his head. In an instant he hurled himself on Connover and tore the smoking weapon from his hand. “You fool! —you cowardly fool!” he exclaimed, throwing Connover back into a chair where the man lay whimpering and cringing in the attitude of protecting himself from expected blows. Clayton kept one eye on him while unloading the revolver, which he put into his own pocket. There was something devastating to what remained of Nora’s self-respect in the manner in which her husband completely ignored her. Except that she was so obviously the cause of this affair, she might—as far as Clayton was concerned —not have been there at all. “It’s all right, Cora,” Clayton said to Mrs. Methune over his shoulder, this time. He’s scared out of his wits “I’m not going to hurt the little swine as it is. Now then, Connover —out with it! What have you got that doesn’t belong to you? A cheque—money? No! Then I’m afraid I’ll have to search you, but I may not be very gentle about it.” ‘‘Don’t touch me!” Connover shrieked, in a womanish voice. “ITI call the police! I —l’ll have the law on you.” He made an effort to struggle up, but Clayton kicked him back into the chair and stood over him in such a purposeful way that after few wriggling, whining attempts at further denial, he dived petulantly into his pocket and produced Nora’s 1.0.1 J. Clayton took it and looked at it thoughtfully, and tore it into fragments. “Now,” he said, “am I likely to have any further trouble with you? I just want to know, that’s all, because I happen to have in my possession a cheque for five hundred pounds made out to Mrs. Methune and signed with my name, although it was not I who signed it, nor was it Mrs. Methune who got the money. So if warrants for arrest are the order of the day, we rather break even on that score. What have you got to say, IConn^ver?” Apparenty Connover had nothing to say, although he cast a venomous glance at Cora, who cried: “Oh, Conny, how could you—how could you! Don’t you realise that Raymond could have sent you to prison for that?” Clayton turned to her with a kindly look. “Poor Cora! lie isn’t worth bothering about, but I suppose you can’t see it that way. Why should either you or I traffic with traitors?” Cora pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and sobbed, but quickly controlled herself. “It’s all right, Raymond. Leave us now. I’m not afraid of him. I know how to deal with him. You’d bettergo.” Nora, with head bowed, edged toward the door. Raymond’s complete ignoring of her fairly broke her heart. If only he would say something. He followed her, however, and they went down the stairs, she a little ahead of him, hurrying because she feared to collapse utterly. If she fainted now Raymond might think she had done it on purpose to compel his attention if not his sympathy. At the corner of St. James’s Street, Clayton caught up with his wife, took hold of her arm, and hailed a taxicab. Then he helped her in, and, after giving the driver the address of Dangerfield House, he got in beside her, all in grim silence. Nora sat there shuddering with nervousness. Even her teeth chattered. “Raymond!” she pleaded brokenly. For the first time he appeared to take notice of her. “Don’t trouble to explain,” he said. “It’s really not worth while.” “Oh, you hate me!” “I have no feeling about you whatsoever. I am only concerned with the effect of your conduct on other people. You are a poor thing. Nora.” “I’m not—l’m not! Oh, if only I could make you understand.” “I understand too well. Later on, when you’re in a less excited state, we’ll have a little talk about the future. As a matter of fact, the future has already decided itself where you and I are concerned.” His words filled her with terror. There was but one interpretation to be placed ui>on them. Raymond meant to cast her out of his life. As they entered Dangerfield House one of the footmen came forward and spoke to Clayton. “Miss Adams is in the library, sir. She asked me to let you know as soon as you came in.” “Very well. I’ll see her at once," Clayton replied. He strode off in the direction of the library without saying anything more to Nora.

CHAPTER XXVIII. Seemingly it was another man who entered the library and spoke to the girl who was waiting to see him there It -was a kind and gentle Raymond Clayton; a Clayton who needed no longer to be on his guard against the cruelty of the world because now he knew himself to be in the presence of a true friend; perhaps the only friend he really possessed, with the exception of Cora Methune, and Cora was lost to him now that she had confessed in what relation Connover stood to her “Well, Bessie, I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Clayton said. very,” the girl replied. And have you—er—untangled the puzzle of our little affair?” he asked.

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Miss Adams s pale face looked Un at him with a strange, quivering expression, and he went to her. took he hands and then bent down and kie.lT her forehead. sse<l “I think I have," she said in answee to his question. "I cabled that lawyer in Rio whose name you gave me- - sit down, my dear, and tell me all about it. The woman was very clumsy. If she is Marenna she would have known that I never married her-, that there was never anv question of such a thing. And if she isn't Mar enna ” “She isn’t,” Bessie Adams said decisively. “I got it all out of her after the answer to my cable came from Rio She’s my—she’s Marenna Spiritzo’j sister. My aunt, in fact. My mother died a few months ago and it seem* that some time before she died she married a man whose name was Ramon Catoya, a Portuguese. My aunt altered the name and date in the certificate to make it appear that the marriage had taken place years ago and that the man’s name was Raymond Clayton. The lawyer looked up Marenna’s marriage and simply cabled the facts: then I saw this Spiritzo woman and taxed her on the chance that I was right with tampering with the certificate. I also told her that I had proof of my mother’s death. She went all to pieces, then, and confessed.” 4 ‘You’re a clever girl, Bessie,” Clayton said. He looked at her wistfully. “I’m sorry, poor child. It was the folly of a thoughtless young man that brought you into this world.” Miss Adams studied the tips uf her smart little shoes. “I should have been brought into the world, anyway,” she said slowly. “That is—l suppose so. And I’m glad it was by the folly of that particular man. Otherwise I mightn't have fared so well.” “That’s kind of you, Bessie. I want to ask you something, my dear—what of the good-looking curate? Are you—have you and he ?” Miss Adams got up and smoothed down the folds of her modishly short and skimpy dress. “No, we haven’t —and we won’t,” she said, with the ghost of a smile. “Mr. Prester doesn’t care for me in that way and I wouldn’t make nearly so good a missionary’s wife as Alison Mowbray. I shall never marry. Besides—you need me, I think you need me very much just now. Are things as bad as you feared?” Clayton nodded and stared into the fire. There was a lump in his throat and he could not say what he wanted to just at that moment. The girl got up and crossed to him, taking one of his hands. Before he could stop her she had raised it to htj lips and pressed a kiss on it. “I love you so much,” she said. “Whatever happens, you must let me stay with you and share your fortunes. What are you going to do?” “Thank you, Bessie. I’m glad you want to stay with me. It’s true that I do need you very much. I haven’t thought much about what I’m going to do. The bottom’s dropped out of things here, you know.” “You could have prevented that." “I didn’t want to . . . Bessie, I think I’ll go to Brazil again. I’ve got some property out there that’s never been thoroughly gone into. There may be gold. I found it once and I may find it again.” “Then —you’ll take me along with you?” Her eyes glowed sombrely. “You’d have to rough it.” “I’d like that —And Mrs. Clayton? Could she ‘rough it’?” “Nora won’t come,” Clayton said with a harshness that the sound of her name roused. “She’ll be quite safe and comfortable. She has her settlements, you know, and won’t suffer a great deal." Bessie threw him a shy glance. “That depends on what you mean by suffering. You didn’t see her when that Spiritzo woman was telling those ridiculous lies.” Then, abruptly, Bessie Adams changed the subject. Perhaps she felt that she had over-stepped her privileges; perhaps, too, she was assailed by a temptation to benefit by the discord between Clayton and his wife. She had never pretended to like Nora, but she had done her best to be just, and Nora’s manner of speechless suffering when the strange woman presented her claim to be Raymond Clayton’s legal had touched the observant Miss Adams and started a new train of thought ;n her mind. For a while Clayton and this daughter of his —who was both more as she was less than an ordinary daughter —were absorbed in details of his business affairs. He had, indeed, been “lucky.” Everything he had possessed was gone or in process of going. He had half willed it to go, for it seemed to him that he had suffered nothing but misfortune through his wealth. Yet it had not occurred to him that he could not, u he chose, hold back the receding tide when it suited him. He had wanted to lose his money, but he had not wanted to lose more than he possessed. Now, a little too late, Clayton realised that others were involved in the debacle. Nora was provided for and the office would go on but under someone else’s control, and that might involve changes in the staff. For Dangerfield House and the servants, he felt no regrets. But he had not pr°" vided for Bessie Adams, and although he did not tell her so, he felt himseii under a moral obligation to build up another fortune if only for her sake. lie knew that wealth was waiting him over there in the new world, 1 he sought for it, as it had been before, but a nice point of conduct was involved. Nobody knew that he possessed that, as yet, unexpldited property, but it existed, and unless » prepared a fraudulent bankruptcy ioj himself —a thing not so difficult as 1 sounds —honesty demanded that h threw in his title deeds to the hug tracts of forest and mineral ‘ a ” Clayton lacked, as it happened, &b° u £20,000 to clear himself of the obligation. _. al The question cropped up sever® times during his session with Bess Adams, who was coldly indifferent the moral aspect of the case. In la she ignored it completely. It seern almost as though she failed to observ that there was such an aspect. Clayton knew that where Bessi Adams was concerned he could do possible wrong. Her mind was agely single in its devotion to him. Still, the point was there, pricxme him like a thorn. Straight ahead he saw the c • out-door life he loved, and every n tingled with joy at the prospect, wasn’t money he had ever wanted* the game of fighting for it. M to Raymond Clayton, had been only symbol, the certificate as it wer , his prowess as a fighting man. could • only express himself in t battle, just as other men of din talents expressed themselves in P tures, books and sculpture. the best men in every walk 0 , n ' Clayton liked his fighting to be “Bessie ” he said, at last-When they had gone through a yAjHes papers and examined his haul from every point—“ Bessie, it l^ n be done. I might—of course--borrv the £20,000. but it would be dimcu j You see, I haven't many frienas* (To be Continued.)