The Splendid Sacrifice

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 216, 1 December 1927, Page 5

The Splendid Sacrifice

By

J.B Harris-Burland.

Author of. •* The Half-Closed Ooor,- ** The Black Moon,” “ Tha Pclgate Taint '* •• The Poison League.** Ac.. &c

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS Chapters I. and 11. Mrs. sobs because Joan, her youngest daughter, enjaged to Sir Richard Pynson, is going •o marry and will soon leave her. Mary, the elder daughter, tries to console. Uter in the day Joan herself is caught sobbing by Mary. She'confides that she •annot bear Sir Richard, but declares shfl must and will marry him because <he wants luxuries and a life of ease, 'lary learns that Joan loves another, but <he does not treat this seriously. They jo to London to get Joan’s trousseau, and Mary takes her sister to a jeweller's to buy her a wedding gift. Joan sees i wonderful diamond ornament, but the price is £1,200. It is put back on the mmter. A few minutes later it is miss:ng. Customers are not allowed to !«ve, and are searched, but the ornament is not found. Joan has a way of Renting herself from the hotel, where they are staying, for hours at a time. Her sister surmises that she is meeting •he man she is in love with, nicknamed the rotter” by Mary. “I can do what 'ike,” Joan replies, when called to order, on Joan sobs her repentance, and lary forgives. Two men come to the otel where the Edens are staying. One 'them is the proprietor of the jeweller s hop and the other is a detective. The liter places the diamond ornament behre them. It was found hidden away a some of Joan’s underwear.

CHAPTER 111. The simplest and quickest of all profor theft is the one In which the prisoner pleads guilty and the man who has been robbed declines to prosecute. Mary was sentenced to a aonth’s imprisonment in the first divston. Mr. Dagon had pleaded for her. ud her youth and gentle manner had

wnefar toward mitigating her punisha«nt She spoke of the theft as an act of sadness—a sudden brainstorm. revetted almost as soon as she had got «My away from the shop with the ®weL It was admitted that the search •ad not been carried out in the way ‘•he police would have conducted it, &d there was no talk of any confederate. The very fact that the jewelre had thought it necessary to take ioes and addresses, and follow up ;;e inquiry, showed that they were lot satisfied with the result of their "archers’ efforts.

Uf. Dagon himself pleaded that rre should be as little publicity os Possible, for his own sake, and for the -«orthe prisoner’s mother, who was -a very poor state of health. coincided with a criminal * reat sensational importance, o it was perhaps a stroke of luck v a newspaper mentioned -* obscure little affair, which lasted i? n a quarter of an hour. The wL.« been a clumsy and amaf 1 8” business. It was obviously not > v ort a Professional thief, and : ,, M . er y lightness of the sentence rerobbery to a matter of no ijVy*®*** The single reporter who jranh # e c ? urt wrote a small para■tiir™. fo f his paper, but the subanv it, and for a time at JJJ 8 Mary Eden’s secret was as »i“° m th e good folk of Mirchester. of try and look on it as a kind ’ *k° u £ht Mary, when the orHoiiJ* over * And she was removed to *2 hoped that the truth •n ct h never reach the ears of ner : stpr °T> any °f her friends in Mir--#w' ‘ **ut, whatever happened, slie ■in. tJ* ®he had done the right ' s.mki ble had made Joan’s marriage u an< * seemed to her that ’hi- m ° e .°t Joan’s future depended on As to her own future, i?° back to Mirchester, and "reeif “ er mother. She had never :* v bought of marriage as a possi?.*V.? on £ as her mother was alive, vary * w °man, really ill, and needing alla J H a are . an d attention, would claim "its Rater’s time and devotion for - on*" am n °t even in love with 'tit’’’ bought Mary, “so that’s all jw ■*behfs Woul d have been different hp r « if en in love with anyone, if •rriei e f had been engaged to be T.posirtKi T hen it would have been ild h to sacr ifio® herself. It ian gf„ Ve Squired an almost inir*ngth of mind to have done

anything of the sort. As it was—well, the punishment was easily to be borne. And as for the shame of the thing—well, what shame was there if she was innocent?

It did not even hurt her that Joan had so readily acquiesced in the arrangement. Joan was weak, and during the short conversation they had had, while Mary was waiting for her case to come on, Jean had readily given in to the argument. “It is possible,” Mar:/ had said, “that Richard will hear of this. But I don’t think he’ll give you up just because your sister has made a fool of herself. He’s not that sort of man. But if Richard knew that you were a thief or the accomplice of a thief, there’d be an end of the marriage. All j'ou’ve got to do, Jackie, is to swear to me that you will marry Richard.” Joan had burst into tears, had murmured words of gratitude, had flung her arms round Mary's neck and kissed her again and again. But Joan had given in, had sworn the oath, had recognised the force of arguments. “You see,” Mary had said, “that you can lift us all up if you marry a rich man. It’s to my interest as well as yours that you are kept out of this. Now, Jackie, who is this man?” And Joan had answered: “There was no man; I took the thing myself.” “Nonsense,” Mary had said sharply; “you knew that Richard would buy you all the jewels you want.” And then Joan had explained that Sir Richard Pynson would never have purchased the ornament. Sir Richard did not care for jewellery, and had even sold the family diamonds. What Sir Richard wanted in a woman was simplicity and a quiet mode of dressing, and no flaunting of fine clothes, and splendid jewels. And Joan had added that she had stoJien the diamond ornament in order to sell it —to provide money for her ma.rriage with the man she loved.

“Well, that is all over now,” Mary had replied. “You haven’t got the money, and you must swear to me that you’ll never see this man again, and that you will marry Sir Richard.’” And Joan had sworn, and had seemed eager to get out of her troubles at so small a cost. There was certainly no reason why Mary should have felt hurt at the success of her plans. She had made the plans herself, and it would have been idiotic to have hoped for failure. And how could she possibly think hardly of Joan? She had put Joan into a position from which the girl could not have extricated herself. Who would have believed Joan if Joan had chosen to speak the truth? Who would believe that a girl about to be married to a man with twenty thousand a year would steal anything? • And Joan’s conduct had been less suspicious than her own. It was Joan who had asked to see the jewel again. Joan had laughed and jested through all that rotten search in the shop. -3 stood up to her accusers, and denied the theft. She, Mary, had been cold and white-faced and silent —the attitude of the real criminal. “The nursing home,” thought Mary, as she saw the gates of Holloway. And she laughed, and the woman who was with her looked at her with a frown It had been arranged that Mrs. Eden should be told that her elder daughter had been taken very ill, and intended to spend a month in a nursing h °"Mary has collapsed," said Joan to her mother, when she returned to the litUe house at Mirchester. “I wrote to you about it. The doctor says she wants absolute rest for a month. -he fact is, mater, she’s been overdoing it. Things can’t go on like this. Tou SfUr with7ou S ‘she L i° a n no? totalve when Mary comes You understand. "Who is to pay for the nurse?’ " The girl's harsh voice sent a flush to the cheeks of the frail woman on th " Joan" She faltered, -you—one would tflinri’d been unkind to Mary. unk . nd -YOU have not meant cannQt be and r.»r~ ££ thoughtful for think Mary the we dding. and I’m no use for anything- mother’s Joan l» oke .« do^ d gw hair. In thin, white face, Eden was still spite of in -health.* .- (h the flne srey a handsome worn art'inherited from her. eyes that in feaJoan was nim her mothers disposition. And hei V mother W strength, Ca .-We e shlll W 'fiet k on S very well,” caidj

Joan after a pause. “It is to be such a quiet affair, isn’t it? I wanted a big wedding, but Richard would not hear of it. Of course, the bishop or the dean would have married us in the cathedral. Well, it is all for the best, now Mary is ill.” “I must write to her, dear. What is her address?” Joan shook her head. “She is not allowed to receive letters,” she replied, “nor to write them. That’s usual in a rest cure, you know. One may not even read a book, or talk. It’s a kind of —a kind of living death. Now you must go to sleep, mother. I have a dozen tilings to see to.” Later on in the day Sir Richard Pynson’s big car glided up to the door of the little house, and Sir Richard sprang out of it with all the eagerness of a lover. He was a tall, broadshouldered man of forty-five, with a clean-shaven face that was more remarkable for its strength of character than for its good looks. Like so many men of his type, he had chosen, out of the hundreds of women who would only have been too glad to marry him, a frivolous, fragile butterfly of a girl, young enough to be his own daughter. “I can do the thinking for both of us,” he had once said to Joan when she had openly doubted her fitness to be his wife. ” “You’ll supply the beauty and the joy of life.” Joan met him at the open door, and when the door was closed, and they were in the darkness of the tiny hall. Sir Richard picked her up in his arms and kissed her —lifted her off her feet as he might have lifted a child. “Mother is not to be disturbed,” she laughed, when he set her down again. “Let us go out in the garden, and sit by the river.”

They left the house, walked down the long strip of turf that was bordered with great clumps and masses of herbaceous plants, passed through an archway cut in a great wall of clipped yew, and did not pause until they reached, the edge of the stream. It

was growing dark, and the western sky was a dull red, like molten iron that is rapidly cooling from white to grey. The tower of the cathedral—that wonderful building that meant so much to Mary and so little to Joan —was so dark that it was impossible to distinguish the outline of the windows or the place where it sprang from the great horizontal buk of the roof. Like a dark solid pillar it was—against the fading light in the sky. They seated themselves on a wooden bench, and Sir Richard took Joan in his arms again. “You poor little thing,” he said. “I’m soon going to take you out of all this.” Joan nestled closer to him. She was not in love, but it was pleasant to think that this man could place her beyond the claws and fangs of poverty, that he was strong and reliable, that he would fight her battles. And yet how nearly she had lost him. She shuddered as she thought of that. “You are cold,” he said. “It is cold by the water.” “It is warm in your arms, Dick,” she whispered And then she suddenly struggled to free herself. But he held her tight and her struggles ceased. She lay motionless in his arms, and the passion of his kisses did not stir her to life. “I shall never let you go,” he said in a low voice, “not until I am dead. And even then I may hold you.” Ten minutes passed, and it was so dark that the river was like a sheet of black steel. Sir Richard asked after Mary. “She has broken down,” Joan replied. “She has been overworked. I left her in London —in a nursing home.”

“But she will be at our wedding?” “No —she will still be in the nursing home. She wants a long rest. Dick, when we are married, you must let me help mother and Mary. They ought to have a servant, and I think mother ought to have a nurse.” “I’ll see to that, little girl,” he replied, and then, after a pause, ‘‘Can

you give me the address of the nursing home?” “No, Dick. Mary can’t write or receive any letters, and of course, no visitors are allowed.” “I’m going up town to-morrosv,” he persisted, “and I’d like to send her round some flowers.” “Oh, she mustn’t have flowers. The matron said so—l asked her that—particularly. You know how bad it is to have flowers in a sick room.” “Only flowers with a strong scent/’ Sir Richard replied. And then after a pause he said, “I don’t care about all this secrecy, Joan. Surely there is no need to keep Mary’s address a secret.” “Yes, there is, Dick. No one is to write to her, or call on her. She has had a nervous breakdown. I promised her I would not give the address.” Joan was well aware of the ridiculous position she had taken up—a position that could not be defended. She was only arousing Sir Richard’s suspicions. And he was a man who liked everyone to be as straightforward as himself. She knew well enough that he could not understand her refusal to give the address. As for the flowers —well, any invalid could receive a gift of scentless flowers. “Poor little girl,” said Sir Richard, after a long silence; “you’re a brave little fighter, Joan, but you’ve not had enough experience in the sort of fighting that calls for deceit and falsehood. I’m glad of that, and I’m glad that you’ve had the pluck to stand up for Mary. I know well enough”—and he lowered - his voice—“that Mary is in prison.” (To be continued.)