Stronger Passion

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 21

Stronger Passion

By

Rowan Glen.

Author of " The Great Anvil," The Beat Gift of All." For Love or for Gold." &c . &c

CHAPTER Xll.—Continued. A SETBACK. “Right? What nonsense: Of course, he's not right. He almost pressed 'me to say that I had my knife into him because he’d been the judge at my trial. I think I got irritated, but if I did, the irritation did no harm. You 11 be able to go up to see him presently, and if he persists in all that rot he’s been talking to me, you must use the heavy hand for once, and make him understand th.at he’s being particularly foolish.’’ She came near to him,"looked at him, then looked down, “You seem always to be helping us, ’ she said. “It makes me feel dreadfully mean, somehow.’’ “Mean? Now you’re being almost as ridiculous as he was. Surely it’s all simply enough explained? I happen to be a doctor-man, and, because the servants thought that this attack might be serious, they passed on the word to Rollingward. I’ve come here and I’ve found that things aren’t serious. That’s all. I’ve done nothing worth any thanks.” He held the door open, then—watching her—half-closed it. “Elaine,” he said. “One moment! This may be the wrong time to say it, but I do want to say that what I told you before Rollingward the other night was true. Lord knows I’m not good enough for you, but just the same you’re my mate. I feel so utterly convinced of that that I feel, too, as though there must be hope for me. If you and I didn’t marry each other, then, whether we married other persons or not, our lives would be incomplete.” He fancied that she winced, but she had no comfort to give him. “You’ve no right to speak to me so —now,” she rebuked him. “I’ve promised Maurice, and — “But you promised me first. I’m doing nothing underhand in speaking as I’m doing. I warned him exactly as, earlier, he warned me. What is it, my dear, that has come between us?” 1"You know, Blair! I thought I’d love you always, but there can be no love where there isn’t complete trust, and my trust in you was cut away as though it had been a living thing.”

“So you still stick to that? Don’t you believe me when I tell you that I love you—that I worship you?” “No,” she answered in a whisper. “How can I be sure about anything now? Looking back, I've a wretched feeling that you haven’t been in earnest about me. If I’d thought that you’d been playing with me, I’d never want to see you again—nor to speak to you again.” “I tell you,” he insisted, and there was a new vigour in his tone that seemed to surprise her; almost to alarm her, “that I love you! You belong to me by right of that love. I can’t force you to marry me, but—” She sighed. “There,” she said, her voice weary, “you are wrong again. We both know that you saved my life and so, in that sense, it does belong to you.” “You told me that before, Elaine, and I gave you my answer. Oh, well—well, I shan’t wait now, but things have got to swing right for me. I won’t believe that you can make and unmake the love in your heart.” ' He went from her, and, alone in the smokeroom of his big house that night, he knew an agony of mind as keen as any that had ever tortured him before; an agony springing from a cause which he had never visualised as being possible in his case. He did not meet Elaine again till the afternoon of a day toward the end of that week. The meeting was a chance one and so soon as he saw her, he knew that a second and more drastic change had taken place in her. He had been fishing in a hill burn and, in order to. escape a heavy rainstorm, went toward the shelter of a half-ruined sheiling, crouching at the base of a small crag. Having pushed aside the looselyswinging door, he started when he saw Elaine standing in the centre of the tiny building and under a portion of the roof that was still watertight. She looked ill and greatly unhappy. “Hello!” Macßae started. “I didn’t expect to have this luck, Elaine. What on earth are you doing here?” “T was with father,” she answered dully. “He was going fishing pretty far up though, and because the sky was dark, and because I didn’t bring a cloak with me, I thought I’d wait near this hut. I saw you coming, Blair. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry.” Stepping nearer, he scrutinised her closely. “Why! What’s the matter?” he asked, and his whole being seemed to quiver in pain as he watched the stricken expression in her eyes. “The matter,” she said, “is that father knows that you hate him, and guesses that you've, done that eyer since he sent you to prison.” Macßae pulled in an underlip. “Do you believe that?” be asked. She looked deeply into his eyes. “*l do,” she answered. “‘l’d a long talk with father and he told me all about your trial, and admitted that he had perhaps made a mistake in addressing the jury as he did. He thought no more about it afterwards, but remembered when he met you up here. He went over everything with me, and I believe that he was right in what he said.” "What did he say?” “Oh! I’ve told you, Blair. He said that you hated him —and with a terribly bitter hatred. He put two and two together and in one horribly clear flash I saw what he saw—that you’d made love to me, not because there was any love of me in your heart, but because there was hate in it, for him. I don’t know how you thought you were going to do it, but you meant to hurt him through me. It’s no use saying anything. I can see that it’s true. I’ve been right in only one thing about you—in saying that

my trust in you had gone. I won't j believe another word that you tell ; me—never so long as I live.” His hands shaking, he caught at her shoulders and swung her round till the light fell on her face. “Elaine!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “What if it is true? What then? You’ve heard my story, surely you can understand. But I’ll say this — and you must believe it. No matter how I think of your father—or, rather, how I thought of him—l love you! You mean everything in the world to me. Love is stronger than hate. Of all the passions that can shake a man or a woman it’s the strongest.” She made no attempt to answer him. She was staring past him, and suddenly the pupils of her eyes dilated. Then the lids half-closed. “‘Please let me go,” she said faintly. “He’s—watching us!” Macßae swung round. In the doorway of the hut Sir Charles Hart stood. Rain was streaming down his thin waterproof cape and dripping on to his fishingboots. His eyes were grim and the lines of cynicism about his mouth were deeply marked. Slowly, he came forward and, not looking at her, put an arm about Elaine’s slim shoulders. Then, very deliberately, he put out his other hand and pushed Macßae aside. “I heard what my daughter said to you, Macßae,” the judge started. “She asked you to let her go. Also, she said that I was watching you. I was! I shouldn’t have pushed you back like that. It was done on impulse. You must please forgive me.” Every nerve in his body throbbing painfully, Macßae bowed. “I understand, Sir Charles,” he said. “I’m sorry, though, that you came in when you did. I’ll admit that. I was trying to reason with Elaine —to convince her that, despite all your suspicions of hers, I was honest when I said that I loved her.” Hart turned to his daughter. “You hear?” he asked. “What have you to say, Elaine?” She seemed overwrought and it was a moment or two before she was able to speak. “I told him.all about what you and I said to each other last night, father,” she managed. “I told him, too, that I couldn’t trust him—that trust had gone after that convict told me that he —Blair here, I mean—had been a convict, too. I told him that you’d come to believe—that he’d made love to me so that, somehow or other, he might hit at you.” The judge nodded, and, while he nodded, glanced at Macßae. “You still believe that, Elaine?” he asked. “Yes.” “So do I!” He took his tweed hat off, and swung it to and fro, sending drops of the water spinning from it. “Suppose we have the truth from your own lips, Macßae?” he suggested. “You say that you love my daughter?” “I do.”

“Well, then, will you swear by that love that you have had no bitter thoughts toward me? Will you swear, too, that when you first said lover-like things to this girl of mine, you did so because you loved, and not because you hated? That’s what I want to get clear. Almost from the beginning you took every opportunity of being alone with Elaine. Dicl you do that because you cared for her, or because ” He .was interrupted there. “One moment. Sir Charles,” MacRae said. “I‘m quite willing to discuss things with you, but I’d prefer to do that when Elaine’s not with us. I protest now against some of the things she’s said. I’ve told her that I believe her to be my mate, as I believe myself to be hers. That isn’t conceit. It’s some unexplainable inner knowledge that dazes me. I’m not going to speak about her or my feelings toward her while w r e three are together. Either I talk things out with Elaine—or with you.” Sir Charles moved his shoulders and turned to the girl. “My dear,” he said, “I think that perhaps you should leave us. Go slowly down toward the road, and, if I don’t overtake you, go home.” She hesitated, glancing from him to Macßae. The latter smiled forcedly.

“You needn’t be afraid, Elaine,” he said. "No harm will come to your father while he’s with me now. But when you're alone, and have had time to think things over, then, for God’s sake, try to believe that what I said to you before he appeared was said honestly.” She made no answer to that, but, head lowered, went from the hut. When she had gone, the men faced each other. For nearly half a minute the silence was unbroken. “My daughter is so straight-forward and so averse from lies that I feel safe to say that she’s told you exactly what passed between her and me,” the judge said. “I’ve got it into my head, Macßae, that you hate me, and want to injure me. She believes that, too. We might as well get things straightened out.” Weak for once, Macßae said something which, later, he regretted. “Elaine promised to marry me. She wants to break that promise because she discovered that I’d kept certain secrets from her. You were right about that —I mean in saying that if she learned that I’d been a convict, she’d alter her mind about marrying me. But twice she’s said that she’ll be my wife if I claim her life —because I happened to save it." “That,” said Hart, “is what you will do, I suppose?” “No!” “No?” “You needn’t sneer, Sir Charles. I’d take Elaine at her word and marry her, if the damnable thing hadn’t happened, and I’d fallen in love with her.” The other put on his hat and seemed to be about to move away. “Please don't get sentimental, MacRae,” he said. “I could forgive almost anything from you but that. We’ve got very near to the marrow of

things, you and I. but you haven’t answered my question yet. I want to know if I’m right in my belief that you’ve wanted to hurt me because I sent you to prison ” .Little demons seemed to be hammering at the Scotsman’s brain. “Have the truth then!” he exclaimed. “I believed, as I always must believe, that you were grossly unfair to me at my trial. All through it you were antagonistic when you should have been impartial. Your summing-up was less like a summingup than a prosecuting counsel’s final speech. It’s been proved since that l was innocent and, though this of course will never be made public, that same fact has proved that you w r ere biased against me.

“I’ll go a step further. I’ll admit that all the time I was in prison I hoped to get things even with you. That's done with." “Is it?”

“Can’t 3 r ou see that it must be when 1 love your daughter? If I’ve any reason to be up against you now, it’ll be because you’re trying to keep her and me apart.'* “Come, Macßae! Be reasonable! Is it I who is keeping you and Elaine apart? Need I remind you that she has promised to marry Maurice Rollingward?” “To please you!” Macßae pronounced. “Oh, I know it, Sir Charles! You’ve gat political ambitions, and Rollingward’s father ban make those ambitions come true.” “Why, damn you ” the judge was starting when Macßae said: “And damn you!” At the doorway of the hut calm came to him suddenly. He touched the older man’s * shoulder “Let me take that back,” he said. “You don’t know what I’m suffering. Can’t I convince you that I’ve known a change of heart, as the saying goes? I told Elaine that as between hate

and love, love was the stronger passion. I know now that that’s true.” Hart paused to tuck his fishing rod more securely under his arm. “We’re going to walk down to the road together,” he remarked, ‘‘so let us walk with at least outward amiability. That means that we must say nothing more about my daughter. I’m to be at The Lodge for a few weeks still, Macßae, and I presume that you’re going to stay on at Arnavrach. We’ll be meeting, of course, but, frankly, I hope our meetings will be as infrequent as possible.” “And Elaine?” “Elaine is going to marry the man whom I want her to marry.'’ “Not if I can stop that,” said MacRae. “All right, then, I’ll fall in with your mood. Let’s talk about trout or grouse—about anything except the things that really matter.” They parted near to The Lodge, and Macllae, his brain in a tumult, walked slowly on toward the spot where he had left his boat. Unseen bj r them, he noticed Rollingward and Lilian Manton walking together, with raincoats flung over their

shoulders. They were laughing and apparently joking, as they walked. Macßae frowned puzzledly as lie watched them. “Queer!” he said to himself. “Very queer.” CHAPTER XIII. —THE SEARCH FOR ELAINE. It seemed to Macßae that the spirit of misery kept by his side, and would not be chased away. While he swam in the loch; while he fished there; while he walked over the moorlands, or up the mountain side; while he played golf at Doclirine, or while he mingled with certain enthusiastic tourists, gloom shadowed his every thought and his every action. He spent much of his time with Pringle, and always he visioned the drab life that would lie ahead of him if and when Elaine Hart and he said a final good-bye. One afternoon, while finishing a long, lonely tramp, he saw Lilian and Rollingward, and Miss Fair weather, while they picnicked by the

roadside some few miles to the south of Dochrine. Unseen by them, he waited while Miss Fairweather picked up the tea ! basket, and w hile Lilian and Rolling- ' ward strolled off together toward a hazel wood, their heads near to each other, and their manner that of two ! persons greatly intrigued by their . talk. (To be Continued on Monday) :