Painted Butterflies

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 993, 9 June 1930, Page 5

Painted Butterflies

Published by Special Arrangement

p!U

Mrs PATRICK MacG LL

Author ol ' Dancer, in «he Dark. The Ukelele Girl. - ' The FUme ol Liie '«• •**

CHAPTER XXIV. — (Continued) “No, 1 will not produce the 1.0. U. except in open court, and I shall telephone to the police immediately, to tell them that I have found out who fired those shots at my uncle,” she flashed, with all the vindictiveness of her tortured being. Jennifer cast an uneasy look in Carlos Mayhew’s direction; so did Frank. This was an unexpected development—unexpected, that was, on their part. Carlos Mayhew was evidently quite prepared for it. “There will be something else to produce in court, Miss Creighton, besides the 1.0. U. that you possess,” he informed her suavely. He fumbled in his attache case and produced a bundle of letters, carefully tied with a piece of red tape. The flaming colour died in Adela Creighton’s cheeks. She recognised the writing on the top envelope as being that of her uncle. “This is a fair sample of the rest,” said Carlos Mayhew, taking three closely written sheets from the thick cream envelope. His mouth hardened to the merest line as he read, in a low, savagely angry tone: “My angel, there is no need for you to consider yourself so desperately wicked because you claim release for a spell from the monotony and eventlessness of existence. Morality, as I have so often tried to impress upon you. is merely a matter ol' geography. What

is vice in one hemisphere is the usual thing in another, and even my own niece—you often see the picture of the Hon. Adela Creighton in the newspapers, I expect—for years, ever since she left finishing school, has—” “Oh, don’t —don’t —not any more.” Adela Creighton lifted eyes to the face of the merciless man sitting in judgment upon her —the eyes of a wounded, suffering, horribly suffering animal. “There is no reason why you should be spared anything, Miss Creighton. You had not the excuse of my poor little girl —a starved craving for the pleasures that her husband could not afford to give her. You had every pleasure, every resource that wealth could lavish upon you. But you can read the rest for yourself, and if you still feel inclined to ring up the police, do so. There are eight of the letters here, each one giving an account of your most intimate doings, presumably with the idea of overcoming my wife’s scruples.” A single glance at the first letter was enough. Without a word, swaying slightly as she walked, Adela Creighton went to a safe, concealed in her library wall, and brought out the slip of paper which had cost her pain and humiliation that never again was she the same. Still speechless, she placed it in Carlos Mayhew's hand, and in return he gave her the bundle of letters that her uncle had so unwisely written to his dead wife. “A fair exchange.” was his grim observation, as he placed the 1.0. U.. along with the uucashed cheque, in

his pocket-book, to be given later to Jennifer. “It scarcely seems true, even now. you little darling, but it isn’t all dream, sweetheart, is it?—it Is? ” Frank Yardley punctuated his sentence with kisses, and his voice was the glad, gay, care-free voice of the days before Adela Creighton had conn into his life. The wedding was a quiet little i affair in the village where Oversley ; was the largest and most important house in the place. They had allowed three months for the scandal of Adela Creighton's much advertised wedding to die dow n. The gossip had not been of the character that the wretched girl had feared, for the whole story was so carefully ! hushed up that it never leaked out ! and Frank had tacitly insinuated. [ yvithout stating as a fact, that at the ! last moment they had quarrelled, and j found themselves mutually unwilling I to marry. Only Frank's parents, Mrs. Come, ‘Carlos Mayhew and Faith, were pre ' ent at the simple little ceremony. “God bless you for ever and ever. Jennifer,” were the sick man s final words as Frank and the girl he loved got into the car which was to take them on their motoring honeymoon. “We'll never have any secrets from each other, will we dear?” whispered Frank, as he held his wife, close, closer yet, in the privacy of the closed car. “Never, in all our lives,” promised Jennifer, with a long, sweet, solemn glance from her beautiful eyes. In that never-to-be-repeated or for gotten moment, the young face seemed irradiated from an inner life of com munion with Beauty and Knowledge !—a pitying knowledge of what was base and mean in humanity, and a triumphant recognition of the fact | that, though it be dragged through j the deepest mire. Love. Truth and I Beauty that is both, must for ever | endure. THE END.