LOVE SET FREE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1047, 11 August 1930, Page 5

LOVE SET FREE

COPYRIGHT

By

L.G. MOBERLY

CHAPTER XI (continued).

"Unluckily they turned out to be bad, not good, I suppose you mean, I very much doubt whether they were ever really good at all. You made a tool of my father —a cats-paw. He was ignorant of business, and you used his ignorance for your own ends; you and that dreadful Mr. Holt somehow hurt his health, sapped his will, ruined his very soul.” She spoke in a white heat of Indignation, and for an instant the man before her seemed to flinch, but he recovered himself quickly. “You have been brooding over things until you have imagined horrors which had no existence in fact,” he said. "I hoped to make your father’s

Author of '’CleaosiDC Fires." “In Apple Blossom Tune.'' ‘’Threads of Life," etc.

fortune for him, and am very deeply sorry that the investments I advised did not turn out as I had hoped aud expected. As for poor Holt, you really mustn’t turn him into a monster in your mind. Poor chap! You mustn't accuse him of harming your father’s health. I’m afraid his own health leaves a lot to be desired.” “Oh, does it?” Judith’s tone expressed the indifference she felt. “I am not in the least interested in Mr. Holt, and would you let me pass, please? Mrs. Dashwmod will be surprised if she finds you preventing me from going out of the room.” “Oh, no, she won’t be surprised. She won't know anything about it. She happens to be out, my fine lady!” “Out? Mrs. Dashwood out? You

must be making a mistake. If she is out why were you admitted? “Because I am not a complete fool,” be sneered back. “The maid told me her mistress was out, but I said Mrs. Dashwood was expecting me, and 1 would wait. 1 thought I would chance finding you at home, my dear, and the trick has worked. Mrs. Dashwood is out. and from what the maid said 1 believe she won’t be back for an hour or mord. I agreed to wait that time.” Judith shrank away from him, her face growing white. The expression in his eyes frightened her, and Judith was not easily frightened. In a flash she realised that she was in this man's power. The bell was out of her reach: the drawing-room was a long way from the downstairs regions. She might shriek herself hoarse before anyone heard her—and the visitor stood between her and the door. “Nicely trapped, eh?” he said, with a malicious smile, reading in her face what was passing through her mind. “Now, my dear, the Dashwood woman won’t be here yet awhile. You and I may as well come to terms. We have a good deal to talk out. Det us talk. All these weeks since you first came to this house you have evaded me. Very silly of you! The climax had to come and you can’t evade me any longer. Now look here—no, wait—don’t begin to talk yet; let me say my say before you speak. You have accused me of all sorts of things. You talk as if I were a villain who had ruined your father. Well, he and I did a good many little deals together—and some of them” —he all at once spoke with significant emphasis—“some of them wouldn’t bear looking into too closely. Remember that. Some of them had better lie still, like sleeping dogs.” "What do you mean? Wouldn't bear looking into too closely? What are you trying to imply? You are not making accusations against my father! He was the verv soul of honour.” Horace Robertson lauglited, a coarse, amused laugh, which set alight a flame of anger in Judith's heart. “Soul of honour,” he said, with a sneer. “How dare you laugh like that?” she cried, but he merely laughed again, and, stooping forward, patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, I like to see you angry, my dear! It suits you. Some women look like spiteful cats when they’re angry. You don’t. You look like a magnificent forest creature. Anger suits you down to the ground. You know I’m wild about you. I really am—wild about you,” he spoke in amusing accents, almost as if the statement was a surprise to himself. “Goodness knows what there is about you that takes hold of a man in such an absurd way. I don’t know if it’s those grey eyes or the turn of your head, or the way you smile, but I’m wild about you; even though you have hardly a penny to bless yourself with. I mean to have you, my dear, and I am the sort of man who gets what he wants. Remember that.” “Will you let me go, please,” Judith spoke in a tone that showed the white heat of her anger. “First you insult my father’s memory, then you insult me. Let me pass, please. I don’t want to stay here talking to you any longer.” “Look here, my good girl,” the man’s tones suddenly changed and became bullying, hectoring. “Don’t stand there talking nonsense. Your father’s honour won’t bear close examination. He was not so scrupulous as all that. His deals with me were very shady deals—ver.l shady. As for insulting you, I’m doing no such thing. I’m making love to you. I’m mad about you. I haven’t been so mad about anybody for years. I’ve always been mad about you since I first saw you in your father’s studio, dressed in that primrosecoloured gown he was so fond of sticking on to you.” For an instant a lump climbed into Judith’s throat. Before her mental vision rose the studio set back upon the hillside, the open door framing a great vista of country. She saw the dear, untidy place, with its bright coloured cushions, its easel, its finished and unfinished paintings; and she saw her father standing beside his latest picture, palette in hand, his face turned toward her, as he said with a smile; “I like you in that primrose dress, little girl. It makes you look like spring, and all young beautiful things. You should always wear that sort of colour.” She choked down the sob, but her tormentor had caught the suddenly softened look on her face, and seized her hands. “Be good to me, Judith,” he pleaded, his own voice grown all at once gentle. “I tell you I love ‘you. You’ve bewitched me. I can give you every-

thing you want. I hate to see you here as a sort of servant. Marry me, and I’ll make you happy.” “Happy?” She snatched her hands away', aud flamed round on him. “You couldn't ever begin to make me happy. Haven’t I always shrunk from you, always hated you? Why must you go on pestering me? I thought my life here would be free of you, and yet even here you follow me. I can’t get away from you anyhow.” “I found you here by chance, most charming vixen,” he said with sarcasm. "There was no question of following you. It so happens that 1 met Mrs. Dashwood, at the house of a mutual friend. We found we had a good deal in common, and she asked me to call. I had no notion she had a companion at all, still less had I any idea that you were here. Such a thought never entered my head. I wondered what had become of you. Fate has delivered you into my hand. Better make up your mind to let fate decide for you.” “I am not ruled by fate. I am still the mistress of my own destiny, ’ she lifted her head proudly. “You can’t bully me into marrying you. Nothing —nothing would induce me to do such a thing. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth. Please understand that, once and for all.” She stood there like an animal at bay, erect and proud, her eyes stormy, the colour flashing into her face, her mouth set firmly. “Perhaps I don’t want to bully you into marrying me, as you so gracefully put it. It is not likely I should wish to do such a thing.” He was obviously trying to master his rising anger. “But. I may wish to persuade you to be my wife. I tell you, I’m determined to get you. You won't hold out against persuasion when I swear to you I am wild about you. No other woman has ever appealed to me as you do. I can persuade you to listen to me.” She shook her head. “How could you persuade a womaj to marry you when she doesn’t even like you?” Horace Robertson coloured darkly. Judith’s words stung. “You have forgotten,” he said, "that you father's honour is involved.” “My father’s honour involved? How? What difference can it make to my father’s honour whether or no I marry you? Such a marriage would dishonour his memory; it woukl do him no good.” “You can hit straight from the shoulder,” Robertson laughed disagreeably, “but your straight hitting is not going to help you, my dear. This is my point. Now listen carefully. I have it in my power to smirch your father’s honour, to make his memory a byword. Little transactions of which I know can be made public at any moment. Then the whole world will become aware that Lancelot Merivale, the great painter, was very little better than a common thief; that his honour is a mere byword at which the men will mock.” Judith stared at him, white-faced, wide-eyed. “Yes, I know. I am giving you a shock,” he went on, with quiet assurance. “But I am stating simple facts. And now comes the kernel of the whole matter,” he spoke more slowly, more impressively. The girl stared at him, stricken into silence. “If you will agree to marry me, never a word about your father and his shady dealings shall come out. I promise you faithfully. The whole thing shall be buried in oblivion for ever.” She gave a little moaning cry, then fell again into horror-stricken silence. “But if you revile me, if you refuse to do what I ask, if you go on treating me like the dirt under your feet, I shall stand aside and let things take their course. It is for j’ou to decide whether your father’s honour and his wonderful memory shall be dragged in the dust; or whether you will still allow the world to look upon Lancelot Merivale not only as a great artist, but as an honourable man. Marry me—and his honour is safe. Treat me as you are treating me now—and—-—” he spread out his hands expressively and said no more, but the ugly smile on his face was full of significance. “It can’t be true,” she said brokenly. “It can’t be true.” “It can be true, and it is true,” the brute in Horace Robertson all at once broke through the suave, smoothspoken man of the world. “And I don’t intend that there shall be any more playing fast and loose. I want you and I intend to have you. Give me your answer now, and let us have no more nonsense about it. Don’t you know you drive me mad?” Before the now frightened girl had realised what he intended to do, he had seized her in his arms, and was raining kisses on her face, her neck, her hair —hot, passionate kisses which seemed to sear her—when the door opened sharply and Millicent Dashwood came into the room.

CHAPTER XII. “YOU CAN GO!” “Well!” Mrs. Dashwood ejaculated. Judith had slipped from the arms that had held her like a vice, and, white, angry, breathless, faced the woman who stood in the doorway. “Well, upon my word, Miss Merivale!” The girl said no word; she was beyond speech, but as Mrs. Dashwood advanced into the room she fled out of it, not pausing till she reached her own bedroom, and locked herself in, leaving the other two confronting one another in the drawing-room. Horace Robertson took the situation into his own hands in a fashion which an onlooker might have considered masterly, if entirely wanting in rectitude, and quite devoid of truth. “I am sorry,” he said, in his smoothest accents. “I hoped I should have reduced that pretty little Deliah of yours to sanity before you came in. I am sorry you should have seen such an exhibition.” “Pretty little ” Millicent was incapable of ending the sentence, but Robertson finished it for her. "Deliah,” he said. "I dislike labelling people, but really”—he shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands—“really, your companion is—well, I don’t want to make unkind innuendoes, but I don’t profess to be a Joseph, and when a girl throws herself—well—” he skilfully left his own sentence unfinished, only spreading out his hands significantly and lifting his eyebrows. "Why are you and Miss Merivale alone here together?” Millicent questioned, with angry suspicion. “Why were you admitted at all when I was out? I don’t understand it. What on earth does it mean?” “It means—something not very creditable to your charming companion," was the answer. “But —no, wait, let me explain how I come to be here at all.” He held up his hand as she tried to speak. "Needless I

did not come expecting such a scene as I have just been through. Heaven forbid! I have had an awful time, Mrs. Dashwood; an appalling time, and 1 am only thankful you have come in to put an end to it.” “Put an end to it? But why were you here alone with Miss Merivale?” she persisted. “And you were certainly kissing her,” she added spitefully. Robertson laughed, with a clever hint of embarrassment in his laughter.

"I am afraid I was not quite proof against such an onslaught as I received,” he said. “I am only human after all, and that young lady—well, she fairly swept me off my feet.” "But why were you here?” The insistent question was asked again. “I came to see you, of course.” he said, v r ith an air of innocent surprise which might have deceived the veryelect. “Your maid admitted me in the usual way. I naturally supposed I should find you w-lien I came in here. Instead of which Miss Merivale was here alone. Thinking you w-ould be coming into the room at any moment I began to chat in an ordinary way, when—well —she all at once startled me by most wild talk, and still wilder behaviour, until finally came the climax which you saw.” He vras seething with fury against Judith. His so-called love had turned to hatred, and his petty nature clamoured for revenge. “I’ll pay her out! I’ll pay her out somehow!” was the thought in his mind, wdiile with bis lips he was saying gently: “One must make allowances. She had a Bohemian upbringing, a very Bohemian upbringing,” and he wagged his head solemnly, and sighed: “I knew her father slightly—and really her upbringing must be reckoned accountable for a great deal.” “I don’t intend to have any Bohemian ways here,” Millicent said sharply. The bare thought that another woman in her house might be more attractive than hersblf to a man, or even as attractive as herself, was one she could not for a moment tolerate. Bohemianism in itself troubled her not a jot; but rivalry of any description was unthinkable, and must be put an end to as quickly as possible. “Dear lady,” (Robertson belonged to the breed of men which makes use of this most objectionable expression) “dear lady, you must not worry yourself over this—little episode. Miss Merrivale—how shall I put it in the least odious way—Miss Merivale lost her head, shall we say? I had met her once or twice before, but only knew her slightly. I knew her father. He—ah, w-ell —we make allowance for artists ‘De mortius’—but some of his business transactions —” a shrug implied what he did not say. “Merrivale’s daughter has the artistic temperament. That accounts for so much, excuses so much. You must forget the little exhibition you saw; just a moment’s excitement, loss of self-control. Perhaps

she is rather what we men should call 'hot stuff,’ and well —she lost her head.” Even to Millicent, self-centred as she was, and devoid of much sense either of observation or humour, there came a dim realisation that the descrip tion did not quite fit the grey-eyed girl, firm of mouth and quiet of manner, to whose presence she had grown accustomed; but she was in the mood to accept Robertson's statements as facts; and it came home to her sharply that in whatever way the late episode was regarded by her, Judith Merivale might be dangerously attractive, far too much so to be retained as companion! She swallowed Robertson’s innuendoes with avidity, thanked her stars that Dr. Davidson was abroad; reflected with the mean malice of a small nature that, in consequence, Judith had no friends to whom to turn, and proceeded to act upon all these reflections and with the least possible delay. As soon as Robertson left, which he did not do until he had flattered her into believing herself to be the most charming and astute woman of his acquaintance, she went upstairs to Judith’s room and knocked imperiously at the door. Judith opened it almost immediately, standing very stiff and white, facing her employer silently. Smouldering anger was in her eyes, her lips were very firmly closed. Millicent entered. Shutting the door behind her, she began at once in rather high-pitched tones: “I have come to ask you for some explanation of the extraordinary scene to which you treated me in my own drawing room,” her grandiloquent language soon lapsed into something less lofty, and she went on; “What cn earth did you mean by behaving like a kitchen-maid —throwing yourself at my visitor’s head? Did you take leave of your senses? Are you stark, staring mad?” “Was that the explanation given you by Mr. Robertson? Did he say I had thrown myself at his head?” Scorn blazed in Judith’s eyes. “Did he try to make you believe I wanted his horrible kisses?” “Never mind what Mr. Robertson explained. He was most kind in making allowances ” “Making allowances! ” Judith laughed. “Allowances for what? For grossly insulting a woman who was entirely in his power?”

“He made allowances for your outrageous behaviour, and look here, Miss Merivale, I may have given you a good deal of rope, and I was a fool to do it. I see that now, but I’m not going to have you flniging yourself at my visitors; do understand that at once. I am not going to stand anything Qt the sort in my house. Delilah ne called you, and quite rightly.” With every word she spoke the innate vulgarity of the woman came more blatantly to the surface, and the sensitive soul that was part of Judttli Merivale shrank before that vulgar blatancy. “I ” she began, but she was not allowed to say more than the one monosyllable. “You will go, of course,” Millicent sneered, all her veneer of polished manners torn away to show the native coarseness below. “I have no use for common flirts here. If you wish to throw yourself at people's heads you must do it somewhere else. A disgusting exhibition I call it! You might be a kitchen-maid. If you want to hunt a husband down, you must do your hunting elsewl ere. You can’t use my house as. your happy hunting ground,” she laughed shrilly. “You will go. Good gracious alive, things have come to a pretty pass for such things to happen in my drawingroom ! ” Judith looked at the enraged woman as one might look at an ugly, shrieking bird of prey. Controlling her anger with a stupendous effort she answered quietly. "There is no question about my going. I shall go immediately—without any delay.” “The sooner the better.” Millicent’s temper —the temper which had made Francis Dashwood’s married life one long misery—was now in full blast, and her primitive coarseness of fibre was laid bare to the startled girl before her. Judith shivered as the storm of words fell about her, shivered, anu felt physically sick. She had never before come in contact with a nature such as this; and it repelled and horrified her. But her self-control held firm. She stood there silently, allowing the storm to hurtle round her; making no reply to Millicent's

accusations and invectives; upheld in some strange way by the memory I the man with the serene eyes and unforgettable voice, the man who had saved her from the fire. His face seemed to look at her, his voice was in her ears. She drew courage from both. “God, keep me quiet as he was quiet,” was her inward prayer, and she remained unflinchingly still, until her assailant was worn out by her own outburst of ungoverned rage. “You will go,” Millicent repeated finally, in a voice grown more shrill. “I shan’t give you a reference. You needn’t trouble to ask me for any character.” “I should not care to have a reference from you,” Judith answered gravely. “Oh, you wouldn’t care to have a reference?” the other almost shrieked. “You are going to be insolent now, are you? You can go at once.” “Yes, at once,” Judith repeated. “As soon as you are good enough to leave my room I will pack; I shallfbe out of your house in half an hour.” Millicent banged out of the room like an intoxicated whirlwind, and for a minute after the door had clanged behind her Judith sat in the armchair, shaking all over, and very white, incapable for a moment of doing anything. Then, pulling herself together, she packed with incredible speed, intent only upon leaving the place with the least possible delay whilst all the time her mind was filled with the disturbing question of where she was to go? The payment of some outstanding debts left by her father had made her very short cf money, and, as she knew to her cost, expenses in London lodgings soon mounted up. Dr. Davidson was abroad. She had no other friends in town. There was Derek Staneslev. He had told her to let him know if she was in a difficulty. But —the colour mounted to her face as she thought of him. and of the expression in his eyes when he had given her his card.

(To be continued tomorrow.)