CHAPTER VIII,

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 73, 25 October 1884, Page 4

CHAPTER VIII,

A REVELATION. Sandow rose quickly, and, with a slight but kindly bow, left the arbour. Ho was hardly out of hearing when Gustav approached the young girl. "He was afraid the Hendersons would outbid him, so he wishes to make sure of you as quickly as possible," he said triumphantly. " Why did you look so frightened ? J)id you really think I should j deliver you over to this Mrs Henderson ? She really did make you such an offer to-day through me, but my brother described her only too well. I wanted to know what he thought about your going away. He was quite beyond himself about it. Bravo, my child ! You have done exceedingly well, and to make up for the scolding I gave you at first, I must acknowledge that I am very pleased with you now." Frieda was not listening to this praise. Her eyes followed Sandow, who just then disappeared into the bushes; she then turned and protested : " I cannot deceive him any longer. As long as he was so cold and hard I could do it, but now this deceit is too bad." " Throw the whole responsibility on me," replied Gustav. "I obliged you to take this position. 1 have woven the whole "intrigue," as Miss Clifford so politely calls it, I will protect you when the tim§ lor ex-

planation comes. But now wo must go forward, and havo no baokward movements. Wo must not break down when we are so near our £,oal. Remembor this, and promise me that you will hold out." Frieda's head was bent down, she did not contradict him, but she did not give him the required promise. Gustav continued in a grave voice : " Jessie, too, presses me to come to a docision, and I see she cannot understand my hesitation. She does not know the connection botweon you. She thinks you are a mere stranger to her guardian, whose love you have won, and who would accept you without opposition. But we know better, my poor child !" ho said as he took her hand, and held it in his. "We know that you have a dark hatred to fight agoinst, which has already poisoned a whole life, and grown so oae with that life that a kindly word or two will not be enough to J banish it. I strove to win your rights for you before he left Europe ; later I have striven for them again, but only to find out how deeply rooted this unfortunate idea is. You must be much more to each other even than you are before you can be sure it will not arise and separate you again. But you do not thinkthat anything but dire necessity would induce me to lay such a burden on you?" " No, lam sure not. I will obey you unreservedly, but I find it so difficult to tell falsehoods." "I do not at all," declared Gustav. "I nover knew before what a salve to conscience the Jesuit principle of doing evil that good might come could be. I lie, I may say in perfect peace, even with a certain consciousness of rectitude. But you need not follow my example. A child like you need not have attained to such heights of objective contemplation as I have. On the contrary, falsehood both ought to be and will be dillicult for you, and I am only too glad to see that such is the case." " But Jessie !" remonstrated Frieda. " May I not take her into our confidence? She is so kind, so good to me ; she has opened her arms to me like a sister, and I was quite a stranger to her." "To be rid of me !" interrupted Gustav. "It was only for that she opened her arms to you. To be rid of my wooing she would have received ' Old Nick ' himself into the house if I had brought him, so that ho released her from the unwelcome adventurer. Nothing of the sort. Jessie is quite out of the game. It Ls a particular pleasure to me to be despised by her, and I must enjoy it a little longer." " Becauso it is only sport to you," said Frieda witli a meaning look. " But she feu Hera for it." "Who? Jessie? Not she. She is angry at my wickedness, as she calls it, and I must at least give myself the pleasure of making her angry." " You are wrontr ; it makes her vei'y sad to blame you. I know how she has cried about it. ' Gustav jumped up as if ho had been electrified. "Is that true? Have you really .seen her ? She has cried ?" Frieda looked at his excited face in unmeasured astonishment. "And you are glad of it? Can you reproach her with acting on an error into which you have led her yoursolf ? Can you be so spiteful as to punish her for that ?" "Oh, the wisdom of sixteen years!" he cried breaking into a joyous laugh. " You are going to defend your friend against me. You are very wise for your years, little Frieda, but of such matters you know just nothing at all, and you have no need to. You can wait for a year or two. But tell me, when did Jessie cry ? And what did she cry for ? How do you know her tears concerned me ? Tell me quickly : you see I am dying with impatience." His face certainly did betray great excitement, and he caught at the words as they fell from the young girl's lips. Frieda did indeed seem to " know nothing of such things,' 1 for she looked exceedingly astonishod, but yielded to his impetuosity. "Jessie has lately been given me advice, and asking me how I dare to trust my future to such a heartless egotist as you. I defended you clumsily enough, for I was afraid of betraying anything, and was obliged to listen in silence while she abused you." " Well? ' said Gustav breathlessly ; "well, what more ?" "Then, while she was speaking, Jessie suddenly burst into tears and exclaimed, ' You are blind, Frieda, you are determined to be so, and I have only your welfare at heart. You do not know what pain it is to me to be obliged to so represent this man to you. What would I not give for him to stand as high in my eyes as he does in yours.' Then she hurried away, and shut herself into her own room, but I know she wept there for hours." "That is incomparable, quite heavenly news," Gustav exclaimed delightedly, " Child, you do not know how clever you have been in your observations. Come, I must give you a kiss for that," and he em braced the girl, and kissed her affectionately on both cheeks. A shadow darkened the entrance of the arbour, and Sandow stood there a witness to this scene, having returned to fetch the notebook he had forgotten. For a moment he stood there without speech or motion, then advanced, and exclaimed angrily : i " Gustav— Miss Palm !" i The young girl started back in affright, and Gustav turned pale as he released her. The catastrophe which he had so much wished to defer was now inevitable ; he saw this at a glance, and prepared to meet it. " What are you doing here ?" asked Sandow, looking at his brother with flashing eyes. "How dare you treat a young girl in that manner who is under the protection of my roof? And you, Miss Palm, how can you allow him to treat you so? Perhaps you did not object? You seem to be on very confidential terms." Frieda remained perfectly silent under three bitter reproaches. She looked at Gustav, as if she expected him to defend her. He had quite recovered himself, and turned to his brother to exculpate himself. " Listen to me ! You are mistaken, I will explain everything." "No explanation is required," interrupted Sandow. " I saw what you were doing, and you will not persuade me to disbelieve my own eyes. I always thought you were careless, but I never thought you were so lost to honour as, under the eyes of your betrothed, Jessie, to " "Frank, listen to me!" interrupted Gustav, in a voice so firm and commanding that it silenced the man in the midst of his anger. "I cannot allow such words as these to be said ; I cannot sacrifice myself to that extent, Frieda, come here. You see we must speak one. He must learn the truth." Frieda obeyed ; she came to his side, and he put his arm round her. Sandow looked completely confounded. This manner of proceeding was incomprehensible to him. He had apparently no suspicion of the truth. " Your reproaches are most unjust," con* tinued Gustav, " both to me and to Frieda, If I kissed her I had the right to do so. She has been in my charge from her earliest youth up. The poor deserted child has been ill-used by all those who should have Btood by her with love and protection. I was the only one who claimed the tights of a relation to her.

Those rights I have used, and I think I can defend them." It was surprising how doop and earnest the voice became which was usually so merry and jesting. Sandow had started back at the first words, as if with fearful expectations. All colour left his cheeks ; he became paler and paler ; with his eyes resting on Frieda, he repeated mechanically, "your rights as a relative? What — what do you mean ?" Gustsv raised the young girl's head which rested on his shoulder, and turned her face towards his brother. " If you cannot guess, read this face ; perhaps you will be able to see whose likeness it was you were seeking. I have deceived you. I was obliged to do so, for you avoided all possibility of an undemanding. I seized the opportunity and brought Frieda over with me. 1 hoped you would in time understand the feeling that revivified your half-dead heart ; I thought Home suspicion must dawn upon you that the stranger who attracted you so much must have a riyht to your love. This has been in vain ; this discovery has» como suddenly and unlooked for, but look at these features — they arc yours ! For long years you have suffered under a grievous error, and visited the mother's sin on the innocent child. Awake from it now, open your arms to your only, your ill-used child." A long, anxious pause followed these wordi. Sandow trembled, and for a moment seemed as though he would fall, but l'emained standing. His face was terribly agitatod, and his breast heaved with short, hard breathing, but he did not speak. " Come, Frieda," said Gustav in a gentler tone. " Come to your father ; you see he is waiting for you." He drew her forward, and would have led her to his brother, but the latter recovered his speech. He made a movemont as if to repulse them, and said in a hoarse, veiled voice : " Back. Your victory shall not be such an easy one. I can see through your acting." Frieda shrank away ; she tore herself from the arms of her protector, and started back to the farthest corner of the arbour. "Acting!" cried Gustav indignantly. "Frank, how can you say such a thing now ?" "And what else is it?" exclaimed Sandow. " What do you call this wretched puppet i-how you have been playing behind my back ? So for weeks I have been surrounded by lies and deception in my «\vn house. And you have drawn Jessie into it, for it would have been impossible without her content, You have all entered into a league against me. You — " he said, turning to Fiieda as if he would pour out the full vials of his wrath upon her ; but when he met the girl's eyes, the words died on his lips He was silent for some seconds, then continued with bitter scorn : " They must have made it appear very attractive to you to have a father who would leave you his money, and give you a brilliant career ! Sc that was what you stole into my house with a lio for. But what I swore when I left Europe, I mean to keep to. I have nc child, and will have none, whatever the law may say. Go back across the ocean where you came from. I will not be the victim of o plot." "That is what I was afraid of," said Gustav half aloud. " Frieda !" he said, and went towards her, "now awaken his fatherly feelings. You see he will not listen to me, but he must and will hear you. Speak— at least open your lips ! Do you not feol what depends on this minute ?" But Frieda did not speak or open her lips, which were firmly pressed together. She, too, was deadly pale, but her face had the same expression of hard defiance as her father's. "Let me alone, Uncle Gustav, 11 she replied. "I cannot entreat now, no, not ii my life depended on it. I can only assure my father that I am innocent of the decep tion he lays to my charge." The girl's slight figure suddenly rose te its full height, her dark eyes blazed, and the feelings so long suppressed broke passionately over all boundSjlike a stream that can no longer be banked in. " You need not send me away so sternly, I should have gone the moment I saw clearly that the only thing I sought for here, my father's heart, was denied me. I have never known the love of a parent. My mother was estranged from me, and of my father, I only know that he lived far away on the other Bide of the ocean, and that he had deserted me because he hated my mother. I did not come here willingly, for I neither knew nor loved you ; I only feared you. But my uncle told me that you led a lonely, embittered life, unhappy in spite of your wealth ; that you needed love, and that I alone could give it. So he obliged me to follow him, in spite of my unwillingness, and has always refused to listen when I wished to return home. Ivow, he shall keep me here no longer, and if he tried to do so 1 should escape. Keep the wealth, father, which you thought was my attraction here. It has brought no blessing to you ; that I knew long ago, and I hear it again in your words. Were you poor and deserted, I would still try to love you, but I cannot now. I am going now, this moment." The anger and defiance with which the girl regarded him were unmeasured, but in them lay proof more positive than any entreaty could bring of the daughter's likeness to the father. In the ordinary course of events the likeness between the face of the girl of sixteen and the man whose hair was already grey was not apparent at all, or only in certain features ; but now, in this moment of excitement, it was so convincing, so overpowering in its expression, that all doubt disappeared. Sandow was obliged to see it whether he liked it or not. Those were his own eyes that flashed at him, his own voice that sounded in his ears, his own firm, unbending resolution now turned against himself. Feature for feature he saw himself repeated in his daughter, The voice of blood and nature spoke out so loudly and undeniably that even the long cherished delusion of the father began to waver. Frieda turned to her uncle. " I shall be ready in an hour. Forgive me for having obeyed your teaching so ill, Uncle Gustav, and for having made all your sacrifices of no avail, but— l cannot help it." She threw herself sobbing on his breast, but only for a moment ; then tearing herself away and flying past her father, she hurried as if she were hunted through the garden into the house. When his daughter threw herself into his brother's arms, Sandow made a movement jas though he would tear her from that I refuge, but his hands dropped, and sinking on to a chair, he hid his face. Gustav, on the contrary, made no effort to detain his niece. He stood quietly there with folded arms, and watched his brother. At last he asked : — " Do you believe it now ?" Sandow rose; he tried to reply, but words failed him, and no sound came from his lips. " I thought this interview must have convinced you," continued Gustav. "You could see yourself in your child as in a mirror. Frank, if you do not believe this proof, then, indeed, all is lost." Sandow passed his hand across his brow, which was Toedewsd with cold drops of per*

spiration, and looked towards the house, into which Frieda had long ago disappeared. " Gall her back !" he said hoarsely. "That would be useless trouble; she would not come. Would you come back if you had been turned out in that way? Frieda is her father's daughter, she will not come near you again, — you will have to fetch her back yourself." (To be Continued. )