CHAPTER XXIII.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 93, 14 March 1885, Page 4

CHAPTER XXIII.

A BRIDELESS BENEDICT. "The time I've lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing, The light that lies In woman's eyes Has been my heart's undoing."— Moore Dead silence. For fully half a minute the rain beating fiercely in at the open door was the only sound. Over Colonel ▼ernell stole a tremour of sickening apprehension. What had occurred ? Had all his labour been in vain ? No, no, that could not be ! Vella was Claflin's wife as safe and sure a8 parson, and book, and ring, and license could make her. But Jonas possessed no ! stronger sense of practical humour than he himself. Moßt emphatically he was in earnest now. "Get to bed 1" thundered the master of the mansion, including every domestic present in a comprehensive scowl. " And stay there ! do you hear me ? or, by the Lord Harry, you'll get your walking; -papers to-morrow, the whole pack of you !" The reprimand was effective. In an instant the footman had closed the door and vanished— the stairs were cleared. On the topmost step Miss Dorothy sat down weakly, holding on to the banisters, and in the splendid hall below the two men faced each other in a silence born of excitement. Jt was broken by the ooionel. "What's up?" Claflin snatched off his hat, from which the rain trickled down his neck, a veritable water-spout, and dashed it on the floor. "Up ? The game's up. Your part of it. Come, where kaye you got her hidden ? Out with it !" " Who— what ?" gasped Vernell. "None of that, I say!" wrathfully. "You thought a marriage would seal my mouth for the time being— that after you could spirit her away— that then pride and dread of ridicule would silence me. That was your little scheme, wasn't it? But I tell you I won't " "My dear Claflin, I " " be fooled — won't be silenced ? I'll publish it first. I'll make the country ring with the story. I'll stand the grins of fools and the sneers of knaves. I won't be swindled out of what's mine— mine, I tell — " *' But listen a moment," pleaded Vernell, despairingly. " I won't listen ! Don't talk to mo. Excuse is setf-accusation. And I will have her — I will, if I've got to move creation — if heaven and earth have got to ohange places. She's mine, as much mine as my own house, and my dogs and my horses. She—-" And here he choked so with rage not a word could he utter. He had broken off abrubtly while speaking in a shrill, rising voice. Vernell took a match from a bracket near, walked into the drawing-room, lit the gas, returned, and pushed Claflin into the room. "Now," dryly, "come to your senses. Don't be an idiot, man. Your ranting won't do you any good. Talk sense. I don't at all comprehend what you're driving at. I haven't laid eyes on your wife since she left this house on your arm last evening." Claflin was loosening his collar. His face was positively purple from the paroxysm of fury into which he had worked himself. Now he took a step forward, lifted his ferrety eyes to Vernell, looked him through and through. " Are you lying ?" In curious contrast to his companion the colonel was white as paper. His close-set, cunning eyes snapped and scintillated with intense nervousness. " Upon my soul, no !" "Haven't you been cognisant of her actions "? "No."

" Not even had suspicions ?" "No-no!" " Will you take your oath you don't know where she is at this moment ?" " Fifty I" dosparately. " I know nothing about her, 1 toll you, nothing—nothing I" Claflin deposited himself and his soaking garments on a frail structure of bamboo wood and pale blue satin. " Then," with a groan, " she has run away from me." " Couldn't there have been some error?" suggested the colonel. "Where did you miss her first ? Could not she hare aocideitally missed the train— stepped off, while you were otherwise occupied at some station —perhaps anticipating a delay. Tell me all about it !" Mr Claflin sprang up with more energy than grace, and began pacing the room rapidly. Despite all the fear and anxioty this new and undreamed-of complication engendered, Vernell smiled at eight of the abbreviated and pudgy figure to whioh the water-soaked bridal suit of fine-textured glossiness adapted itself \> ith unlovely adhesion and clung with painful attachment ; the light displaced cravat, the face which had lost its usualsmile of egotistical satiaiaction, the rich black hair pushed back, scalp and all, and very much awry at that. " I know better than that !" still tramping furiously up and down. "There was no mistake. It was a forced marriage all through. She never liked me oven when she consented to marry mo. No one knows that better than you do. You ran her into it for fear I would betray you about the money — " Vernell leaped toward him with uplifted hand. " For Heaven's sake, hush !" Claflin's little inflamed eyes blinked round the room. " I'll be hanged if I will ! There's no one here — not a soul to be made the wiser." As grew his savage anger at being duped, deceived, made a butt and target of for jibes, and jokes, and derision, increased his desire to vent his irritability somewhere, on some one, strengthened that instinct deplorable, despicable, barbaric, but intensely human, the hunger for retalia tion. " As I was saying," he went on, doggedly. And now Vernell with another groan listened, knowing it was vain to try and check him. " You were afraid I would betray you — let the world know of the wealth out of which you swindled those children. It was a bad journey for you— that trip of mine to Australia. Will Vernell was a millionaire •—died one. At the time how much wore you worth ? Where now are those properties he left ?'' plumping down his two hundrod and fifty pounds on the Turkish divan, " and how many hundreds of thousands are in your name today ?" Again his voice had risen to a dangerous koy, his unpleasantly rasping, aggressive voice. Vernoll cams up to him— stood behind him. " Look here !" quietly, but one could have seen how hia lips twitched, hie eyes glinted. " You'vo been drinking !" "Drinking!" frankly, "to be sure I have ! Ever since sho gave me the slip. It was the only way I could keep my courage up. Of course I've been drinking, but I'm not drunk — not by a good long sight ! It sots my tongue wagging a littlo more than usual perhaps, but I know what I'm saying — every word of it ! And it's all true— you owned up — you couldn't help yourself !" exultantly. " You " "Yes, yes. Now you've said enough about it. Drop the subject. You wanted the girl as" — lowering his voice— "the price of your silenco, didn't you ? Yes. Well, I said you should have her. Sho mariied you. Now, what in the namo of all that's infernal you come here reproaohing me for, is more than I can understand. " And he, too, flung himself down on the Turkish divan. "It all brings us back to the point we started from. You said her absence might be the result of a mistake. I tell you it wasn't. She never wanted to marry me. I've soon her turn pale with repugnance when I came near her. Oh, yes, I saw that, and more. Jonas Claflin is no fool. But I did love her — 1 did admire her — I did want Chicago to see that I could have one of the loveliest wives in America, as well as one of the fastest horses and swiftest yachts— l did." reminding one, with hia expression, tone, air of imperious determination, of a very ugly and (to be paradoxical) a very old Child. "What has all that to do with this harangue ?" queried Vernell, gloomily. " I don't know what threats or promises you made to induce her to marry me. She might as well not have done so. She locked me out of her room last night with the pleasing information that she would bear my name, but declined the honour of any further acquaintance. To-day she ran away from me. We left town this morning. Scarcely a syllable did sho speak. In tho afternoon I went into the smokingcar for half an hour. While there the train stopped at a Btation. When I returned my lady had vanished. A note lay in my book. Here it. is. 1 ' Ho took from his pocket and offered to the colonol a very wet and crumpled bit of paper. The latter took it and read : " Heartiest congratulations on your marriage —your next. A divorco suit will go by default. Aware that a lady doubles the expenses of a bridal tour, with mv usual unselfishness I nerve myself to the sacrifice of withdrawal, rewarded for my denial by the knowledge that you, at east, enjoy the deliechta of a wedding journey, and wishing you— bon voyage /" Such an importinent, satirical, comical, Hibernical little letter ! Colonel Vernell laughed and swore in the same breath. " They wouldn't ptop the train till we got to the next station," ruefully continued the .deserted bridegroom. " Then I had to wait for the next train back. Then I inquired ;, then I— oh, great Jupiter!" swinging up with a howl of disgust— " I've been on the dead go ever since, and here I am now in as bad a fix as ever. Give me some whisky. ' "Come over to the dining-room. You can stay here to-night?" as they crossed the hall. "No, no! Just a drink, and I'll be off." " It is almost two now." "No matter. Go I must." But evidently his resolution weakened with the first glass. Another he took— yet another, Far awhile he talked loud and fast ; then his tone grow lower, les9 voluble his speech, his voice thick, broken, husky, sank to silence. Vernell half assisted, half hauled him over to thegreat, roomy, morocco-covered lounge, went out, returned with a rug, flung it over the now slumbering intruder, took a nerve-soother himself, and went upstairs to bed. Ten minutes— fifteen— twenty. Silence, Never was"tomb more breathlessly still thai* this great dark house. For not a soul saw nor heard tho pale-faced fellow who emerged from under the silken fringe of the Turkish divan, crept on his hands and knees across the floor, into the hall, hushing his heart-beats as he went. '