CHAPTER III (Continued).

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 410, 12 October 1889, Page 6

CHAPTER 111 (Continued).

The adorer had taken a great deal of champagne at supper and hiccoughs interrupted the poetic flow of the quotation. So also had Mrs Vavasorherself. Perhaps a little of the brilliancy of eyes and colour < were due to, the Cliquot, but then a good deal more was owing to triumph. Everything was going on so well. The little debt f-he had waited so long to pay off was in a fair way to recoive a full receipt. ' Peter Dangerfield was pliant as wax in her hands, Gaston Dantree was the man of all men whom she would have chosen for Katherine Dangerfield's affianced husband. And Sir John had passed the night in a sort of earthly purgatory. 'Poor old Sir John!' the little woman said, airily, to herself ; ' I'm really concerned for him. He. never did me any harm — poor old soldier. How plainly he shows his abhorrence of me in his face ; foolish, uncivilised old man. If his precious daughter were not so wrapped up in her curled darling she could not fail to sec it. I suppose our handsome tenor proposed in the conservatory ? What a capital joke it would be to let him marry her after all, and then speak oub. I think I'll wait until the wedding day. Ah, my lady ! my lady ! You were a great peeress and a brilliaut woman in your day, but you'ro dead now, and forgotten, and little Harriet, whom you circumvented so cleverly, lives still and prospers, and hates you dead as she hated you alive.' The fire still burned on the marble hearth, the waxlights glimmered, softly. She drew the window curtain and looked out at the rainy morning, lighb struggling feebly in the stormy grey sky. The elms and beeches rocked in the October gale, j the swaying of the giant trees was like the dull roar of the sea. She dropped the silken curtain with a shiver and turned away. 'It gives me the horrors,' she muttered ; ' it makes me think of old age, and death, and the grave. Will I live to become old, I wonder ? and will I have money enough to pay hirelings to smooth the last journey? This visit to Sussex will surely make my fortune, as well as give me my revenge. And when — all is over — L will go back to Paris — oh, my beautiful Paris !—! — and live the rest of my life there. Whether that life be long or short I shall at least have enjoyed every hour of it. And, my lady, I'll be even with you to the last, and carry my secret to the grave ' She crossed over to the wardrobe where they had placed her trunks, opened one, and took out a book of cigarette paper and an embroidered tobacco case. ' It's no use going to bed,' she thought. ' I never can sleep at these abnormal hours. A cigarette will soothe my nerves better than slumber.' She began, with quick, deft fingers, to roll half-a-dozen cigarettes, and then lying i back in a luxurious arm-chair, with two slender arched feet upon the fender, to light and smoke. One after another she smoked them to the very last ash. The rainy daylight filled the room as she flung the end of the last inch in the fire. She arose with a yawn, extinguished the lights, drew the curtains and let in the full light of the grey, wet morning, The great trees rocked wearily in the high gale, a low leaden sky lay over tho flat, ''wet downs, and miles away the sea melted drearily into the horizon. In the pale bleak light brilliant 'little Mrs Vavasor looked worn, and haggard, and ten years older than last night. ' Such a miserable morning ! What a wretch I must look in thie light. Captain Devere paid me compliments last night, fell in love with me, I believe, at lea&t as much in love as a heavy dragoon ever' can fall. If he saw me now ! I believe I'll go to bed after all.' Mrs Vavasor went to bed, and her eyes closed in graceful slumber before her head was fairly on the pillow. And as the loudvoiced clock over the stables chimed the quarter past ten she came floating down the stairs in a rose-cashmere robe de satiny and all her feathery black ringlets afloat. lAm I first, I wonder ?' she said, peeping in. c Ah, no ; dear Sir John, what an early riser you always were. You don't forget your military habits, though you arc. one of the wealthiest baronets in Sussex.' She held out one slender while hand,' all glitter with rings. But as he had refused it last night 'SO the baronet' refused the proffered handclasp this morning. He stood call and stern, and grim as Pvhadamanthus himself, drawn up to his full height. t ' We are quite alone, Mrs Vavasor, since you choose to call yourself by that name, and we can afford to drop private theatricals. I fancied you would be down before Katherine, and I have boon waiting for you here for the past hour. Harriet Harman, you must leave Scarswood, and at once.' Sir John's guest had taken a tea-rose from a glass of flowers on the breakfast table; and was elaborately fastening it amid the luxuriance of her black hair. She laughed as her host ceased speaking, and made the rose secure ere she turned from the mirror. 'That is an improvement, I think — yellow roses always look well in black hair. What did you cay, Sir John ? Excuse my inattention, but the toilette before everything with us Parisiennes. I must leave Scarswood at once ? Now, really, my dear baronet,that is a phase of hospitality it strikes me not strictly Arabian. .Why mustil go, and why at once V 1 Why ! you ask that question ?' 1 Certainly I ask it. Why am I not to remain at Scarswood as long as I please ?' ' Because,' the Indian officer said, frigidly, ' you are not fit to dwell an hour, a minute, under the same roof with — with my daughter. If you had possessed a woman's heart, a shadow of heart, one spark of womanly feeling, you would never 'have crossed Katherine's path.' 4 Again I ask why ?' ' I have given you your answer already. You are not fit — you are no associate for any young girl. I know the, life you lived at Homburg.' 4 You do ? And what do you know of that life to my discredit ?' Mrs Vavasor demanded in her sprightliest manner. ' I sadly fear some malicious person has been poisoning your simple mind,' my dear Sir John. I received a salary at Homburg, I admit ; I lured a few weak-minded victims, with more money than brains, to the Kursaal ; 1 gambled ever so little perhaps myself. But what would you have ? Poor little women must live, penniless widows must earn their bread and butter, and I laboured according to my light. Who can blame me ? A gambler's decoy is not a very reputable profession, , but, l. did not select 'it because I liked it. As you say here in England, it was " Hobsori's choice."

To work I was nob able, to beg I was ashamed. And I gave ib up, when I heard of your good fortune, for ever, I hope. I said to myself, ." Barriet, child, why lead this naughty life any longer? — why not give ib up, pack your trunks, go back to England, and become virtuous and happy ? Here is your old friend — well, acquaintance, then — Colonel Dangrerfiold, a baronet now, with a magnificent" estate in Sussex, and eight thousand a year. You did him good service once —he is nob the man, to forget past favours ; he will never see you hungry or cold any more. And la petite is there— the little Katherine, whom fifteen years ago you were so fond of — a young lady and a great heiress now. To, see her once more, grown from a lovely English miss — what rapture !" ' She clasped her little hands with a very foreign gesture, and lifted two great imploring eyes to his face. The baronet sighed heavily. 'Heaven help you, Harriet ! You might have been a better woman if you had loved the child, or anything else. But you never loved any human creature in this world bub yourself, and never will. I suppose it is not in your nature !' Have you ever seen the swift pallor of sudden strong emotion show under rouge and pearl powder ? It is not a pleasant sight. After the baronet's lasb words there was a dead pause, and in the dull, chill light he saw that ghastly change come over her. ' Never loved any human creature in this world !' She repeated his words slowly afber him, then broke suddenly into a shrill laugh. ' Sir John Dan^orfield, after half a century of l^his life's vicissitudes, the power to be astonished ab anything earbhly should have left all men and women, but you are sixty odd, are you nob ? and if I chose I could give you a glimpse of my pasb life bhab would rabher take you by surprise. Bub I don't choose— ab leasbnob ab presenb. Think me heartless, unprincipled, wibhoub conscience or womanly feeling — what you will — what does anything in this lower world signify except costly dresses, good wines, and comfortable incomes 1 And that brings me back to the point, and 1 tell you coolly and deliberately, and determinedly,' that I won't stir one step from Scarswood Park until I see fit.'