CHAPTER VIII.— (Continued.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 414, 26 October 1889, Page 4

CHAPTER VIII.— (Continued.)

Sir John was in his place— a darkly moody host, amid delights, the flowers, aad the wines. Mrs 'avasor wa& even m higher spirits than usual. Mr Dangerlield waa talkative and agreeable, Katherine wa3 happy, and disposed (o be at peace with the world and nil therein, e\en Mrs Vavasor. She loved, she was beloved — all life's gieatest happiness is said in that". For Mr Dantreo, he was simply delightful. Ho told them inimitable stories of life in the Southern States, until even grim Sir John relaxed into interest, and after dinner in the draw ing-room sang for them his favourite afterdinner song, ' When the Winecup is Sparkling Before Us,' in his delicious voice, that enchanted even those who hated him most. The piano stood in a shadowy recess down at one extremity of the long room — Katherino and he had it all to themselves. Mrs Vavasor was busy with some flimsy feminine handiwork. Mr Dangertield sab beside her, turning over a book of photographs, and Sir John, lying back in his easy-chair, kept his eyes closed as though asleep. His face wore a worn look of care — he was watching those two shadow} 7 figures at the piano, and as he listened to this man's voice, so thrillingly sweet, as he looked at his face, the lamplight streaming on his dusk Spanish beauty, he scarce l y wondered at [Catherine's infatuation. 4 Fairer than a woman and n ore unstable than water,' bethought, bitterly, 'and this s the reed she has chosen to lean upon through life ! My poor little Kathie, and I am powerless to save you— unless— l speak and tell all. Heaven help you if this man ever finds out the truth.' 1 Sing me something Scotch, Gaston,' Katheiine said. She was seated in a low fauteuil, close beside him, her hands lytog idly in her lap — her head back among the cushions. It was characteristic of this young lady that she had never done a stitch of fancy-work in her life. She was quite idle now, perfectly happy — listening to the howling of the October storm in the park, and Mr Dantiee's exquisite singing. ' Sing something Scotch — a ballad. If I have a weakness which is doubtful, it ia for Scotch songs.' Mr Dantree heard but to obey. He ran his lingers lightly over the keys, smiled slightly to himself, and glanced halfmaliciously at the girl's supremely contented face. 4 How well pleased she looks,' he thought. *I wonder if I cannot change that blissful expression. Many women have done me the honour to fall in love with me, but I don't think any of them were quite as hard hit as you, not even, excepting Marie.' He plajed a prelude in a plaintive minor key, wonderfully sweet, with a wailing understrain, quite heart-bieaking, and sang. His face changed and darkened, his voice took a pathos none Gf his hearers had e\ei heard before. " A a\ cary lot is thine, fair maidA weary lot i& thine ! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid And press the rue for wine. A lightsome eye. a soldier's mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green No more of me j ou knew, JMy lu> i. ! No more of me you knew. 'This morn is merry June, I (row, The rose is budding fain. But she shall bloom in winter snow Ere we two meet again ! lie t 1 rned his charger as he spoke Upon the river shore — I le gave the reins a shake, and said : "Adieu for c\ennore, My love ! Adieu for evermore.'" It died out faint and low as the last cadence of a funeral hymn. And then he glanced at Katherine. He had changed the expression of that sensitive face cruellv — it lay back now againrt the ruby red of the velvet as colouiless as the ■winter snow of which he sang. He arose fronvthe uiano with a laugh. 1 Kathie, you are as white as a ghost. I have given you the blues with my singing,, or bored you to death. Which ':' She laughed a little as she rose. 'Your song was beautiful, Gaston, but twice too sad — it has given me a headache. It is too suggestive, 1 suppose, of man's perfidy and woman's broken truat. I never want to hear you sinyr that again.' It was late when the two gentlemen bade good-night and left. Mrs Vavasor took her night lamp and went up the black oaken stairway, her ruby eilk trailing and gleaming in lurid splendour behind her. 'Good-night, Kathie, darling — how pale and tired the child looks. And you didn't like that divine Mr Dantree's last'song ': It was the gem of the evening to my mmd — so suggestive and all that. Bonne nirit et bonnes rere*, nia btl/fi ' — Mrs Vavasor had a habit among her other gushing habits of gushing out into foreign languages now and then — ' and try and get your bright looks back to morrow. Don't letj'our complexion fade for any man — there isn't one on earth worth it. A ihmain '. good-night. ' " A lightsonis eye, a soldier's mien, A feather ot the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green, No more of me j ou knew , My love. No more of me you knew ! " And 'with a last backward glance and still singing the ominous song, brilliant little Mrs Vavasor vanished. Mr <Jaston Dantree rode back to his temporary home at Morecambo in very excellent spirits. What an uncommonly, good-looking, fascinating sort of fellow he must be that all the women should lose their heads for him in this fashion. Surely the gods who presided over his destinj must have been in a most propitious mood ■when they created him their blight particular star. 4 I've always heard that it is better to be born lucky than rich, and gad ! I believe it. / was born a pauper. My mother vended ■apples in the streets of New York ; and my father — well, the less said about him the better. He bequeathed me his good looks, his voice, and his— loose fitting morality. Until the age of eight, I ran wild about the streets ; then my pretty face, and curly head, and artistic way of singing " Oh, Susannah !" attracted the attention of Mrs Weymore, rich, childless, sentimental, good natured, and — a fool. I was sent to school, tricked out in vel% r et and ruffles, kissed, praised, petted, flattered, spoiled by all the ladies, young and old, who visiteJ my foster mamma; and," by Jove! they've been at it ever since. Then at sixteen came that ugly 'little episode of the forged cheque. That was hushed up Then followed the robbery of Mrs Weymore's diamonds, traced clearly home to me. They would not overlook that. I inherited my light-fingered proclivities from my father as well as the good looks they praised ; but they wouldn't take that into consideration. Then for four years there was the living by my wits {Jdoing a little of everything under heu\ en. * i

Then came Now Orleans and n;y new, and, I flattered myself, taking cognomen of Gaston Dantree, my literary ventures!, and their success in btieir way. And then after three years moro camo old De Lun3ac and Marie— poor little Maiio. J thought I had found the purse of Fortunntua then, whon, lo ! the old fool must up and get married. And as if that weren t enough, there must follow an heir, and adieu to a'l Marie's hopes and mine. Then I crossed the Atlantic to try my luck on this side of the pond, and J believe I've accomplished my destiny at last, as lord of fcScarswood at eight thousand a year. I believe I thall be a square peg, fitting neat and trim into a square ' hole. Katherine's a drawback— exacting, \ and romantic, and all that bosh — but everything as we wish it, is not for this woild below. The old gentleimn will go toes up shortly. I shall fake the name of Sir Dantroe Dangerlield, sink the (ia&ton, and live happy for ever after.' Mr Dantroe was still singing that ballad of the faithless lover as he ran lightly upstairs to his room. He threw off Jus wet overcoat, poked the fire, turned up the lamp, and saw on the table a letter. _ Now a letter to the handsome tenor singer was not an agreeable sight. Letteis simply meant duns pr else— Ho tnatuhed it up with an oath. This was no dun ; it was bomething even worse. It was superscribed in a woman's hand, and w postmarked New Orleans •From Marie, by Jupiter !' he oxclamied, blankly. ' Now, how the dcv— ah, I have it. It came to my address in London, and the publishers have foi warded it here. Shall I open it, or pitch it into the fire unread ? Deuce take all women. Can they never let a fellow alone ? What a paradise : earth would be without them !' 1 He did not throw the letter into the fire, however. He throw himself irito an easy chair instead, stretched forth his splashed riding boots to the blaze, and tore it open. It had the merit of being biief at least, and remarkably to tho point :

x\e\v Orleans, Sept. 16th, 1569. Gasion :— Arc \ on never going to write I— are you never coining back I Are you ill or are you fa'thless 1 The Jast, surely ; it would be in keeping with all tho rest. Docs your dead silence mean that I am descried and for ever i It so, only suv it. an i you arc free as the w ind that blows. I « ill ne\ er iollow you— never a=k aught ot you. No man alive — though he were ten thousand times more to me than you have been— shall ever be sued for fidelity by me. Come or stay, as you choose: this is the last letter I shall ever trouble you with Return this, and all my other letters — my picture alto, it' I am deserted. Hut, oh, Gaston ! have I deserved this.' Marie 1 . That was all. The woman's heart of the writer had broken forth in that last sentence, and she had stopped, fearing to trust herself Mr Dan tree read ifc slowly over, looking very calm and handsome in the leaping firelight. ' Plucky little girl !' was his finishing comment ; *it is haid lines on her, after all that's past and gone. But there's no help for it, Marie. "I have learned to love another — I have broken every vow — we have parted from each other — and your heart is lonely now," and all that sort of thing. I wonder if I ever had a heart, I doubt it. I'm like Minetva, a heart was left out in my make-up; I never was really in love in my life, and I don't want to be. Women are very well as stepping-stones to fortune, fame, ambition ; but for love in the abstract- -bah ! But poor, little Marie ! it I ever did approach the spooney, it was for her ; if I have it in mo to care for anything or anybody but myself, it is for her.' And then Mr Dan tree produced a little black pipe, loaded to the muailn, struck a fusee, and fell back again to enjoy himself, He looked the picture of a luxurious fcybante, lounging negligently among the cushions before the genial fire. 'And I know she'll keep her word,' he muttered reflectively. *No breach of promise, no avenger on the track in this case, Gascon, my boy; all nice and smooth, and going on velvet. That's a good idea about sending: back the letters and photo graph. I'll act upon it at once. A manied man's a fool who keeps such souveniro of his bache'orhood loose about.. And Kathie isn't the sort of jrifl either to stand that specie.*- of nonsense— she's proud as the douce,*as become^ the daughter of an old soldier, and as jealous as the devil >' Mr Dantree arose, and crossing to where his writing-case lay, unlocked it, and pi o duced a package, neatly tied up with blue ribbon. They were letters — only a woman's letters — in the same hand as that of tonight, and in their midst a carte de virile. He took this latter up and looked at it. It was the face of a girl in her first youth, a darkly piquante face, with two large eyes looking at you from waving masses ot dark hair — a handsome, impassioned face, proud and spirited. And Ga&ton Dantiee's hard, coldly blight brown eyes giew almost tender as he gazed. ' Poor child !' he said — • poor little girl ! How pretty she used to look in her misty wince dresses, her lace", the creamy roses she used to wear, hei- dusk cheeks Hushed, and her big blue eyes like stars ! Poor litv.;<3 thine ! and she would have laid a princely foitune at my feet, -\\ith her heait and hand, if that old bloke, her grand father, hadn't'euchred her out of it. And I would have been a very good husband, as husbands go, to little Marie, which is more than I'll ever be to this other one. Ah, well ! Sic transit, and all the rest of it Inhere goes.' He replaced the vignetfe, added the last letter to the others, did them up neatly in a sheet of white paper, sealed tho package with red van, and wrote tho address in a firm, clear hand . ' Mile. Mvmi, Dj, Lv>bAr, 'Ruede , 'New Orleans, Louisiana.' 'I'll mail this to-morrow,' Mr Dantree said, putting it in the pocket of his overcoat ; ' and now I'll seek my balmy couch and woo the god of slumber. I daie say it will be as successful as the rest of "my wooing.' Mr Dantree undtessed himself leisurely as lie did all things, and went to bed. But sleep did not come all at once ; he lay awake, watching the leaping firelight flickering on the wall, and thinking. ' What if, after all now, something were to happen, and I were to bo dished again, as I was in the New Orleans aflair ?' he thought. 'B> George ! it was enough to make a man cub his own throat, or - old De Lansac's. A million dollars to a dead certainty— Marie sole heiress, Marie dying for me. And then he must go and" get married — confound him !' 1 can't think Sir John Dangerfield is dotard enough for that, but still delays are dangerous. I'Jl strike uhilo tho iron's hot. I'll make Katherine name the day to morrow, by Jove. Once my wife, and I'm safe. Nothing can happen then, unless— unless — Heavens and earth ! — unless Mario should appear upon the scene.as they do on the stage, and denounce me !' Andthen Mr Dantree paused aghast, and stared blankly at the fire. •It's not in the least likely though,' he continued. ' Marie is not that sTorb of woman. I believe, by George ! if she met me a week after she gets the letters back* she would look me straight between the { eyes and cut me dead. No— Marie never j will speak— she could go to the scaffold with ■ her head up and her big blue oyes flashing detiance, and ib'ft a very lucky tiling for

me she's that sorb. Still it will be a confoundedly ugly thing if she ever hears of mo again either as Sir Dantree Dangorfield or the heiress of Scarswood's lianct. She mi<;ht speak to save Katherine. But no ;' and then Mr Dantree turned over with a yawn at la&t on his pillow, ' who ever heard of ono woman saving another? Men do, but women — never ! I'll have the wedding day fixed to-morrow, and it shall bo speedily.'