A Tardy Wooing.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8150, 28 May 1906, Page 2

A Tardy Wooing.

By Charles W. Hatlnaway. Author of »« Marjorle's Sweetheart," " A Long Martyrdom," ," A Hash Vow," "Joseph Dane's Diplomacy," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXXll—Continued. "Good gracious, what an odd question I I supposs I have praised you in his hearing; one is not always careful what one says, and who would have imagined that ho was of such a had disposition? Do 1 not tell you that he only came here to-day to further a vile scheme whioh if I had not had the fullest ooufidenoe in you, might have parted us for over!" "You confound me, Uyrilla. What plot or soheme could be evolved by the brain of an individual like Chris Kouuett that would separate U9?" "Do you refuse to believe me?" she asked fretfully. "I tell you he has often hinted to mo aa well as to mamma that during the period you were supposed to be under the care of Dr. Collinson you were in the oompany of of a newly married wife. "Yes, you may well start!" she she added, aa she saw bis angry astonisbmeut; '*tho fellow you will not let me send away has blackened your character more than once; and the last time I refusod to listen to his abominable falsehoods ho not only insisted that they were truths, but offered to confirm them by hnngigng your said wile hither." "This is too much!" and Harold started to bis feet, quivering with rage. "How dare he?" Cyrillo was secretly delighted at the effect she was produoiog. Once convince him of Chris Kennett's perfidy, and ho would never listen to a word from hioi to her own discredit. "Ah! you do not know the aenth of his baseness yet!" she went on. "Ho actually stated that this marriage took place at a church a few miles from Dover, and that he—do you hear me, sir?—that he himself was present at it, and saw you place on your bride's finger the ring for which I have so often asked you, and asked you in vain." "Great heavens!" And now the healthy hue faded out of Harold Outram's face; and left it as ghastly aa if from a long illness. His hand was pressed to his forehead, and he was staring at her so wildly that Cyrilla was frightened. "What ails you? What haVe.l said to make you look at me so strangely? 1 did not believe him! No, not even when he brought a wretched woman here—as he did this very day.—and would have bad me believe that she was the bride you wedded." "And was she?"

i/f OHAPXER XXXIII. THE MISSING KING. There was silence in the rocm for what seemed a very lengthy interval, Uyrilla staring at her lover with her ownfaco growing as pale as his ; f and he leaning -towards her, waiting for her reply with such eager expectancy depicted on every feature that she withdrew herself from him with a gasp and a shudder. Why bad he asked her suoh an irrational question? Why was he waiting for her reply as if he saw nothing absurd in it? "I could "not have heard you correotly!" she cried, believing that una had found an explanation of all that perplexed her. "I must have misunderstood what you said, ox else you did not hear me. Anyhow, we are playing at cross purposes. I was telling you that Ohris Kennett brought a young woman here to-day——" "Who had the face of an angel? Yes, pray go on." . ' "She was a bold vulgar thing, I" Cyrilla retorted. "And yet she had the insolence to pretend that you married her." "And had 1?" "What are you saying?" shrieked his hearer. "Collect yourself, Harold. If you jest with mo on such a .subject, it is unpardonable; if you are in earnest, what am I to think of you—what am I to believe?" "How can I say, who do not know what to think of myself? he answered, drawing his fingers across his brows. "For a momeot your questions seemed to pierce the miat hiding from mo all that happened in those days that must have intervened fcetweeu my landing at Dover and going to Oollinson. When you spoke of the church and the ring, there flashed across my vision a, picture of a hoary-headed clergyman, before whom I stood or knelt, while the many-coloured lights of a stained glass windo.v I';cke<l his surplice, and soim one— was it Mophistopheles himself?—whispered in my ear, every whisper sending a sharp arrow into my burning brain." "Do you mean that you dreamed this?" "I suppose so; and yet how real it seems. Again, I am staggering to wards the church porch, chat the air may play upon my head because it throbs —ah?! how intolerably it throbs! And then I sit there, leaning my brow against the cool, mossy stones, till she, with those eyes eo full uf divinest compassion, comeß to me and leads me away." "But this could only be a dream!" Cyrilla repented. "A silly, meaningless dream I" "Hnsh! Why did you speak? Your voice has driven away the recollections that were coming back to my mind!" "They are not very flattering ones to me I" she pouted. "It does not appear to have been my image that tilled your thoughts." "No; I never saw the look in your eyes that beamed on me from hers •when she led me gently to some quiet green spot, where I lay calmed by the mesmeric touch of her soft hands till they banishcJ r.U pain, and if I dreamed at all it was of heaven." "He is mad!" said Cyrilla'to herself. "He ib mad! If anyone shouH hear him talk in this strain it will get to the ears of Eustace

Leyland, the next of kin, and he will take steps to have him placed under control. And then adieu to all my hopes of being lady of the Towers." "For goodness sake. Harold" she cried aloud, "don't talk suoh nonsense! It is too mystical for the common souse, everyday world. Why not confess at once that when you arrived at Dover you went and dined with some of the officers stationed there, and found their wine too heady?" "Think so if you please," he coldly responded.. "I have no better solution of the mystery to offer you." "There is no mystery about the affair!" she declared "except in so far as it puzzles me to thinlc you could imagine I should credit the tale you have taken suoh trouble to invent." "Let us understand each other!" he said, stung by thw unpleasant significance of her laugh. "Do you really believe that 1 have been drawing on imagination in order to Jveil a disgraceful truth? Do you really believe that I v?as hurt in some drunken or fe y, andoaneetn you with a degrading lie on my lips?" "What else can I think?" demanded Cyrilla. "You dare not have come to. me at all if you had spent at the feet of another those days for which you refuse to account!" "For which I rofuse to account!" he echoed, scarcely able r to realise that she doubted his integrity, or that she was deeming him, enoapable of descending to depths of meanness from whioh he shrank with horror. "Ah!" she exclaimed, watching his ohaugiug countenance jealously, "you hesitate; you cannot answer me. You are guilty—you are Ruilty. Some wretched woman from me; some one, perhaps, in Paris. There were plenty who would have given the world to win such a riob, handsome husband as Mr Outram, of the Towers! It was to her you gave the missing ring, and now you are ashamed to avow it!" "Cyrilla!" and, taking hold of both her hands, he compelled her to look at him while he spoke. "I swear by the memory of your | mother and mine that never have I spoken a word of ljve to any girl but yourself! You have wounded me deeply by your suspicions. As regards what happened to me when I arrived at Dover, 1 have told you all I know. I remember following from the steamer the servant Sir Jasper sent to lead me to your house." "We sent no servant. We never knew at what hour or on what day you landed!" Harold put his hand to his head. "I have done," he said, moodily. "You must think and say what you will. A little more, and I shall begin to doubt the evidence of my own senses." He walked to a window to compose himself, ' and Cyrilla wrung her hands. Yes, he was subject to attacks of insanity; there was no other explanation of his extraordinary disappearance. What an unfortunate creature she was! Must she relinquish her hopes of being his wife after all. A fit of violent hysteria now ensued 1 ; and, as the paroxysms became more and more aoute every time her glances rested on Harold, he withdrew more dissatisfied withthan sorry for, his wayward bride-elect. Cyrilla felt no , compunction for the pain she had inflicted on him, but she was very iiuch grieved for herself. No one was so harassed as she had been during this engagement of hers. With Harold perplexing her on the one hand, and Ghrib Kennett threatening her on the other, hers had been a difficult course to steer. Would it' land her at last at the El Dorado her heart was fixed on attaining, or wreck her barque just as she was in sight of her haven? Married to a man who might at I any moment be seized with an at- ! tack of lunaoy! The prospect was a horrible one; yet lose the dear delight of reigning at the Towers she neither could nor would. And then she pondered long, coming at last to the conclusion that matters should take their course. "One must always run some risks lin matrimony!" she sighed; "and if Harold, poor fellow ! should prove incapable of managing his affairs, it will throw more power into my hands. No one need ever know that his mind is affeoted. I should have to keep Eustace Leyland at bay, or else—" She stopped short, for an evil thought had stolen into her scheming brain. At first she recoiled from it with a shudder, putting her fingers into her ears, bnrymg her face in her pillows and crying: "No, no, 1 could never, never do that!" But the thought returned again and again, till she grew accustomed to it, and her horror of yielding to the temptation of acting upon the evil promptings grew fainter and more faint. At last she boldly asked herself the question from which she had once shrunk with shame an.l terror: Why should she not incite Eustace Leyland to prove his kinman's insanity, and step into Harold's place. (To Be Continued.)