For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8325, 5 January 1907, Page 2

For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

CHAPTER IV. It was of no use that she knew herself innocent of intention of the deed that she had wakened to find accomplished. She had merely meant to threaten James Garth, to alarm him sufficiently to prevent his regaining by force what she trusted to obtain by guile —the certificate that, by a set of remarkable chances, alone remained to prove her unhappy sister's marriage with a convict. But would any one believe her? Had she not taken a loaded revolver? Had she not gone secretly to his" rooms? ' Winifred Lavenden's head drooped i ito her hands. The shadow that had fallen upon her was very deep and cold—icily cold. She had seated herself near the luxurious toilet-table; she put her white arms upon it, laid her head upon them, and tried to think. Working girl as she had been in the days before she became ..the Honorable Winifred Lavenden, she was of a stock that had given her country both soldiers and statesmen, and her courage was the high, proud courage of her race. But as she put her head down upon her girlish arms, the scent <Jf violets,came to her nostrils. They were the tiny bunch—the first fruits of the approaching spring—that Edward Agnew had given her that afternoon. She had placed them tenderly in water when she had gone up to dress for dinner. Edward Agnew! Winifred's heart stood still. In the tragic emergencies of the past few hours she had forgotten him. Edward Agnew!— the handsomest, the kindest, the cleverest, the most distinguished man her eyes had ever lighted on. And he had sought her company and talked to her as no other in the new and shallow world about her had done. He had called her "Winnie," he had taken her hand - Winifred Lavenden wept, dry, tearless sob's, that shook her from head to foot. What stain upon her hand; what gulf had opened between them, between him, whose path led upward to honour and renown, and hers, that might lead She crushed the violets to her bosom. It was wrung with unendurable agony. 1 t^i The door of the room opened , suddenly. She laid the violets down, to catch up the torn certificate and hide it in her bosom. Julia Lavenden had entered the apartment. Her sweeping dressing-gown gave her a statuesque, classic air, and her long, fair hair flowed unconfmed uponjier shoulders. She was breathing heavily, and her colour came and went. Something in her manner struck a pang of subtle alarm to Winifred Lavenden's overburdened heart. "Winnie," she said, "have you been asleep? I—l was quite surprised not to find.you when Cecile awakened me." Winnie looked at the sensitive, fair face of her sister—the sister who, in the years before their abrupt f prosperity, had leaned upon her for ' comfort and advice—advice in all but that fatal marriage. She looked, and her awful secret died unuttered upon her lips. How would, how could, Julia bear the knowledge of it? No, she must not, she could not, know before—unless ■ Winnie could not finish the broken sentence—no, not even to herself. "Cecile wakened you, dear?" she asked, trying to speak' calmly. "How foolish! I—l wanted you to sleep. I had'to think, you know." Lady Lavenden came to her sister's side. "Winnie," she answered, in a hoarse whisper. "I—l have had a visitor; that was why Cecile roused me. It was " Julia Lavenders delicate, blueveined fingers were interlaced, as though she were about to wring her hands. "Don't be frightened, dear," she begged. "Oh! don't be as frightened as I was!" Her sister had risen, leaning upon the chair she had abandoned. An inexpressible fear had seized upon Winifred Lavenden. "Who—who was it?" she faltered. ' s Julia glanced this way and that about the room before answering. "David," she said, under her breath; "he—he-has escaped!" Winnie gazed at her, astonished. "David," she murmured; "and escaped—from Dartmoor PNfc.^^% "Yes, dear," said still with the same curiously suppressed excitement that was not al-1 together alarm; "but don't look like that. No one knows. He came to me for money, i I—l gave iUto him; he—he'claimed it, as my baby's father." She drew the younger woman to her, and looked into her face with shining, dilated eyes. "And, oh! Winnie!" she'gasped, "he—he says that the child didn't die, that it was only taken away from me. He—he will let me know where it is. I shall go Winnie; I shall seemy baby,* my little baby, that I thoughtj^was dead!"'' - ' Winifred Lavenden stood, white and impassive. So all had been in vain—her daring scheme to deliver Julia and herself from the thraldom of the past, her galtent attempt to execute it, and the awful catastrophe that had resulted. All had been useless, and worse than useless.

[To be Continued.]

David Garth had ecsaped from Dartmoor prison, to burst upon them with an amazing, an incredible, piece of news, and to lay the dangerous trail .of the hunted criminal to the doors of Lavenden House. She brushed a hand wearily across

By R. Morman Silver, / , -, of <'' A Double 3lask," "A Daughter of Mystery," "Held Apart," "The Golden Dwarf," etc.

[".For Her Sister's Sake " was commenced on December 20th.]

her young brows. " What—what are you going to do?" she asked. "They will track him, you know."

Julia sjhook her head. "Perhaps not," she returned; "but if he is taken he will not speak of us. He swore it to me, for the sake of the child. If he only gets a proper disguise at once! I could not help him to that, so I sent him to his brother's. I remembeied the address—Grammot Mansions, Jermyn Street."

Winnie's lips parted slowly. "You sent him to his brother's," she murmured, "to Mr Garside's—to James Garth's?"

"Yes, dear," said her sister anxiously." "Wasn't it wise. You are SO much cleverer than I am. But I had to decide at once, and do the best I could. He had those dreadful prison clothes on under his cloak. Yet any one would have taken him for a nurse —that was how he got Cecile. to waken me."

A cry —a cry of alarm and terror — sprang to Winifred's lips. But she set them desperately before it could burst forth. Once more the feeling of dumb despair stole over her. Again she seemed to see the closed door of the fatal flat and the cloaked, impatient figure of the nurse. Through the blue cloth of the uniform cloak the convict's hideous garments seemed visible to her in a kind of waking nightmare. So James Garth's belated visitor was no nurse, but her sister's husband —their dreadful past broken loose from its bonds and knocking at a door behind which there lay—what?

Winifred Lavenden's fingers tapped mechanically the polished surface of the toilet table by which she stood. They encountered the bunch of violets she had laid down, and she picked them up. Their scent touched some chord of self-pity in her racked heart, and she burst into convulsive weeping. It was long before Julia could soothe her, and then she took refuge in silence—a silence that perplexed and distressed the elder woman.