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

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8327, 8 January 1907, Page 2

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

CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. Merivale took it and folded it thoughtfully. Constance Istria herself sat opposite him, lounging indolently in priceless furs and a great black hat that overshadowed her beautiful, malicious face, and redgold hair like a stormy cloud. "However," said her brother, seeing that she gave no sign of answering his observation, "many thanks for the cheque, which comes in uncommonly handy. I have had to put off one or two settlements lately; my luck's been awful. I meant to ask you for some cash —to be frank, I never expected you to offer me some. The surprise is all the more welcome." He pocketed the cheque and began to crunch a scrap of toast between his white teeth. In the full light of a cold, though spring-like day, George Merivale looked what he was, a hardJiving, carefully preserved English-

man. . His forehead, it is true, inclined toward the premature baldness' which so often overtakes the pleasure-seek-ing young man, but his corded dressing-jacket revealed a square and powerful frame/ and his eyes, if small, were shrewd and bright. Constance Istria regarded him critically. "George," she remarked abruptly, "it is time you settled down." Merivale frowned. "I've no fancy for double harness, .my dear Con-, stance," he retorted. "I have neither the means to keep a wife nor the inclination to tie myself to one'." His sister played with a furred glove. "I can remove the chief of those difficulties," she said, Vand, as for the other, it has paid you before now to'subordinate your inclinations to mine." George Merivale ""pushed away his teacup and leaned forward, drumming with his fingers upon the damask table-cloth. "What's in the wind now, Constance?" he asked bluntly. "I told you to come to the point. Let us have it." Constance Istria rose, stepped slowly to her brother's side, laid a hand upon his shoulder, and met his glance coolly, masterfully. Her rich and jewelled loveliness might have befitted an empress. Wealth, pride, beauty, and j the consciousness/of power were stamped upon her in no ordinary degree. "I want you," sho said, "to marry Winifred Lavenden. The day you make her your wife I will make you rich. Prodigal, gambler as you are, there is a stake worth playing for."' Merivale's face set reflectively, then relaxed into a grim smile. "And so," he replid, "I am to be sacrificed to your latest caprice. If Winnie marries me, she can't marry someone else—to / wit, Edward ■ Agnew. Oh!f I see most things, my dear sister, and I know your little ways. Your idea is clever, bufr I am scarcely the one to compete with Agnew as a ladies' man. I don't wear badly, Constance, but I am ten years your senior, and I do not look, as you. do, seven years younger than my age." He glanced toward a mirror that formed the back of a neighbouring cabinet, and rubbed his chin with a contemplative air. Constance Istria followed the glance, and she, too, smiled. There was indeed a contrast between the figures , in the mirror. The years had long.since withered whatever of youthful bloom George ' Merivale had ever possessed; they had only touched her beauty with a ripening hand. She leaned over her brother. • "Don't be a fool, George," she said. "I do not suggest that you should win the 'girl's heart. It is enough , for me that you win her. And in that I can help you." She twisted the rings on her slender fingers. "There is something to find out about those Lavendens," she continued. "Cecile, Julia's maid, is a most intelligent girl; she used to be my own maid, but left me in some fit of pique. When I was arranging Julia's establishment,! took Cecile as her maid. The girl, naturally, is grateful." George Merivale went on rubbing his chin. His features wore an expression of- amused cynicism. His sister shrugged her shoulders. • "Well," she said, "it seems there "is a secret between Winifred and Julia, a secret that has to do with their poverty-stricken past. Cecile has heard them speak of Constance Istria stopped to whisper in her brother's ear. * "Of a prison!" she added. The listener whistled softly. His sister waited as if for him to make a remark, but he said nothing. "Where there is a secret," pursued • Constance Istria, "and a secret that has to do with—well, let us say, a woman's reputation—-that secret is a powerful lever, which only needs a skilful hand upon it to work wonders. One of those wonders might change Winifred Lavenden into Winifred Merivale. But, of course, it is necessary that you yourself shoul make an attack upon the fortress." "And this estimable Cecile of yours," commented the brother dryly, "will act as the spy whose information may enable me to take it. Well, Winnie is a clever little damsel, for all her squalid past, as you call it, and once she is broken in may suit me all right. I didn't mean to put my neck into the matrimonial noose, but, supposing that I decide to, what is to be—ahem! — my reward?" Constance Istria pondered. She was immensely wealthy, and knew that George Merivale was aware of it. bribe must be a substantial one, ■ one that there need be no haggling over. Nor was she a "woman that did things by halves.

By E, Norman Silver, ,7 it of "J Double Mask," "A Daughter of Mystery," ''Held Apart," "The Golden Dwarf," etc.

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

"Fifty thousand pounds," she told him. Merivale started, but suppressed the start instantly, and rose with an affected self-posses-sion. "Constance," he said, "your diplomacy is indeed princely. But you have judged me rightly. lam sick of this eternal juggle with cards and horses for a living, a living eked out by appeals to your cheque-book. I covet an honourable independence. That fifty thousand is mine—mine!" He brushed his moustache from the corners of his mouth. "Provided," he supplemented, "that your amiable Cecile has not discovered that highly unsatisfactory article, a mare's nest." His . sister began to put on her gloves. "I do not anticipats that," she answered. She stopped; a footman had entered the room. He had a salver in his hand, and there lay a couple of cards upon it. Constance Istria moved toward the door.

"I am going out driving," she said, "au revoir." Merivale acknowledged the salutation abstractedly; he was gazing doubtfully at the card. \ It was an official one, with an address upon it famous throughout the . civilized world. That address was "New Scotland Yard"; the name above it was "Inspector Quilliam,." "There are two of them," volunteered the servant, regarding the other's frankly puzzled visage; "I was to mention the name of Mr Garside, sir." "Garside," repeated George Merivale, and his brow clouded. "What the dickens " He checked himself. "Oh! very well," he said, "put them in the library. Or, no, show them up here." "Yes, sir," answered the man, and went away with stolid deliberation. Merivale threw down the card. "Garside," he muttered. "Is the fellow a wrong one, after all? Hang it, I hope there's going to be no confounded police business over him.'' He posted himself on the hearth in front of the fire, and awaited his visitors. In a few moments they appeared, big-built men in plain clothes—one dark, bearded, iron-gray, and melancholy, the other cleanshaven, plump, pink and cheerful. The dark visitor bowed and stepped forward. "I am sorry to trouble you, sir," he began, "but the fact is, we have bad news about a gentleman who seems to be a friend of .yours. This letter is " And he held out a sheet of stiff note paper, written upon. Merivale took it. It bore the embossed address, i" Lavenden House, Audley Street," and was dated a day or two before. The handwriting was his own. [To be Continued.]