THE LADY IN BLACK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8444, 17 May 1907, Page 2

THE LADY IN BLACK.

' CHAPTER XIII-Continued. "But I did not know how to do it, although I knew what I ought to do. "So it went on, the misery of every one growing greater every day, Willie and I feeling a restraint which msde us airaiu to exchange a word unuer hpr eyes; my husband growing, carter in his manner, morj reserved in his speech, having had his mind poisoned against his brother and against me. "At last a crisis came. Willie told us that he was going away. 1 knew he was in no fit state to travel, but I did not dare to tell him to stay, or to tell the fears I felt for him. When ho was ready to go, I spoke out to him at last. We were in the drawing-room, standing by the fire, and I,told him it was his mother who had made us all miserable and afraid to speak to one another, and I begged him to come with me to Sir Geoffrey, and to back me up in telling him the t.mtbj and in insisting that Lady Mallyan should leave the house. '"lf you go away now, without speaking to Geoffrey/ I said, 'I shall be left in the power of his hateful, wicked woman for the rest of my life. For she will never leave of her own accord; and I dare not speak to Geoffrey about her, wi no one to back me up.' "And then I saw Lady Mallyan's shadow outside the window on the path. She had been listening-—she was always listening—hoping to find out something as we said good-by. | "I ran to the window, but she escaped me. When Willie was gone, I went to look for my husband. He was in the gun-room, looking more severe than usual. His mother had just left him. I had never seen him look so stern, and I was frightened. I began to see that I was powerless against the mischievous woman who was spoiling our lives. "'Geoffrey,'" I said, 'what has your mother been saying to you? She has been saying something unkind, I know; something untrue, probably. What is it?' , "Then he said something which made me feel as if 1 had been turned into stone. Lady Mallyan had been with him. and misrepresented my words to Willie, had put a hideous meaning into all we had said. I forget Sir Geoffrey's exact words; if I remembered them I would not repeat them. But they ware cold, full J of suspicion. They roused in me a mad feeling of hatred. I can re-1 member that I shook till my dress 1 rustled; that I could not speak. Then forgive me! I took 1 up a little . pistol—revolver—l don't know what they call it; but it was something so small it looked like a toy—and, hardly knowing what I did, I pointed it at him, and—and-rhe cried out aid fell down. ] "I don't know what happened then, whether I shrieked out, or what happened. But they came in, a lot of them, and took me away. ' And—and I never saw him again. She would ( not even let me see him when he lay dead. Though I begged—how I begged!" Suddenly Mrs Dale stopped in her speech, and crossed quickly to the door. Flinging it open suddenly, she revealed Lady Mallyan, standing within a couple of feet of it, erect, j very pale. Mrs Dale smiled. "Come in, pray corae in, you ladyship. You have not lost your old habitß, I see," she said, with cutting emphasis, as she bowed to her visitor.

CHAPTER XIV. NO MERCY, It was with a throbbing brain and a heavy heart that Mabin, dismissed by Mrs Dale with a warm pressure of the hand and a little, pathetic smile, went through the hail and out of the house. What was the meaning of old Lady Mallyan's coming? Why had Mrs Dale sent for her? Surely, the girl felt, there could be but one answer to this question; and in that answer lay the key to the mystery about "Mr Banks." Mabin remembered the likeness she had seen in his face, in one of his sterner moments, to the visitor whom she now knew as Lady Mallyan. And she could have little doubt, on putting together the facts of the story she had just x heard and the details she knew concerning her father's tenant, that it was indeed Sir Geoffrey Mallyan's brother Willie, one of the causes, if not the sole cause of the tragedy which had wrecked Mrs Dale's life, who had settled down, unknown to the lady herself, as her nearest neighbour. A hot blush came into Mabin's face, alone though she was, as this conclusion forced itself upon her. For even she, young and innocent as she was, could not help seeing that his behaviou, since he had lived at Stone House, was inconsistent with Mrs Dale's account of the blameless relations which had existed between them. Mrs Dale had represented this "Willie" as a bright-hearted ycung fellow, who had felt only the comradeship of a younger brother toward his brother's beautiful wife. But "■Mrjßanks" had behaved not only like a lover, but like a lover once favoured, whom despair had driven to the verge of madness. On the other hand Mabin, in her loyalty toward her friend, was ready to believe that, even if the feelings these two unhappy creatures had had for each other had been less innocent than Mrs Dale had represented, they had been themselves less to blame than either of the two other persons concerned in the terrible history. Mrs Dale, naturally enough constrained by herjown remorse to speak

By FLORENCE WARDEN. Aut'ior of "An Infamous Fraud, " li A Terrible Family,' 1 "For Love of Jack," "The House on the Marsh," etc., etc.

well of her dead husband, had.yet 1 been able to give no attractive picture of the man who had misunderstood his young wife, frightened away her confidence, and allowed himself to bo alienated from her by the interference of his mother. And of that mother herself Mabin had seen enough to be more than ready to give her her fair share of the blame. The young girl's heart went out, more than it had ever done before, to the little woman, whom nature had made so frivolous, and circumstances so miserable, and around whom misi fortune seemed to be closing once more. It was the one gleam of comfort she had to know how sincerely Mrs Dale was trying to do what was right in the matter. Instead of attempting to see "Mr Banks," which would have been easy enough for her to do, she had sent forjj his mother, repugnant though such a course must always be to her; so that, whatever indiscretion she might have shown in the past, it was clear that she meant to keep herself free from all suspicion now. And this was the more creditable on her part, so Mabin felt, since the strange elation she had shown by fits and starts since the day before, when she heard the voice of "Mr Banks" for the first time, proved clearly that she was not so indifferent, not so unimpressionable, as she had professed to he. And here Mabin felt her heart grow very tender; she pictured to hersellwhat she would feel, if cir- j cumstances were to put Rudolph and herself in the same position toward each other as were "Mr Banks" and "Mrs Dale." If she were to live within a stone's throw of him, not only always loving, always longing, but conscious that the same feelings which drew her heart toward him were forever drawing him toward her. £ Mabin began to cry softly. Then the application of the story to her own case caused her thoughts to take another turn; and she asked herself, with the generous quixotism of her youth and her loyal nature, whether she. ought not to wish for, to encourage, the process by which Rudolph's love was being diverted from herself —the uninteresting, awkward girl without any history—to the un • happy lady around Whom there clung the romance of a tragedy. These questions, which had indeed risen in her mind before, but j which had not acquired a new force with her extended knowledge, were entirely consistent with the bent of Mabin's mitid. Accustomed from her childhood to consider others rather than herself,- and inclined by her own modesty to underrate her deserts as well as her attractions, she found it easy, not, indeed, to stifle her own feelings, but to control them. She told herself that she would show Rudolph no more petulence, no more "childish" jealousy or curiosity; and if, as seemed inevitable, he found that he had made, a mistake in thinking he cared for herself, she would be the first to wish him happiness with a more attractive bride. Perhaps it showed rather a touching sense of her [own devotion to her lover, that Mabin never once doubted his power, to console Mrs Dale for all her troubles, nor that lady's readiness to be comforted by him. And it was while these thoughts were fresh in her mind that Mabin, turning an angle in the path toward the kitchen-garden, came face to face with Rudolph. Meeting him at such a moment, it was not surprising that she stopped short, turned first red then white, and presented to his view a countenance so deeply impressed with a sort of shy alarm that the young man was rather puzzled as to the kind of greeting he might expect. Recovering herself quickly, Mabin wisely put off explanations by dashing straight into an exciting subject. "Oh, do you know," she asked in a hurried, constrained voice, "that I have had to leave poor Mrs Dale to that dragon? Oh, yes, I know who she is now; I know who they both are. Mrs Dale herself has told me that—told me everything!" added Mabin, in answer to an interrogative and puzzled look which she detected on his face. Rudolph looked dubious. "Everything?" he repeated doubtfully. "And," went on Mabin, with calm triumph, "old Lady Mallyan has told me something, too. And as I had a long talk with Mr Banks yesterday, I think perhaps the tables are turned, and now I know more than you do." (To be Continued.)