THE STUDENT'S SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8448, 25 May 1907, Page 2

THE STUDENT'S SECRET.

CHAPTER ll.—Continued. Ivlr Charteris observed that such was ,he case. Ho stretched out his hand 0 interrupt Doremus. "Your parion- one moment. Those children" ■ indicating Sybil and Max—"will ,ncl our talk dull. There is still ~ik! for t! em to hear the last act of :iu opera. M ; coupe is at the door. 1 ,et us send them away. Do you onsent Miss Sybil?" "I should like it vastly," said the irl, preparing to rise, and at the ■mie time looking towards Max harteris. Something she saw in his face made her add hastjly. "But—perhaps"— aR d she paused. It was no yonder, for the young man's face ;.<pre:sed the utmost confusion. "It is my exceedingly bad luck to have an engagement for the latter .".rfc of the evening," he said. "I was 'linking at the moment you spoke hat it would bejnecessary for rne to xcuae myself scrcn." Mr Charteris stared at his son. "Considering that you came to \;- v York a stranger, only three :Dtiths ago, Max, it seems to me you ■ utrive to have a great many engagements. However," concealing is annoyance under a tone of vthorifcy —"a game of billiards or a smoke with a comrade from Leipsic your engagement cannot be of a more important natui'e will keep, -io ring for Miss Grey's maid to bring her furs. You have no time to lose." >lax had resumed his customary *? pression during his father's speech. He bowed submissively. "You cannot doubt which way measure points," he said to Sybil. She looked appealingly at her rather. She no longer wished to go ',(> the opera. "Go, darling, by all means, said Mr Grey, absently. "It will amuse v/ou for all hour, and bv that time this dull talk of ours will be ended" Sybil, Standing tall and queenly, • lushed her fearless eyes into the face young Charteris. "Since they wish it," she sairl coldly, "we will go." Then she willed in a low tone, "If you have an ngagement, why did you not explain ,vhat it is and go and keep it." "I cannot explain." Kvbil looked up quickly into his <:u:e. Such an anxious, haggard look ■ wept over it that she scarcely knew him. A few moments later Sybil ana .'oung Charteris were leaving the house. Sybil was wrapped in an ■ nnine cloak; she wore a sparkling bonnet of v/hite beads and plumes, her long gloves reaching to the dhows of her beautiful arms. They ran lightly down the steps. Sybil had stepped into the coupe and Max was about to follow her, when lie suddenly paused. From out of the shadows of the ,-ailing glided a woman's form. She was tall, with flashing eyes. Over her rich dress she wore, as a sort of Ji''guise, a long Jcloak. The gaslight fulling upon her bare hand showed it '■overed with sparkling rings. i Max £harteris' first impulse was io stretch his arm like a bar across ..ho door of the carriage, as a protection for Miss Grey. For he had recognised the woman before him at a • lance, and he did not know of what )>iad action she might be capable.^ He was mistaken in her inteniong, however. She moved swiftly tow iha edge of the walk. r , "You have deceived me, as thought," she said in a low impressive tone. "Rosalie, in Heaven's name, go home. I have not deceived you," .if.mmerecl the young man. "Where are you going? her i;n.l come with me." "It i 3 impossible." "You said you were going to dine v. ith some gentlemen. You have derived me, I repeat. Let me see who you have in your carriage." "Rosalie," repeated Charteris, desperately. "I shall be you, as I i Demised, in an hour. Go, now. You •Mast, or, so help me Heaven, you \ ill never see me again." "So be it. You have slighted me," i:'. l said, stonily.

Charteris, in a sort of stupor, saw ?rglide away. Annoyed beyond J ;cription, he sprang into the ,ipe. "A beggar who accosted me," he lid, with an attempted laugh, ad--ssing Miss Grey. Sybil's frank eyes were upon his ' ■ '.'e. "A beggar," she repeated, in- • xlulously. "she had the—the look a lady." /\t half-past ten the opera was ■m\ The young couple drove home 1 nost in silence. Their first meeton which so many hopes had en built, was about to end. "I hope," said Sybil gravely, at io door, "that you will still have ■ 'no for your engagement." She ve the young man her hand. She is very beautiful. He felt as if a "ing goddess were addressing him. "Good-night," he murmured, lie iiild have pressed the delicately ived hand, as he held if a moment. • (l; the memory of the scene on the lewnlk prevented him. He dared it. CHAPTER 111. UNPREPARED. "Has papa left the dining room ;t?" was Sybil's first question as e stood within the hall. In her ex,ement she did not notice that the rvant's face wore a scared, unusual iok. "Mr Grey is—has He is upaiirs, mias. He is not well." Sybil waited to hear no more. She !. \v breathlessly up the stairs, once ; ore between the broad-leaved tropic , ants and the festoons of smilax. The door of her father's chamber,

By MRS W. H. PALMER.

which was opposite her own, .«ftood open. A strange chill r.assed through her warm young body, under her ermine cloak, at the sight which met her. Julian Grey lay stretched in his neat dress suit, upon his whitedraped bed. His face was scarcely paler than it had been while he sat at his dinner table. Rosamond had then remarked his palor. Beside his palor, however, there was a rigidity about the marble features, a dull, sunken expression of the staring - eyes, a clinched but nerveless look of the hands, that filled her with alarm. In an armchair, his head bowed in his hands, sat Mr Charteris. At the bedside, his ear at the sick man's heart, bent Dr. Doremus. Another man, who seemed likewise a physician, held Mr Grey's wrist, and, watch in hand, noted his pulse. Of the group in the chamber only one had a familiar expression. It was Pierre. Rigid as a soldier, betraying nothing; by force of habit appearing neither to hear nor see nor feel, stood the devoted mulatto. The crisis against which he had so long stood guard had come. The spasms of the heart to which his master had long been subject, had recurred with fatal violence. Pierre's assistance was no longer of avail. Yet -he stood as he had stood for years —on guard, doing his duty. Julian Grey was dying. For a moment his physicians had thought that life was extirct. It was at that moment that Sybil had reached the threshold of the room. The faint rustle of her draperies, or some more subtle Knowledge of her presence, reached the sick man's senses. He sat upright. "It is not—too late," he said, in a hoarse solemn whisper. "There is plenty of time. Give me the paper to sign. You will testify that I had all my faculties." Dr. Doremus bowed. And while the dying man was still speaking, Mr Charteris placed before him a document which had been drawn up at the dinner table that evening—a document of no less importance than will and testament of Julian Grey whereby he bequeathed everything the possessed to his only and beloved child. Sybi. For the second time Julian Grey attempted to sign this all important instrument. His numb fingers fumbled for the pen which was placed between them. With horrible struggles he summoned his power of will to master, for the moment, his'iast enemy. Dr. Doremus hastily poured out some liquor from a flask and held the glass to his patient's lips. But the power to swallow was gone. "Let me alone. Let me have the pen," gasped the dying man, clutching and succeeding in holding the pen". Sybil had gazed with speechless agony at the efforts of those around him to secure his signature. She now rushed forward to the bedside. —"Do not harass him. Why do you torture him? Oh, my father!" she cried, falling upon her knees. "Sybil," said Dr. Doremus, in a voice of agonised command, "be calm. He must sign the will." "Yes —the will," echoed Julian Grey. They held him upright. They i fastened his relaxing fingers around the pen. "Sign, Julian, before it is too late," said Dr Doremus, aloud, in his ear. "Yes —yes! Lights! I cannot see! Lights! Where is the paper?" The death agony thickened his words "There! thank God, I have done it!" He fell backward, calmed by the delusion that the paper had been signed. At the first command Pierre had brought the candle. It lighted up only the hopeless group, the unsigned will, the sick man's anguished face writhing in the closing spasms of dissolution. "Do not undeceive him. Let hiin believe that it was done," said Sybil, realizing all, at last. Dr. Doremus did not answer. His patient, he feared, was beyond his power to undeceive. Nevertheless he applied himself with energy to the application ot restoratives which for a' moment only would recall the fluttering soul. The doctor, conversant with all the events of the life of the man who was dying before him, bent every energy to rescue from eternity one little moment of time in which Julian Grey might cancel one of the dire l'esults of his sin. (To be Continued.)