Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8465, 15 June 1907, Page 2

Hugh Gretton's Secret.

CHAPTER I.— Continued. "Christine will fall in love with that g >wn," she said to herself, with a funic s.viile. She found herself watching unconsciously for the reappearance of this 1 pretty girl; the sound of a clear voice generally announced the arrival. Evidently the lady monopolized the conversation. The man beside her merely said a word hero and there, assenting, as a rule, to his companion's remarks. He was a tall, strongly built man, with a touch of the soldier in his bearing. His face was keen and full of character;, he wore a moustache that hid the expression of his mouth to a great extent, but there was nothing to veil the eyes or their mefcning. He was seemingly listening to what the gin was saying to him, but he was, in reality, not very attentive. • His eyes had been caught instantly by Miss Carletoh's face as he had come up on deck. A gleam of intense surprise and interest had flashed through his eyes at sight of lier, and he had looked almost eagerly at the graceful. girlish figure, as though waiting for some recognition. ■ Sigrid Carleton had given none, however. She had glanced at him, it is true, but her gaze had not rested there; all her interest was given to the pretty girl with the red-gold hair and the neat serge gown. After a promenade of about a quarter of an hour the walk came to an end; they parted quite close to Sigrid's chair. "Now, I must go," the girl said brightly'. "Thank you so much for ' your kindness. I only wish I could .", be able to enjoy a" walk like this every day; but. alas!" : ',' Oh, you'must not make up your mind to be ill; resolution isi half the battle. Just determine you will be well, and see.the result." I The girl laughed as she put out] her hand. "I have no fnc'i thing as determination when i am on board ship. 1 used to struggle, but experience has taught me it is useless. So you must say good-by to me now for at least four days. Please pity me, Sir John. I assure you, I shall be a most deserving object for pity before another two hours have gone." ! "Indeed, I da pity you." John Bynge said warmly; and something in the sound of his voice made Sigrid Carleton's brows meet faintly for an < instant. She did not turn her head, however, although the voice had seemed familiar; possibly it might be same one out of the hundreds of casual acquaintances she had made in her many travels; certainly the voice recalled a memory, but of what precise nature she did not know. Her armour of reserve and coolness had grown so much a part of herself now that Sigrid never indulged any curiosity that might come to her. The other girl's laughing voice died away, and Miss Carleton sat on, quite heedless that a yard or so from her John Bynge had put himself into a chair and was studying her most | intently. "I never thought, to have this chance," he was saying to himself, almost eagerly, as he scanned the young form resting back with so much unconscious grace. " I imagined that the train that carried her away that summer night had carried her into a world in tyhich we should never meet again. She is not changed: still as cold, as wonderfully beautiful. What is her life? Who is she? Where doe 3 she come from? What is shj doing here alone? Can she be travelling alone? Good heavens, she has,no right to be here by herself \" "(■'.'. He sat a little while longer, then he arose ; and began once again to saunter to and fro on the deck. He passed Sigrid four or five times, but she never looked at him, she never moved. He was half amused, and yet he was pleased; there came to him suddenly a strange sense of satisfaction as he saw a woman, an unmistakable maid, approach the girl and begin to speak to her with the confidence that betokened she was a travelling companion. The maid was French, shrillvoiced and voluble. She was evidently full of some grievance. Sir John could not fail to hear all she had to say. "There is a dreadful quarrel going on. They have actually given the wrong stateroom to miladi; she is in a fury; she scold and scold; ,1 krow not what they do. I fear miladi will be ill; and will mademoiselle kindly say whether by chance the brown bag"-—Christine's own cherished possession— "has been included in mademoiselle's modest be- i longings, because, if not, it had been left behind at the hotel! And was not this too awful? And was not that old Henry a—well, a variety of things?'" Sigrid Carleton laughed faintly as Christine's eloquence came to a pause here. The man listening caught the laugh; it had the fascination of music for him, and it brought him to a standstill close by. where he could watch the wide-spreading waters with deepest interest, apparently, while, in reality, he allowed himself to play eavesdropper, for the first time in his life, and follow the duologue carried on just beside him. The girl was answering the woman in French quiie as fluent, and with an indescribably pretty accent. "Now, you know perfectly well, Christine, that you simply adore poor oli Henry, and"- the little laugh came again at Christine's declaration i of horror—"and as for your brown 1 bag—well, I believe he would far rather carry a serpent about with him ; than lay a finger on such a sacred j treasure. Now, don't look like that!

By EFFIE ABELAIBE Anlhnr of "Selinrt* Love Stow," "A Splendid Heart," "Brave Barbara," "The Temptation of Mary Bar," "Jhe Interloper," etc., etc.

The brown bag is quite safe; it is in our cabin!" With a cry of delight Christine was moving away, but the girl's voice called her back. "Am I wanted?" she asked hurriedly. "Must I go? Perhaps her ladyship will) want me to arrange about her state-room." Christine soon settled this. "Don't disturb yourself, my child," she said, with a cunning little jerk of her head; "remain where you are while you can! Of a surety you will have much to do before we are arrived. The quarrel is of a fierce nature! Far better that miladi say all she wish now; in a few hours she will say nothing!" An upward movement of Christine's two hands was most eloquent. The girl seemed still undecided; her voice had a nervous twinge in it when she spoke again. "Still, perhaps—l may be needed?" She half rose from her chair; but the maid, with a gesture, half irritated and half affectionate, pushed i her back again. "Oh, la! la!" she cried, as this was accomplished; "take what good you can while you can. It will not be miladi who will not ask for mademoiselle if she have need of her. Now there is no need. But has mademoiselle had anything to eat? No, of course, not. There!" and a little white paper package was put into Sigrid's lap, and with a cry of "I will come back at once!" Christine vanished. 'John Bynge watched the maid disappear down the slippery deck with a ] touch of honest amusement on hia face. Then as he caught a little weary sigh from the girl beside him his amusement went instantly.; He .continued watching the sep,,and Sigrid sat and gazed beyond him,to the line of white-crested; Waves that rolled and rose, unceasingly on the broad bosom of the ocean. How Weary she was;. , how , .unutterably tired! How beautiful it would be if she could close her eyes and be wafted into a land of sleep, of rest, of oblivion! ,„ Had she grown really old in these past three years of endless travel? Was it the movement, the bustle, the discomfort only that had brought tHis weariness upon her? \ She went back to her thoughts pf the past. Those happy, happy days when her future had seemed a blaze of roses and gold, and jher dreams had been the sweet, vague, tender dreams that belong to every unclouded young imagination. She had tried so hard to cling to those dreams still, to paint her daily life with the rose and gold of the girlish hope; she had trjed with all her heart to keep alive her old faith ; her old illusions; and for a time, even against every hardship, she had succeeded in doing so. But of late the strain had been too much; she had given up the struggle. She had let herself drift, drift, drift, until a sort of cold indifference had wrapped itself about her, chilling her natural warmth and darkening the light and gladness\of her youth. What good would be served by struggling any longer? What use were aim's, ambitions, ' dreams and delicate aspirations? Her future was her present, and all the happiness her young life would ever know lay in her simple past. It was not the pessimism of morbid youth that forced Sigrid into this frame of mind; it was but the out- , come of strange and saddening circumstances. By nature the girl was as sunny, as mentally fresh and ' beautiful as she was physically so; but the strongest natures must bend beneath the will of fate, and Sigrid's fate these last three years had been cast in lines that were boundjtb have a definite and, in a sense, a destrucinfluence upon her girlish illusions and unconscious happiness. After having dwelt so much upon the fact that her childhood had been so full of golden gladness, it may seem strange to declare that Sigrid Carleton had been left an orphan when she was far too young to know the desolate meaning of the word. : 'Y£t this was true. I It had been a fatherless and j motherless little child, who had grown ! from babyhood to girlhood under j the tender guidance and care of the j nuns in that old convent school in France, and yet never was there any little child reared to maidenhood within those gray old walls more joyous, more healthy, happy, and con-1 tent than the little creature who had been adopted by the good sisters sixteen years before the opening of this story and who came to them destitute even of a name. She had been brought to the convent a tiny creature of about a year old. (To be Continued.)