Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8481, 9 July 1907, Page 2

Hugh Gretton's Secret.

By EFPIE ABKLAIBE ROWLANDS. Author of "Selina's Love Story," "A Splendid Heart," "Brave Barbara," "The Temptation of Mary Bar," "Ihe Interloper," etc, etc.

CHAPTER Xlll.—Continued. "You are going to be away?" Millicent asked quickly, and her pale face flushed. The note of _ eagerness in her voice was almost pain. "I shall he back to-morrow, probably to-night. Don't you want anything?—some books, or chocolates, or " Millicent interrupted him wiin a laugh. Sinc2 he was coming back so soon, she could laugh quite easily. "Bring me some toys, please, sje said, looking at him prettily. She was really a fascinating young creature. She touched John Bynge s heart, just as a helpless, homeless child would'have done. It would have seemed to him the most natural thing in the world now, in their present position, had he sat down on a chair and taken Millicent on his knee, bhe was close upon twenty-one, but her life generally and her illness m particular, made her seem very youthful, nothing more than a mere child. They chatted and laughed together a little longer, and parted with a hand-clasp. John left any amount of orders for the girl, which she received in meekness and delight, bhe loved to be dictated to by him. He wa= her king; to cherish a word of hiswasajoy!-to feel his thought and care wrapping her about was her ideal of heaven. As he ran down the stairs to jump into the dog-cart and be driven to the station, John sighed. .The girl's image faded away; her father's came in her stead. "Poor Gretton!—poor fellow! How he would have suffered tj have thought her even a little ailing. I hope to Heaven there is really nothing seriously wrong!" He sighed again and again many times. He would have confessed to no one but himself how the constant thought and. responsibility 1 of Millicent and her future harassed him. He had fallen easily into his duties, and accepted all that came as quietly as he could, but of late a teeling had been growing within him that there was to be a heavy burden for him in the future in connection with this guardianship. The lawyers and other business men with whom he came in contact over Gretton's affairs all turned to him naturally as to the responsible and rightful director of Millicent's life and property; He had made some delicate inquiries about the dead man, but he had learned nothing save that which he already knew. Armed as he was with Gretton's own confession that he had possessed family and kinsfolk in England, and doubly armed with the knowledge that there was a story wrapped up in the pages of the dead man's history, which might be full of mystery and romance.it can be inferred that at times John Bynge seemed to wake with a start to realize the exact meaning of his position. He could never rid his mind of the conviction that there was some thread—it might be a very frail one, but still existing—that stretched between Hugh Gretton's past and Lady Yelvertoun. That the thread touched also Sigrid's young life was something that seemed sure; but, after all, the girl's influence must have been inherited. She was too young to have had any place herself in his former life. - The more John mused over the incident of that strange and sudden fainting-fit on the steamer, the more he felt assured that Sigrid's fear was a correct one. She had startled Hugh Gretton, but the shock she had given him must have, had close connection with some memory of the past —some memory so vivid and haunting that when the girl stood before him, in flesh-and-blood likeness to that imagined remembrance, it had swept the man's mind as with some fierce, perhaps cruel, storm, and, working on a weakened and diseased physique, had brought him prostrate to the ground. The after fact of Lady YelvertDun's visit to the sick man's cabin being followed by instant death was to John an overwhelming proof that, for good or ill, that beautiful, cold-hearted woman had held some place in Gretton's former life. The day would come, John said to himself many times, when he should put an end to mystery and conjecture, and go boldly to Lady Yelvertoun with questions on this subject. "As Millicent's guardian, as the recipient of that confidence from poor Gretton, I have the right to probe the matter a little. If he had not told me that there was a story, and if he had not implied a duty in connection with this story, I would have died rather than attempt to reach it; but somehow I am not at rest. He evidently intended and wished me to know all there was to know. It might perhaps give him comfort even now if he could think I was eager to carry out his wishes. There was more in his life than his love for Millicent. great as that was," was Sir John's final thought, as London was reached. His first duty on leaving the train was to send a telegram to Sigrid announcing he was in town for the day, and intended to do himself the honour to call upon Mrs Harlowe and herself that afternoon. He did this eagerly. He was so afraid of being disappointed a second time, and, moreover, *he wished to put her prayer-book into her possession once again, with his own hands. It lay in his inside pocket close to ' his heart. The touch of the book was an exquisite consolation to him. He could never have told exactly how he got through all he had set himself to do. His mother had written down the names of two physicians, one of whom she knew personally. John went to the one who nad attended his mother, and after a

little convocation the matter was satisfactorily arranged. Then he wandered about, doing some odds and ends of commissions, buying several pretty thing- for Millicent the "toys," as the had called them. Then he went to have his lunch at his club, and, finally, after what had seemed to him a century, he stepped into a hansom, and was driven to Mrs Harlowe's house. He&eyiewcd himself and his feelings in a half-boyish way as he bowled alone. Love was so new to him. so wonderful; so engrossing, he felt a if he were communing with a strange person, not with himself. It seemed funny to bo carried along by such a tremendous power, to be robbed of all his force, and to submit to the coercion without a struggle. He had lived many long, hard-work-ing years, before the loveliness of Sigrid Carleton had come into his path, yet the value of those years had been completely obliterated; he had only really lived, he told himself, with a curious, bewildered feeling, since the day he had gone aboard the Columbia, and he had felt himself lost in the sweet mystery of this pure, proud girl's fascination. It was with almost a pang John counted up the few days of his acquaintanceship with Sigrid. Short as they were, and scanty as had been his opportunities of being with her, the time had been ample enough for his love to be born and to expand into an imperishable flower. But how would it be with her? Lost in his soft, halcyon dreams, John had drifted away from the more practical aspect of the case till now, when, having alighted from his cab and rung the bell at the door, he realized with dismay that while his heart, his hope, his life itself, lay forever at the feet of the girl he j was about to see, he wa ■•, as a matter j of fact, to her nothing nore nor less than a kind-hearted stranger, who | had been ready to help her in a moment of distress. ! He was conscious of a weighty ! depression and of a curious pain in his heart as he found himself ushered into the hall and led up the wide staircase to a parlour. The hope, the delight, the joyous expectancy had gone from him in an instant, and as he stood by the fire waiting for Sigrid to come, he looked worn, harassed and gloomy. She noticed all this the very first moment her eyes rested upon him, and involuntarily her two hands went out to greet him instead of the conventional one. "How good of you to come and me!" she said, and her voice thrilled him through and through. "I have wanted to see you so much —so much." Then, before he could do more than murmur some vague words of greeting, she had drawn a chair to the fire for him, and had seated herself in another opposite. "We will talk for a few moments before Itake you to see Mrs Harlowe. She is most anxious to meet you, Sir John, and your mother also; but, of course, Mrs Bynge is not with you." John made a tremendous effort to control his dazed and troubled feelings. Honest as the day, it was not easy for him to dissimulate, and indeed the burden of his awakened thoughts seemed to grow heavier and more hopeless as he sat contemplating the delicate loveliness of the girl opposite. It seemed at this moment as if his love and loving plans for her had been almost presumptuous. She was just as simple, as selfpossessed, as proud as she had ever been. She wore the same blue-serge gown, and yet he felt she was changed. The atmosphere of the house she was in, the very fact of being no longer in a humble position, gave her a touch of more beauty, more dignity. To have conceived the idea of marrying her simply, to give her a home, to defy the world, was something he could not now understand. Sigrid, on her part, was studying him closely, and her heart contracted with pain as she noticed how tired and ill he looked. They talked of many things. Sigrid questioned, and he answered her. She heard all there was to say about his mother, his sister, his home, Millicent and Charlotte. When the maid's name was spoken, he remembered his errand. (To be continued.)