Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8493, 23 July 1907, Page 2

Hugh Gretton's Secret.

By EFFIITADKLAIDIS ROWLANDS. Author of "Selinas Love Story," "A Splendid Heart," "Brave Barbara," "The Temptation of Mary Bar," "The Interloper,-' etc., cic.

CHAPTER XXI.— Continued, Her ill-health had passed from her considerably, as we know, and, save that she was very slight and deli-cate-looking, there seemed to be no further cause for anxiety. Lord Yelvertoun found her quite charming;he had asked another friend to the little dinner given in one of the smartest hotels of the metropolis, and he and Millicent had ample opportunity fur making acquaintance with one another. She was not, of course, so beautiful as Sigrid, but she was very pretty, and Lord Yelvertoun found himself forgetting that grave lovely face that had bewitched him so much each time he went to his Aunt Phil- . ippa's house. He had not remarked "that Sigrid had grown less smiling and paler when he had rejoined her in Bond Street. He apologised for leaving her, and explained what had detained him. "I recognized one of your friends," Sigrid told him, when he ceased for a moment, "Miss Gretton was on board the same steamer as Lady Yelvertoun and myself. Her—her father died on board." There was a hush in Sigrid's voice as she spoke of Hugh Gretton's death. The sight of Millicent had been a ping to her own innermost heart; it brought up the vision of John so clearly; it pent back all the strength her courage, her will, and her prayers had given her. She was weak and tired as she walked on through the sunshine, and beside and beyond her own pain there was a throb of sad remembrance for that worn, prematurely aged man whose illness and death were things that would never pass away from her mind. She did not judge Millicent; it was only so strange that one who had had so much and lost it so terribly could have been able to smile and be merry, and think of clothes : and finery, when the grave had but so Tecently closed over her only parent. She parted from Lord Yelvertoun with a smile, but there was no smile on her face" as she walked up to her room. For the first time she was bev set with doubt. This little glimpse of Millicent matched so ill with that last memory of John. Had she done well in sending hiin from her? Was it the right thing to have urged a man to turn to a future that was not merely antipathetic, but might be something worse? She had quickly seen and gathered that Millicent was a spoiled child, and this had seemed to her but natural, all things considered; but somehow that one glimpse of the girl, smiling and eoqueting with Lord Yelvertoun, had given Sigrid an insight into the character of John Bynge's future wife that made her shiver with sudden dread. She dropped into a chair, and her hands lay trembling and coid upon her knees. All the love she had tried to subdue rushed up in her heart as she harboured these •thoughts. Shekept the tears back bravely, but the effort was tremendous. Sacrifice of self was a lesson that Sigrid the child had been taught day by day, hour by hour, in her faroff convent home. The lesson had come to Sigrid the woman taxing her noble obedience to almost an unbearable extent. Thought of her own blighted future had not half nor quarter the bitterness which thought of John's possible sorrow brought her. She felt for a time as though she would never be able to, conquer the difficulty of this moment, but her feebleness did not last. While Lord Yelvertoun was laughing and flirting with Millicent at his small dinner-party, Sigrid was sitting at the piano in his aunt's room, singing and playing soft lullabies to the invalid, with no trace of her deep emotion visible to the eyes of even those who could see.

CHAPTER XXII. A SECRET MARRIAGE. There came suddenly a great sur-1 prise in the monotonous life I was leading. The days of early J spiring were slipping away, April had come in place of March—a ■windy, wet April. Mrs Harlowe | seemed to improve with this weather, and Sigrid felt her oppression lift a little when she s opened her window, and breathed the fresh damp air. She took long walks on these days, coming in refreshed and reinvigorated, and never forgetting to be grateful for the divine help that had drawn her through her first .and greatest heart trouble. Lord Yelvertoun never came to accompany her in these walks. He had seemingly varnished for a time. "Some new attraction, I suppose," Mrs Harlowe said to Sigrid, with a faint smile, and Sigrid wondered vaguely why there should have been a hurt to her in thesa words. From John, and of John, there came to her no news. She sometimes vearned to know how it was with him. She had to sit and hold her hands tightly clenched till the long ing to write to him had been conquered. To please Mrs Harlowe she ivas working hard at her music and singing. It was a solace to herself also. Life, but for her yearning love, and the struggle with that love, would have been very happy to her in these days. Mrs Harlowe's friends and relations, too, were all kind to her. •Sigrid's beauty was her best passport, and, if any of the kinspeople had been inclined to-doubt and regard the girl with distrust, her gentle, sweet manner soon dispelled these feelings. Her presence was like perpetual sunshine to the invalid woman to whom she now belonged. It was rot the fitful, gay sunshine of girliehness; it was the mellow, warm, „ steady glory of a beautiful, calm,

innocent nature. Mrs Harlowe weaved many dreams about the girl as she lay on her pillows. "If Nigel were different!" she would think sometimes. But to mate Sigrid with Lord Yelvertoun, even in her imagination, was never possible. "There will come someone else someday," the blind woman would say to herself, with a smile and a sigh mingled. Into this peaceful communion of love and sympathy there came a sharp interlude. It was a letter written to Mrs Harlowe. The writing was in pencil, the characters weak and irregular. It was from Althea, Lady Yelvertoun. "Send Sigrid to me," she wrote. "I am ill, dying. They tell me to hope, but Ido not wish for hope. I am glad to die, but I want my child with me. I want her forgiveness. I want her. She must come quickly." There was another letter frorr Hannah Carleton, telling how her lady had caught a severe cold driving in the Bois, how she had been seized with bronchitis, and inflammation of the lungs, and how other complications had supervened. "She is very, very ill," the woman wrote, and there seemed to be a touch of heart in the stroke of her pen; "she is very ill. I have written to his lordship, and I make so bold as to write to you ma'am, for the young lady had better come over without delay." Philippa Harlowe had one moment of combat with herself; then she called Sigrid to her, and put the pencilled note, written from that sickbed in Paris, into the girl's hands. "You will go, my dear one?" she asked. Sigrid read the words with eyes and senses that seemed to belong to another. When the line, "I want my child with me," was reached, she gave a great cry. Her heart itself seemed to open; she trembled in every limb, then a mighty flood of eagerness took possession of her. "Oh! I must go at once —at once!" she said brokenly, as she was running away; she turned back again, and, bending over Philippa Harlowe, she kissed the worn face passionately. "You are my true mother, but 1 must go to her. Pray Heaven I may be in time!" ****** Mrs Harlowe was lying alone and sorrowful two or three hours later, wh'en a maid not Powell, for she had gone with Sigrid—came in to say that Sir John Bynge was below, and desired to see Miss Carleton, or, if that were not possible, to speak with Mrs Harlowe herself. "It seems very important like, ma'am," the servant added. Mrs Harlowe waited Sir John's entrance apprehension. John came to her most tenderly. "Forgive me," he said, and his voice had a curious sound in it; there was trouble, and yet there seemed to be the thrill of joy, of exaltation almost. "I did not wish to disturb ynu." "You want Sigrid? She is not here; she has gone to Paris. Lady Yelvertoun sent for her. The child started this morning." John sat down. It was a great disappointment not to see Sigrid, and yet there was relief also in this disappointment. "I hope Lady Yelvertoun's condition is not serious?" he said gently, curbing his own impatience. Mrs Harlowe's brown eyes filled with tears. "I am afraid it is most serious. I have sent to my nephew, and entreated him to go to Paris to-night." John Bynge drew his breath. "Your nephew cannot do this, Mrs Harlowe," he said, as calmly as he could, "for he is far away from London, and from Paris, too." Philippa Harlowe turned her eyes on the man beside her. "You have something to tell me; speak it out quite frankly. I like to know all there is to know at once." John bent his head and kissed her hand. "Your nephew, Lord Yelvertoun," he said simply, "left London yesterday in company with the lady who was my betrothed, and is now his wife. They have gone to Ireland. They were married secretly yesterday morning, and left for Ireland immediately after the ceremony." (To be continued.)