Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8494, 25 July 1907, Page 2

Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Author of "ScHna■:s Hove Start/," "A V'• "-"■'' ■ / <S<-arl," "Brave Barbara,'- "The TewpiaiU-ii .-.r liar," "Ihe Interloper," <■;<■.. /«-

CHAPTER XXlli.—Continued. And now here was Sylvia weeping and wailing, and disclosing at every word on what a poor foundation she had built up that story of Millicent's prospective broken heart and ruined happiness. "You must not trouble about her. She, is not worth a second thought; she ie a wicked, wicked girl," Mrs Lang-tone had cried violently, as the history of Millicent's flight had been gradually unfolded. "I am sure I, for one, am thankful she is not to be your wife, John, for she is a mass of vanity an.! selfishness." Sir John h"d refrained from words. To speak plainly would have been to practically annihilate poor Mrs Langtone at that moment. It certainly was a very bitter experience* for Sylvia Langtone. Nothing was so painful to her as to be beaten in anything. And then Millicent had been so cunningly clever. Who could have imagined that all the time she was so seemingly busy buying clothes for her marriage with John, she was buying them with the full intention of wearing them as another man's wife? As Mrs Langtone had told her brother pathetically, the idea of even so much as a flirtation passing between Miss Gretton and Lord Yelvertoun had never dawned on her mind. Mrs Langtone might have further emphasized this by adding that if she had imagined a flirtatious desire existed in the young man's mind for anyone, that flirtatious desire had been for herself. But here Sylvia Langtone had been wise. Whatever mortification she felt, and she did feel a great deal, for her self-love had been much flattered by what sh? took to be Lord Yelveitoun's admiration for his old friend Rupert's comely wife, she kept that mortification to herself. When a 1.1 was told, Millicent and Yelvertoun's letters had been read, and there was no more to say, John Bynge's sister became very uncomfortable. Johnnie stood so rigidly quiet, so silent. "If you are going to reproach me with carelessness, or anything of the sort, please do it at once, John. I would rather, far rather, have all the worry of this miserable business now, and be done with it," she had cried hysterically. "I am not going to reproach you, Sylvia," Sir John had made answer to this. "Millicent has made her own choice. Her methods of making this choice could have been better — for many reasons," his voice was not quite steady as he said this; "but what is done is done; and as regards this regrettable business, I should be the last to reproach you. Now, I advise you to rest, and compose yourself before starting for home. Say nothing to my mother. I will write. This will be a blow to her tender heart, for she loved the girl; but she must know of it —at once. I am now going to tne lawyers. Happily, my guardianship is not surrounded with any restrictions, and all that lies before me now will be to secure the new Lady Yelvertoun's wealth as j far as in niy power, and so stand be- j tween the young couple and all ex - travagant folly." He had left Mrs Langtone after this, and he had done as he said, and had gone to the lawyers, who were incredulous at first, and then inclined j 'to discuss Millicent's conduct very severely. Sir John had, however, quickly subdued this. "Miss Gretton only exercised a j woman's privilege of changing her mind," he had said, with a faint smile. ,"1 prefer not to judge her harshly. No doubt it was natural that she should yield to the temptation of a title and a younger man. I am not here to question or discuss this; ; all I want to do is to carry out such I wishes as I feel her poor father j might have had in view of a hasty j marriage of this character, and to enlist your services so as to guard | her fortune, and to prevent her hus- j band from playing ducks and drakes • with it." j An appointment was made for the next day, so that John could go into ' the legal aspect of everything, and J carry out his wise intentions; but his j visit to Mrs Harlowe's house had j changed his plans. He had turned to ; the thought of Sigrid at last with a sweap of joy, a knowledge of freedom so overwhelmingly great that he had been almost unmanned by it. He had never dared let himself remember her too clearly in those days that had followed their last meeting. Even when the release came he almost hesitated to go to her. He felt she would suffer so much at Millicent's faithlessness that it would be such a shock to her; but little by little the natural yearning to see her again, to lay his story a second time, at her feet, conquered, and ho found himself, therefore, in the twilight hour, once again waiting eagerly, breathlessly, for her coming. If it had been any other person less gentle than Mrs Harlowe, the man must have spoken out his first feelings of disappointment; but at the opening or the invalid's lips at the news she had to give him, self slipped away altogeher. He had a delicate task in soothing the proud heart of his gentle woman when she learned of the young man's rash and. in a sense, dishonourable act. Nigel's marriage with Millicent Gretton was something- very difficult for Mrs Harlowe to realise or to forgive at the first hearing of it. She had known him to be capable of much folly, but to her honest mind there was more than folly in such a step as this. She was deeply moved and troubled." "Oh, forgive him! forgive them both!" she pleaded to John, and, though he assured her again and again that he bad not a single harsh

thought toward eii.nor the young husband or wife, ii we.- evident to him that the blow hud ••■truck deep. All the tend'-"-, couX.-rung protective care of v/H-e John':- nature was capable we:;l i.-ur i-> hrlp this feeble creature. iie him.-eif proposed to act for her. Ho sen?, messages in her name to Lord Yeivertoem in Ireland, and to all would be nec-r■-•-;••• iv- in ihe event of death oomin;'. t..-. Akhea. Lady Yelvertoun. "Fruv ]U-[>.:■>;•■'■■. :L • may no'- die, for she ha.-: nmc-h u> live for now/' Philinpa Hra'ovvi: ee.id to John, when he rose to leave he-, ;i;>d then ehe clung to those Lie: f-tror:g hands of his. "You will !j'-m!.u L-igrki tu mo quickly —quickly if--the end corner? I cannot tell \m what I suffer when I think of'ail itul muot pass through the child's heail." "You may trust me. I will bring her back to you," John Bynge had said simply, and the next day he he.d evoked the Channel, and journeyed with a heart whose yearnings went far, far quicker than the train-wheels to join the girl whom he e</!iid now hold in his heart as a love that is born of hope, and that was his to claim before all the world.

CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION. the days that followed immediately there is no need to dwell. Quick and alert as John Bynge was in necessary preparations, the small party were still in Paris when they were joined by Lord Yelvertoun. The meeting between the two men was uncomfortable, but the cause that had brought them together so swiftly was one which claimed so many feelings that an awkwardness that under ordinary circumstances would have been excessive, scarcely existed at all. Lord Yelvertoun's coming was the signal for a departure to England. The dead woman was carried back to her last resting-place in the Yelvertoun vault, and im mediately after the cortege reached the other side there was a funeral. Sigrid would have gone with her mother's coffin to the Hampshire churchyard which adjoined the great house of Storr, where she passed her first few miserable weeks after she had left the convent three years before, but Sir John overruled this peremptorily. "I must take you back to Mrs Harlowe without delay. I promisee l ," he said to her. And so she went, so white and sorrowful that the man's eyes filled unconsciously with tears whenever he looked upon her. Except that she thanked him in her soft, low voice for all he did, and sometimes gave him a faint smile, no words, no explanations passed between them. It was not till she was bacK in Mrs Harlowe's room, sitting in the old familiar place, that Sigrid understood how it was that John Bynge should have been with her at such a time, and it was not until then that she realized how little she had questioned the strange fact of his presence, how much unconscious need she had of him, and how much support he had given her. (To be continued.)