Hugh Gretton's Secret.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8495, 26 July 1907, Page 2

Hugh Gretton's Secret.

By EPPSE3ABELAIDE ROWLANDS. author of "Selirtaa Love Story," **A Splendid Heart," "Brave Barbara," "The Temptation of Mary Bar," "Jhe Interloper," etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXlV.—Continued. The story Mrs l-larlowe had to tell her oi Lord Yelvertoun and Millicent Gretron filled Sigrid with incredulity and some sharp pain. Like John, the futility of the enormous sacrifice they both had made for this girl came upon her weightily; then this thought was followed by the regret that any gill tv.ulu iiavo so willully played wi'h so .serious a matter as a man's heart and happiness. She felt sorry, too. for young Lord Yelvertoun. She had grown i'ond of the boy in a way, and she was sure that this hasty marriage- must bo provocative of future trouble. In fact, work was cut out for Sigrid on her return to Mrs Harl.nYe's house. She found the invalid implacable in her hurt anger against her nephew. A most penitent letter had been written by young Lord Yelvertoun to his aur.t Philippa, but the blow her boy had struck her in acting so wrongly was something the proud heart could not easily forgive. The anger svas sharp against Millicent, too. "A good, really good nature, could never have done this thing," she said sorrowfully to Sigrid; and Sigrid, although in her heart she agreed to this, tried to make excuses, and even explanations. "They are both children," she urged, in her gentle way 4 "We must not judge them too harshly." "I cannot forgive so easily, child," the blind woman replied, almost bitterly. There was much to be said between Sigrid and herself o*.i the other subject. Now that the grave had closed over Althea, Lady Yelvertoun, the seal of secrecy was taken from Philippa Harlowe's lips, although, had the dead woman never enlightened the girl as to their relationship, Sigrid would never have heard of it from Mrs Harlowe. The whole story of her mother's girlhood was told in sympathetic and picturesque words. Her father's portrait, was given to her to look upon, his old letters, written in the first anguish of despair, were put into the girl's hand. She learned of the secret marriage, then of the shame and accusation of forgery which had been brought against her father by his own brother, then of the hurried flight of Hugh Huntingdon. wihich Philippa Harlowe had never ceased to deplore, as it left the brother's cruel accusation undefended, and a lasting slur on the ether's life and honour. Nothing was now hid from Sigrid, and the girl's soul was in her face and eyes as she followed the lines of that bygone romance as far as Philippa Harlowe could sketch. It made a terrible impression upon the girl to realise that she had not merely stood face to face with her father, but that her living resemblance to the mother who had disowned both herself and him was the blow that struck him down. "If I had only known —oh! if I had only known!" was what her heart said to itself over and over again. She had a sense of divided love; she yearned over the beautiful dead woman who had been so cold, so hard, so selfish, yet who had repented at the last. She felt a pang of mortal pain as she remembered that poor, suffering man whose death on board the steamer had seemed, even in her ignorance, a personal sorrow to her. It gave her a thrill of jealousy to realize that Millicent had been al- i iowed to claim that dead man and to xnourn for him while even the very j meaning of her loss had never come to her. Mrs Harlowe discussed very openly the question of letting young Lord Yelvertoun's wife know her true position. "For aught we know, she has no claim whatever to this money, Sigrid." But Sigrid was against any plain speaking. "I do not desire that sha shall know the truth," she said hurriedly. "We are in no position to prove anything further than that I was the •child of that esrly marriage. This money, from wherever it came, belongs to the girl whom my father called his daughter. I would not, I could not, take one farthing of it. I have so much; money has no place in all that I c hall treasure now. Moreover I have never known the need or the power of money. Ever'to divide this fortune with her wou d be a robbery." "Let it be as you wish, Sigrid, dear one," Mrs Harlowe said, in answer to this. "To take the money from her would have been a punishment. r.o doubt, but though my heart is bitter against her for her broken faith so that good man, and her wrong in letting my nephew do a wrong. I do not desire to be too hard upon her. 1 only wish not to see her.'' But c-ven here she found herself gradually influenced by Sigrid. "Lord Yelvertoun is more unhappy than lie can endure; will you not see him, and tell him you forgive him, dearest?" the girl was always whispering, and there came at last a day when Mio invalid yiekl.nl to this pleading, and that young Lord Yelvertoun and his fair-haired bride, the latter horribly nervous and on the brink oi tears, were ushered into her room and were forgiven, not en'husiasticall5 r , but sincerely. "It is for Sigrid's sake I do this," Mrs Harlowe said quietly to her n2phew. Sha did not intend to let Miiiico:ic know the truth, but she did irit-iiv! thai; her isephow thould labour under no further mystification about, the girl she loved. Consequently on the first opportunity, fihe gave him the true story of Sigrid's birth from the bug : nniiig. will remain 'Carleton' by iu:s:o i:r,w till she changes it tor & vjthpr, but she is really Sigrid

Huntingdon, and a member of a family 'that ranks higher even than your own. You are sworn not to speak of this, Nigel, but I tell it to you because I consider you ought to know." "It doesn't matter what her name is, she is an angel, anyway/' the young man said, in reply, and indeed Sigrid's loveliness and sweetness had never been so powerful as in these days, when in her simple black frock she had hidden her grief in her heart, and done so much to help him. * 51= * * She did not change her name for many months. "1 cannot leave her," she answered John, when he asked for his wife to come to his home, and the tears would come as she added: "It will not—alas! it cannot be long now!" They were married in the autumn, a month after they had said a last farewell to Pliilippa Harlovve. Death had come to her slowly but surely, but it had been a very* sweet death, and she had gone with a sigh of contentment. Then, and not till then, would Sigrid hear of marriage; but, when her duties were over, she turned like a child to the man she loved. "Nov/ we will go home," she said simply; and home they went, to be welcomed by Mrs Bynge with a joy that wiped away the last lingering trace of the pain Millicent had given her. Mrs Langtone was op.enly delighted at her brother's marriage. "She is so-beautiful," she declared to everybody; "and then she is so rich, too." For Mrs Harlowe had changed her will and left everything of which she was possessed to Sigrid, greatly to the indignation of the Countess of Yelvertoun, whose wealth, great as it was, was none too great for her extravagance. "One might have known what to expect," she had said to her husband. "A girl like that would never have bored herself by nursing a sick old woman for nothing." And later on, when the news of John Bynge's marriage came to her ears, Millicent was v<ry spiteful and jealous. She had be;, a nearer loving this man than she would, or could, ever love any human cx-eature, and his marriage gave her a pang that lived long. "An ex-lady's-maid is scarcely the fit mistress for Big Drylstone," was what she said to Yelvertoun, but his anger with her for such words were so great that Millicent was frightened and took refuge in tears, as was her rule. Away in Big Drylstone spiteful words were not even imagined. Sigrid and her husband were so happy. Lcve gave to the girl an added beauty. The people thereabout were amazed at her proud, tall loveliness. Once, when they were walking home at dusk, through the grounds, John took her up to a big old tree, and showed her a cross carved on its bark. "When it was very, very hard, I used to come and look at this, and say to myself the words I said when I cut it there, 'For love of Sigrid.' It always helped me, dearest." She lifted up her lips and kissed him. And thus continued the happy life which followed the revelation of "Hugh Gretton's Secret." THE END.