THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9020, 6 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

CHAPTER I.—Continued. "So you say now, and when will that be? The Squire must be four or five years younger than you—they say he's only just thirty—and there's no reason why he should die before you. Besides, he's sure to get married, as people do —I don't say to Marjorie, for that would be farfetched; and then there would be an heir " "If he doesn't marry Marjorie Neyland, he never marries," said the man, turning to look at the turrets of a mansion br) a distant slop?. "But why not?" "Lack of time, Hannah; the registrar of deaths, jou know. Men like my own Robert are growths marked to be cut down next year. Of their allotted span they live a year in a month, and there's nothing slow about their life except the knells at its end. The muscles of the heart, you know —soft, soft as that chiffon round your neck, Robert looks like a stud-bull, eh? But the man is hollow- at the core —not that. There's a destiny, Hannah, that casts an evil eye upon some men, and brings things about." "Well, no doubt he does get through soms drink in the course of the day." "Not forgetting the course of the night; and if you add the fact that no other man in Yorkshire ever dreams of running such scatter-brain risks, you will have discovered some fairly 1 good reasons why my Robert will never have any heir but me, unless he happens to marry Marjorie now." "Oh, as for that," cried Hannah J vehemently, "don't talk of such a | thing. Yorkshire wouldn't hold her! Sh'e would be wanting to j make me her scullery maid! It would be good, that!" "Yet you must understand, Han- j rah," said James Courthope with a chilling emphasis, "that this thing is going to be —unless, perhaps, Marjorie rejects him." "She! Reject Squire Courthope!" "That is my only chance. She may reject him, for she seems to be in love with Philip Warren.""The cheek of her; to think of a gentleman like Mr Warren!" muttered Hannah. "If it's not one it's the ether. Anyway, she'd never dream of refusing the Squire. It would be more than her place is worth, for the Greyhound would become too hot for her when father and mother and Aunt Margaret heard such a thing. But then, that's all talk. The Squire is only having a game, with her, I suppose?" \ "That is exactly why you are here to meet me this afternoon, Hannah," came the measured words, "in order to learn that very thing—Robert is not 'having a game' with Marjorie. Robert means business; and, if you* are right in saying that Marjorie dares not refuse him, then this marriage is going to take place, unless we two can somehow prevent it." The woman's handsome if vixenish face took on quite a look of scare at this prospect of seeing her sister queening it at Edinhurst Court. "My goodness!" she cried, "to think that a few London airs and graces should make such a difference to a girl's'life! But 1 can't believe it! How du you know that the Squire really wants her?" "I have been certain of it for two days," answered Courthope. "His first intention, of cours3, was merely a pastime. Robert meant to chuck Marjorie under the chin, and kiss her, robustiously, but, in attempting it he experienced an electric shock. Sister Marjorie knows how to do these things apparently. She waxed tall in her tiny shoes, and, for once in his life, Mr Robert was awed. The great baby has given me the whole history of it. It took place on the little path between the Vicarage shrubbery and the Greyhound orchard three weeks ago last Thursday, and he says that she looked like ordering him to have his head removed. But it was his heart, of course, that the fool lost, then and there —or rather, the next day when he met her going home from organ-practice at the church, and she smiled, and gave him 'the little gloved hand,' and graciously promised to be friends during his good behaviour. Oh, she's a dangerous species of fairy, beyond a doubt. She bewitched him then and there; and now he swears that he'll wed her. Brandy and Marjorie—these two now make his heaven, and you might as well reason with that pale moon! They have met only three times

since, but those meetings have settled him. Besides, he has heard her playing the organ with Warren, and seen her at* tennis at Dr. Marston's. The man's mad of it. He came to me in the billiard-room near one o'clock this morning, red as those honeysuckle berries, leering like a satyr, and he poured it all out to me; 'Jimmy,' he says, 'l'll marry her! I've got it all planned out here in my noddle, and who lives will see. She may kick up her heels, and she may stick it on as much as she likes, but wed iu-r I will; she'.-; the one thing under »j snn that can keep me from the dririK now, and it' I don't get her, th 3 drink will me, Jimmy, the drink'll get. me.' My good fellow,' I said to him, 'you are too old to build castles in the air. The drink has vcollared you already, and you do very well with it.' 'No, Jimmy,' he said, vvi h !<is hand on my shoulder, "Lin dri.ik in bad, the drink is the devil—let us look at facts, in their true light. A man should be a gentleman ; a man should go in the good old way, and be able to \stand foursquare to his life. And Marjorie is stronger than wine, Jimmy. -The day she puts her little hand into 'mine, and says she is mine fpr the rest of the trin, you'il see R.C. a changed man; and that will be within days from now, as sure as I'm a giving man.' So you

By ROBERT FILLER.

[Published By Special [Axi Eights Piesehyei:-..]

may expect, a visit, at the Greyhound to-morrow, .Uuminh, if not to-night, I and thitif;-. wro driving fast to a , head. Can you !i,ar to sec it?" t "I can't," whimpered al- , most in "for it isn't fair. | One mighl f ;iy that I'd be proud to see my sistu." (ady- of the manor, but , why hc'.s i-sfiC; come back to Hudston?" , " You'd bfj: prouder to be the lady of the manor yourself, Hannah. And , that is your pfizts if we two succeed in quashing this madness of Robert's. It rnvts-trt be. If my wits cra'-k, if 1 f«<: vto take seven deviis into council, !'!! hit upon a plan to stop it. Are yo:i in with me? Are we together through thick and thin?" Hannah glanced round through the gathering gloaming, for the sun had now set, and she paled a little, but murmured tin: word, "yes" with her head Courthope, then, making a ■•ili.'p nearer 1 , slipped his arm aroum! bur waist, upon which she suddenly threw up her face, and returned his kiss with passion. "So it's the two of us, girl?" he said. Again she whispered a "yes" full of Tear. "You are n.->t a bad little lot," he | said, by way of rallying her back to I a more confident mood. "You do love me a bit?" she asked. He gave her a reassuring hug. "You'd much rather have me than Marjorie?" "How can you put that questionto me?" "If ever I find you hankering after Marjorie I shall hate you, hate you !" "Come, come. Pull yourself together. It is you and I against the world, I tell you. Our way won't be a very straight one, perhaps, but sometimes one has to go crooked. You won't mind that?" "Not with that, for I love you, James." "Agreed, then. What do you propose to do?" "I don't know. I leave it to you. I know too weli that if you make up your mind you will have your way, for you are one of those. The first time I saw you in the commercial room, sitting at the table with a newspaper, four years gone, I said to myself, 'There's a man.' From that minute you could have told me tn do anything and I would have gone and done it." "Is that so?" asktd Courthope, smiling. "Who would have guessed such a turmoil was going on inside the female mechanism? But now, you understand, Hannah —action is the word. You, see, of course, the salient fact of the situation in our favour. Marjorie and Philip Warren are in love; we must get them married in a hurry." "Marjorie and Mr Warren?" cried Hannah, unable to shake off her spite. "Who is Marjorie to be mar a gentleman like Mr Philip Warren?" "Be quiet, Hannah," said Courthope, more roughly than he had yet spoken. "Let me tell you, my girl, that you are in a state of morbid jealousy of your sister, and that this jealousy may chance to spoil everything. Women are like that; they are blind to the. obvious. But I desire to instil into my Hannah the rationality of a man's mind. Sentiment has nothing to do with this / matter. I say that Warren and Marjorie should marry in a hurry " "I heard you, quite plainly," broke in Hannah, withdrawing herself a little. "How can such a thing be brought about? Why, Mr Isambard would turn Mr Warren right out of the Vicarage. They say already that the Vicar isn't too good friends with his nephew, because Mr Warren is such a "dreamer, and all that " "Don't trouble your pretty head with points that don't concern you," said Courthope. "Do you care a pin whether Mr turns Warren out of the Vicarage or not? I was about to say that I think I see my way tov/ards bringing about a marriage between Warren and Marjorie before Robert can have time to snap up Marjorie. You know Warren's high-flown notions of 'chivalry' and 'honour,' and that species of fantasticalty. Well, my idea is, that if Warren and Marjorio were placed in a compromising situation and caught in it, Warren would be forced to offer Marjorie marriage forthwith.'' (To be continued.)