THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9029, 16 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

. CHAPTER V—Continued. "Ah, no 'howevers' either; 'however' is only 'but' in its Sunday best." "Dlessed tyrant! Would you make me a pensioner of your good aunt? That can't be, can ii?" " What, not as a debt? Would yon shrink from owing your wife a debt in money when she would owe you a million in love? And yon forget how proud Aunt Margaret will be to see me your wife I Juat think—l, a hotelkeeuer's daughter, and you more elite really than a cartload of newfangled barons! Think of the honour! of her satisfied ambition ! She will, and should, be only too glad to pay her all for it. So say yes. .... ah, how pale, how pale you look this morning!" i "Here is the soul of a hero in a I maiden's body," murmured Philip, gazing down upon her rapturously, with his hands on her shoulders. j "You have a prejudice in favour of my soul," retorted Marjorie, "so that we need waste no time in weighing your judgment. The point is that I have won my ease. You will not go alone, and if you start for London by the nine-thirty to-night, I shall then have my few belongings at the station, and I shall be standing under the Greyhound arcade waiting for you to pass. Let us go openly. What have we to fear? We can be married as speedily as may be. Meanwhile, I shall live at my old lodgings." "Yes!" cried Philip suddenly, Btooping to her, for, his face being turned toward the field with the oak in it, he at that moment caught sight of Robert Courthope swinging heavily across the meadow. "Yes, go now, dear—down that wayv- along the bank " "Is it settled, then?" asked Marjorie, her heart beating with delight at his quick eagerness, for she was blissfully unaware of the Squire's rapid strides down the steep hill. "Yes, settled," breathed Philip; "nine-thirty —good-bye now " "But " "No, 1 hav3 a reason. Pray go r.ow, dearest, for my sake—follow the river bank—nine-thirty " She reached up her lips to be kissed, and he had to kiss her, though he knew that a witness saw. Then re led her rapidly through the bracken, over a stone barrier, and so down to the water's edge, along which he watched her until she was hidden by some trees, though she turned twice and waved a joyous hand to him. When be came back to the church he found Robert Courthope waiting there, looking gloomily at him with the queer stolidity of a bull. The Squire's eyes were puffed and turgid, his aspect that of a man adrift and unguided on a sea of passions. At the mere sight of him,of one who had been a friend, whom he took now to be a betrayer, the pallor of Philip's face gave place to a flush of indignation. "Well, Courthope!" said he scornfully. The other scowled at him beneath his brows without answer. "I went to the Court while it was yet dark to look for you," said Philip. "I am glacl I did not find you." "You have done me and that lady a deep wrong, for which you deservo to he chastised to the bone, but as we both leave here for ever this very day- " "We! Who?" broke in Robert suddenly. "As that lady and I are going away— —" The Squire guffawed loudly , in the coarse banal way which sounded so strangely from the mouth of a man of birth and breeding. "Laugh'who wins! I understand that it must be bitter to you, Courthope, to see your scheme brought to naught, for though you have the satisfaction of getting me disinherited, the pearl of price remains on my side. Marjorie goes with me, if you can digest it, Courthope " "No, never!" "Oh, but she does." "And where do I—where do I—come in?" "You don't come in, Courthope—you keep out." "Better not anger me beyond endurance!" "You are already angered, and I | care not to what extent, though, I must confess, I enjoy the sight of your impotent furies." "But what .vrong have I ever done you?" came the frenzied cry. "Why should you strike me such a blow in the back, man? Haven't I been your lifelong friend? Why should you stab at me because you are the younger man, and have a handsomer face to .'ook at, and can talk small with the women, d n you? What wrong have I done you? You knew that I had set my heart on winning a girl's love, and just because of that, you step in and wheedle her away with your mincing cavalier mariners. Curse you! Why are you so bitter against mo!" "Si it is I who have done the wrong? Not you? How dared you turn the key of that tower, Courthope?" "Tower! I know nothing about any key " "Ah, you lie, Courthope. You forget that we heard your drunken laugh from the top. Mr Isambard, too, has told me that it was you who sent him there. You wore lucky that I didn't catch you last night, really." "Well, you've got me now," thundered the Squho, heedless of all save his passion and the taunt thrown at him, "and, what's more, I've got you; and one of us goes under. Mine isn't a boy's love! —it's all hot hell and high heaven to me, and you shouldn't have put in ycur smooth face, curse you, with your play-act-ing, for yours is all play, and dastardly at that, thinking to tamper

By iiOBERT 'FRASER.

[Published By Special Arrangement.] [All Eights Beserved.]

I with a young woman's life when you j haven't a penny to call your own—i y r "Ah?" growled Philip, touched in a sore place, "you first reduce me to beggary by a coward's trick, and then boast of it *.o me? I have heard of curs, Courthope " But the other thrust aside the imputation as a bull oft disregards the picador's lance: "I am thinkng of the girl's good as well as of my own," he said obstinately. "It was arranged between her father and me that she should become the lady of all this place till you interfered. And you, what do you offer her? I am only talking common sense! lam not upbraiding any one for his poverty !§.,But you feed and clothe her on your old books or your rapier, and the de Warrenne roll-of-arms? If you really cared for her as a man, I swear that I'd try to swallow it all; bu*;, you see, you don't; it's only a boy's fancy against a man's life and passion, life and passion, by God! If you take her away, you do so across my dead body, Warren!" "Even so she goes," cried Philip with a redder seam on his forehead. "Good! Said like a man ! Gad.'l hardly expected it of you. Let's fight for her!" cried back the Squire, trembling throughout his huge frame. "There is no need for me to fight for her," said Philip. "She is already mine." "That's where you're wrong," bellowed Courthope. "She is more mine than yours, as you'll see! Do you mean that her girl's fancy is for the moment on your side? True enough, apparently ! But on my side is power,. man, ownership, her father's wishes, all her interests, the oath of my own heart's blood. Yours? Already yours, is she? Why, in an hour's time her father will have her well locked up for me, until such time as she comes to her senses. * If she escaped, I'd have her captured like a runaway schoolgirl. Yours, you say? Not yet, quite! Mine, you mean—Warren, I warn you! But, come! I'll be generous. You may fight for her if it will comfort you to see the colour of your blood, since you say that you've taken her fancy. J'll fight you with the smallsword." "I should have little to gain " | began Philip, carried out of himself by his adversary's cool truculence. "Yes, you, would," broke in Courthope. "I have it all arranged in my head, for I have seen clearly a.il this damnable night that one or other of us must go under in this quarrell, and, if it is I who fall, that solves for you the difficulty of the poverty, since you marry Marjorie a rich woman, for to-day I make over to her about all that I possess. . . . There, you can't have it fairer than that. If you take her, you have my all with her. It's Marjorie I'm thinking of, mark you, her good first. So whichever of us wins her, has the money with her. D it, man, that's fair. Let's fight it out with our bodies." Philip stood silent with his eyes cast down; then, in that mortal moment, there came from him the murmur; "Courthope, you tempt me." "What do you say?" asked Courthope. "I didn't hear you. Is it to be now or later on? Only cowards put uff to next week things that are bound to happen some time." "Courthope," cried out Philip, "I warn you that I am bitter against you! I might kill you, Courthope, if we fought!" "Kill me? Try it! It's bitter against bitter, I tell you, and let the bitterer of the two bite to the heart! Kill me, is it? Far better you did that than rob me of my promised wife. Well, I'm ready to be killed! Give me the day to settle my affairs, and we meet on this spot to-night." "But it is you who ask it remember, Courthope, not I!" came the protest. "If the spirits of my forefathers, who fought manfully in many a quarrel, watch me now, they wuuld hardly own me were I to shrink from a challenge so direct and boastful. "But it is you who press it, Courthope, remember, though you know —though you know—that lam your master with a rapier." "No, I didn't know—it's news to me," said the Squire heedlessly. "If you are my master, so much the better for you, eh?" (To be continued.)