THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9030, 17 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

CHAPTER -V.—Continued. "And if you fall, you give up Marjorie absolutely and for ever, Courthope, even if you recover?" "Well. I suppose-: I am .1 man of my word Yes; vhuever falls in this fight parts tbe:i and there with all hope of Marjorie. And if it be you, you disappear from he re for not less than five years. You hold no communication with Marjorie. You vanish out of hvv life. Is it agreed?" "Yes. The same conditions hold good for you?" "I pledge my word to it. Five years let it bs! And lot's both commend our souls to the High God above U3, Warren, for, mark you, it's a fight to the finish, till one or other of us is done for or disarmed." "Let it be so, Courthopo. You have brought it on yourself, whatever chastisement befalls you." "Well, we'll see how it turns, and may the fates give the victory to the best meaning of us two! I'll send off now post haste for my lawyer, and before nightfall all that I own, that's not entailed, shall be Marjorie Ney land's—and yours, if you floor ma." ' "That is as you please," said Philip, stung by the constant allusions to his poverty. ''l have only to make the condition that you be here by eight-thirty, since I have to be with that lady at the station an hour la'ter." "Thank your stars man, that you are so certain of it. . . ." muttered Courthope. He left Philip standing there with the awfullest pang which his heart had yet known. Courthope climbed the steep meadow by which he had come, but his cousin, James, who had crept up from the tree-shaded river bank, and heard most of this interview, lay in the bracken, till Robert was out of sight, and then crouched back like a fox. Turning once, when he had reached the shelter of, some trees, he saw Philip Warren at the little barrier-slab in the enclos-. ure, with his elbow on his knee and his chin on his palm, in the depth of ' thought. The spy instantly hastened to the Court, where he made for the stables with the breathless question: "Has any one been sent off to Nutworth?" The answer was: "Yes; Archibald has just been despatched in haste by the Squire with a message to Bennett, the solicitor." ".Saddle me Imperator," cried Courthope, and in some minutes he was gone galloping on his cousin's swiftest hunter. It was a long ride, but on the outskirts of Nutworth he passed Archibald. He was in converse with Bennett before the groom alighted at the office door, which had only just been opened, for little Mr Bennett was hanging up his hat and overcoat when Courthope burst in upon him, showing a face as inflamed with the passion of malice as that small lawyer had ever beheld. "Disinherit me!" Couthope hissed. "That is hte game! You are to be calledjto make a will, a deed of gift, something, in favour of Marjorie Neyland-the messenger is now at your door. There's a fight with small-swords on—to-night— Robert will bo killed—both he and Warren are rabid with rage Warren thinks it was Robert who locked him up in the tower, and the fight is to be to a /inish! Robert will be killed, sure; Warren's the betcer man " "Stop a bit! Sit down ! I can't take it all in at once " protested Bennett, whose ever pale face moved not a muscle, though a light leapt to his eyes. "There's no time, you've got to take i: if," cried Courthope wiping his brow. "There's a messenger outside, I tell you, and you'll pro/bably find the day too short for all. The question is as to the witnesses to this document which you have to draw up. If Robert is killed to-night, and you destroy the deed, the witnesses will 'want to know what the deuce has become of the thing " "But'is it certain that I shall destroy anything?" asked Bennett. "Whatever disposition your cousin chooses to make of his property " "Bennett, don't be a frivolous fool, when I tell you there's no time for humbug. You won't destroy it, you'll - hand it to me to destroy for you—just for perfect safety, you see. I quite mean, by the way, to be liberal as to your share in this particular deal, though all that must be left to my generosity—you have no voice in it. Bennett, you force me to be blunt, anew with each fresh piece of rascality we do together. Do you want accountants, to audit the estate books? But don't let us go over the old ground again. The question now is about these witnesses. Whom are you going to get?" The solicitor sesmed to be overborne by the whirl of Jam«?s Courthope's demands and threats. "There's Jeffry, my clerk," he muttered. "Yes, my friend, but it's the devil .■> own business this timo. Are vou suiv that Jeffry is sound to the L. I.9»» very heart: "Jeffry is all right," mumbled Bennett, lighting a cigarette with a shaking hand. "As to the other witness? asked Courthope. "Can vou suggest any one?" "Look here, I suggest Hannah Neyland " "What, the devisee's own aister. That might be risky, even though—"Do as I say. There's no one but Hannah, so you recommend her to Robert as~ the best of witnesses, being sister to the legatee. That's it! She and Jeffry let it be. Now, you can admit the groom; I'm back home- " Upon which James, Courthope hurried out, mounted and rode>ard for

By ROBERT FRASER.

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

Edenhurst, when he at once sent a note to Hannah, bidding her meet him at the bottom of the Greyhound orchard. There, near noon, he acquainted her with all that was impending, and instructed her to be in readiness to be called to the Hall as a witness, giving her his orders, and revealing everything in his heart and mind with that masterful confidence which men have in the women who are their slaves, never taking into account the possibility of change in the heart, or of the coming of that hour in which the woman hates and the slave mutinies. Thus the day wore on. Marjorie, for two hours, was at her Aunt Margaret's knees, coaxing with all her arts, winning pardon for the last night's escapade, now in the mouth of all Hudston, insisting on the dignity of being the wife of Philip Warren, the cream of aristocratic cream, and gaining the connivance of a heart withered yet full of romance in the running away planned for that night. The girl was all a-quiver with joy and hope. Little she dreamea that Philip Warren was even then waiting in Lover's Walk near the bridge for Felix to come., with his small-sword. For, from his retreat at Lancaulr, Philip had come down near to the village, though he would not enter it, and had hung abo'ut until he spied Felix, had asked Felix first to buy him a loaf of bread and some milk, and then sent him with a note to Davenport, the Vicarage butler, to bring him his rapier. About the same hour of the afternoon Hannah was summoned to the Hall, and when Mr Bennett said to her: "There—sign just there," she bent, with her hat and gloves on, over a document. "No, no; glove off, please," said the lawyer. She smiled and obeyed. The Squire was looking silently out of a window at the clouded sun, a sun which, perhaps, he was not destined to behold on the morrow. He paid no heed to Hannah, or the documents even, once he had read them. It nevei occurred to him, being a man of one idea, that Bennet might play him false. And so the long day sped. The gale had died away, but the heavens were grey and heavy, and here and there in the air fluttered some flakes of the year's first snow. As the sun set Phiip tore a sheet from his pocket-book and lying on his face over the grave-slabs which paved the little church wrote on it with a pencil: "If I be found dead, be it understood that I have neither destroyed I myself nor been murdered, but fell in I fair and equal duello with a gentleman whom I have as earnestly sought to wound as he to wound' me. God assoilzie my soul. Amen. PHILIP WARREN." This he put into his pocket, and sat, waiting for the rising of the ! moon and the foot of his rival. CHAPTER VI. THE DE WARRENNE ' SIGNET- ! RING. The two men took their stand in the church at opposite ends of it, the length of the tiny building lying east and west. Robert Courthope stood at the east end, Philip Warren at the i west, near the little door in the south I wall with a slab across it the ' entrance of predatory catt'.e. So small was the space within there, that when they had taken distance, their backs were only some few feet from the two walls, so that much play in the way of retreat was out of the question for either. It was not quite half-past eight, and over the ivy that clustered on the east gable-end the moon looked mistily down upon the grave-stones, and grasses peered between the roofless walls, and searched the two hearts which hotly stormed there over the bones of the old dead. The weather j had grown bitterly cold, and the tiny flakes of snow straying at times into the ruined church did not melt on the bared steel. (To be continued.) Persistent coughs that continue through the spring and summer usually indicate some throat and lung trouble, and it is a serious mistake to neglect them. Chamberlain's Cough Remedy is famous for its cures of coughs of this nature, and a few doses taken in time may save a doctor's bill and perhaps years of suffering. For sale by all dealers.