THREE MEN AND A MAID

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9042, 29 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID

CHAPTER IX. -Continued. i i "But the verdict, sir: you keepj .hat from me," said iViavjorie. J "Does it really matter; It was ivhar it had to Ik;." :-r.h) Mr lsam■ard gently. "Thf ceroucr toll' the lury that the question whether there, had been a duel or not w»:-:, he reared, ojit! far beyond their wit to dec-id-;:. Moreover, it had nolhiitg to do with the question whether or not Robert Gourthope was wilfully murdered. And the jury, after a whorl, hilfc, gave their verdict —accordingly." This Marjorie in her heart must have expected, yet; it fell upon her an such a shock that she sat in a stony silence, seeing a vision of.that eve.rioyous face of Philip Warren, which ,one week before had moved in sunVnine before her imagination like Apollo, and now was banished, branded, all overwhelmed in cloud and darkness. She was on her way to her rooms to hide her tears, when she was met by her mother, who, hurrying along with hat and cloak still on, said to her: "Marjorie, your sister is very bad, we've just put her to bed." Pulling herself together at once, the girl turned to go to Hannah, whom she had not seen since the tussle for the envelope. Either from the mauling through which she had passed that "day at the handd of the lawyers, or from such reaction after her high-strung state of the last few days, the verdict being now pronounced, Hannah was really ill, and lay flushed and turgid, with her face turned away to the wall, and a resentful tightening of her lips. "Hannah," said Marjorie, bending over her, "I am sorry to see you unwell. . I have come to help to nurse -vou." Hannah glared fixedlj at the wall, and made no answer. "You must see for yourself that I had to do what I did " whispered Marjorie. "with regard'- to showing •what 1 found in your dress. So there's I no reason why you should keep up j the quarrel." "Oh, my head!" wailed Hannah, clapping her hand to her eyes and forehead; and at the same moment | Dr. Lawrence came in. Marjorie remained in the room until she was no longer able to sustain her own headache. She passed most of the next day, too, by the sick bed. But Hannah, though now better, absolutely rejected her, would not speak a word. Marjorie, however, was stubborn, too, and kept up the siege of kindness till near five o'clock, when she set off afresh upon her self-imposed task of seeking the ring. It was then growing dusk, and again the ghostly qualms which had beset her the previous evening disturbed her nerves, and she had, too, a new feeling of the hopelessness of the whole undertaking, for projects, ,warm in their first blush, tend to lose their rose colour in the actuality of being carried out. However, there was no question of failing to be true to herself, and she went on; but in passing over the bridge, for the first timejthe thought of having some help in her search occurred to her at the sight of Felix at the foot of the hill on the other side of the river. was in trouble. At the farther end of the bridge was a . heap of stones for road mending, and from this arsenal three small boys were pelting him where he. stood twenty yards away, up the hill. As Marjorie came near ons was shouting : "It's as much ours as thine!" Anuther sent a stone with the cry: "That's for not playin' fair!" Felix stood without flight, without protest, but with his elbow before his crying eyes. Marjorie, however, rescued him, putting herself between him and his foes, and at the same time had the thought of taking Felix to Lancault. This poor simpleton at least would give her human company. "You come with me," she said, "I have a job for you, don't cry;" and the two went on up the hill together, Marjorie asking: "Why were the boys pelting you?" "Because they be naughty boys," whined Felix mournfully. "They be always peltin' me wi' stones an' they wean't play wi' me." "Girls arc nicer," said Marjorie; "why don't you play with girls?" "Girls wean't hev me at any price," sobbed Felix, with his arm over his eyes. "Poor Felix! despised and rejected of men. You are not the only one. Never mind, I'll have you, for, look you, about half an hour earlier than this each day I am going to Lancault to hunt over the enclosure for some-thing—-a ring -which has been lost there, and I mean to take you with me, and pay you so much a week. la that nice? Are you glad?" But Felix, who had a distinctive ■ dislike for anything in the nature of work and wages, exhibited no delight. He was kept alive by some tiny fund of money somewhere, and was of the freest soul in the world, blessed with the life of a bird. "I dussent go to Lancault, I doan't think," he answered at last. "But why not?" asked Marjorie. "T' boys say folk munnot gan there any more"—these being the only lords whom the free heart of Fel'it owned—"the boys." "Boys indeed!" cried Marjorie. "Would you rather do what the boys tell you, or what I tell you?" "I'd sooner dea what V boys telt me," confessed Felix with the perfection of frankness. "You unexpected person!" she said with a little laugh. "I won't :hear of such nonsense. I shall give you five shillings a week, and you will soon begin to like that when you get it. So you must come." "I'd rayther not," faltered Felix; "I doan't mind yance in a way, when they aren't lookin' "

By' MBERT PHASER.

[PULLISIIED ]JY SPECIAL AkKANGEMENT.] [All Rights Uemeiived.]

i "Nonsense, you must, and I shall j make it unite right with the boys for !.Vou.- ; J<'Y.'!;\- pondered over it, and said j again: "I'd rayther not: What be | ii you':; be lookin' for yonder?" j "A rinj?." "Won't my ring de as well? Ye can hev it an' welcome, on'y don't U-at t' boys be any the wiser." Marjorie looked at him in astonishment;, saying: "How did you come by a ring?" , "Those three boys down there say i that I got it at Lancault, and that's why -" Marjorie stood still, staring at him, breathing in little gasps, and suddenly pale, unable to speak fc the whirlwind of surmise that reeled through her mind, while Felix said again: " "TV) can hae't, an' welcome, on'y 1 wo-.kln't give it to t'boys, 'cause they didn't a?k me civil for it." As he spoke, a ring had come slowly out of the depths of his trouser pocket and lay on his palm, while Marjorie stood spellbound, half laughing, half crying, alternately pale and flushing, gazing with fascinated eyes at the ring which she had promised to spend a year in seeking. There it lay in an idiot's hand, looking quite whole and sound, though, in fact, the gold was cracked across under the stone; and at last, the spell breaking which held Marjorie | a statue, she was gone with the ring running down the hill, calling back at Felix, "I'll see you again soon'." Her first impulse led her to flaunt with triumph her treasure-trove before the eyes of Inspector Winter. For the ring found seemed to meaii the certainty of a duel, and, that established, many things might begin to take different proportions, assume different colours! The Inspector had bid her be gone to London, trusting in his own self-sufficiency, looking upon her as only a danger there, yet, already, she had done something. What all his care and wit had failed in, her luck had accomplished; so, in her high spirits and friendly rivalry with him, she hastened eagerly to the inn, meaning to ask him as a first question if he still thought that it would be well for her to make herself small in Hudston. But all this crowing in advance was extinguished at the inn door by the news that Inspector Winter was not there. He had left Hudston an hour before for Nutworth. He would be returning, he had said; but probably not for a week or so. This was a dash of disappointment in the height of Marjorie's joyousness, but she went oh home exulting carrying with her, beyond all hope, all marvelling, that ring. People in trouble are prone to superstition, so within the last days her feeling that, the ring once found and got to Warren, all the clouds would clear, had grown into a sort of certainty. And here was the ring! All that remained was to get those two objects, the ring and Warren, together, and then—hey, presto! This, in her exultation, seemed to her an easy matter. One difficulty over, the others would go down like nine-pins. It was merely a question of somehow finding Philip quickly, before the police laid their hands on him. Going in to the Greyhound in this buoyant mood, she met her mother on the stairs, and flung backward over her shoulder at her the cry: "I have found Mr Warren's ring, mother!" And a little further, in a passage, passing Aunt Margaret, she cried. "Found Mr Warren's ring!" Then, in her own loom she began to wonder why she had been in such a hurry to rush home, asking herself what next, and feeling wretched because there was nothing at the moment to do, save to sit inactive and stare at the ring, and let the wild throbbing of her heart subside. Presently she thought of her sick sister, and, locking the ring in her work-box, went to see how Hannah fared. Rather to her surprise, Hannah, who had not spoken to her all that day, received her now with something more or less like a smile. "1 hear you've found Mr Warren's ring?" was the greeting. "Yes!" said Marjorie. "Can I have a look at it?" asked Hannah. And Marjorie went and fetched it, and showed it to her. (To be continued.)