A GIRL TO LOVE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9093, 20 May 1908, Page 2

A GIRL TO LOVE.

CHAPTER XXlV.—Continued. Again she crossed over to tho window. It was a large, deep bay, and commanded a perfect view of the long white road which led to the town. There was no carriage in sight yet, there W£S no living thing to be seen. Mrs Craig resumed her seat, and resolutely turned her face from a leather bag which had been deposited with some things of Isla's in a corner of the room The hotel porter had dropped them gladly after a struggle up the stairs, and the leather bag had flown open revealing a heterogeneous conglomeration of men's things, and packed after the style invented by men. There were garments, collars, and slippeis, books, newspapers, letters, two pipes and a tobacco-pouch, and other surprising treasures. Mrs Craig had closed the .bag and snapped the fastening herself, and in so doing had seen the handwriting of ' a woman on an envelope addressed to Victor. The remembrance of it had inflamed her mind. Who was his lady • correspondent? She had put away the suspicion at first as unworthy of Pelham and herself, but since Jusper Trenwith's. call, the mystery surrounding her daughter's lover seemed to be expanding into colossal" and sinister proportions. She had got rid of Isla, determined to examine Victor's letters, and now she was ashamed and afraid. In ordinary circumstances it would be an unpardonable, if petty, crime, but ' She looked along the white road, ! and it seemed to tremble in the heat of the June sun. A long way! off there was a cloud of dust, and amid the (fust a pony carriage coming in the direction of Woodbine Cottage at a jog-trot pace. The dull-red sprang into her face rgain, and she glanced guiltily from side to side. The opportunity was slipping away—until it would be . too late! She heard the jog-jog of the pony's heavy feet, she heard the lajsy smack, smack of the driver's whip, and in a moment, was kneeling beside, Victor's satchel. i The envelope was ready enough to her hand, and she saw it was postmarked "'Worcester,"vbut it was empty.. With deft fingers she went thro'ugh a bundle of paper-?, a id then into the pockets of a loUnging-jacket. It was no crime- it was not even dishonourable. Victor Pelham would say nothing about himself, and at the same time was exacting her blind and implicit confidence. "Whoa!" floated up from the road. The carriage was waiting. Stie heard the driver's lumbering sfop on (he ' garden walk. She heard the knocker beating thunderously on the door. Then she f«tstened the leather satchel, but there was something crumpled up in her right hand, and her face was ashen. She tottered down-stairs, and through the pretty hall; she opened the door, passed out, and locked it after her; she climbed into the carriage, and, when the pony began to jog again, she read this letter, which she had stolen: "DEAR MR PELHAM: From thc| tone of your last letter, I quite expected that we should have seen you at Pendinas before this. I was so glad to learn that you had tired of slum-life, and I have been very anxious about your health. I sincarely ' hope that you are well. It. is not so veiy long since you went away, but to me it is like an eternity. Please let me hear from you soon, and if you come in person, that will be far nice? than a letter! Very sincerely yours, "NATHALIE LEIGHTON." As Mrs Craig read, her heart seemed to turn to ice. Her feminine instinct told her that the woman who penned that letter was in love-with Victor Pelham. She promptly built upon it the worst possible construction. "I must lay it before my poor child i 1 at once," she decided. "Oh, I have j been terribly to blame! My age—my experience—my motherly love, j should have guarded her !" The carriage stopped at the Beach Hotel, and she paid the driver. Then she folded up the letter, and placed it j in her purse for security. ! CHAPTER XXV. SUSPENSE. ! Nine-ten—e'even o'clock. The Reverend John Rutherford listened ar.xiously to every footstep on the stairs. Four times since nine o'clock he had walked to Mrs Craig's" lodgings, and the only news of Victor Pelham was a telegram from Wcr:ester—a vacuo sort of thing it was, too, the curate thought. "I think it is most inconsiderate Of Mr Pelham to keep us in suspense, at a time like this," Mrs Craig confided to him upon his last call. Unconsciously her right hand wanderrd to the pocket where she had hidden Natl nlie Leigh Un's letter, and a hard look settled in her eyes. "One wouLi think that no manner of business should be of moie importance than " But here her voice sank to a whisper, for Isla's step was heard coming ' from an adjoining room, where she had been husy with her wedding outfit. , "Something has happened- -something quite unforeseen," remarked Rutherford quietly, but Isla heard the words, and her face blanched. "What can happen, Mr Rutherford? Oh. how silly. I am, as though anything could happen. It isn't ten o'clock, and Victor said he wculd be late." (

By BERTHA M. CLAY. . Author of " Thrown on the World," " Her Mother's Sin," Beyond Pardon," " The Lost Lady, of Haddon," " Dora Thome," " An Ideal Love," etc.

"It's all right—only a bit worrisome," said John Rutherford kindly, "for you, I mean. Yuu must have some sleep," he added tentatively, for the night will be a short one." "Oh, I sha'n'c go to bed until I have seen Victor. J. couldn't rest." "It may be two hours yet. The last train doesn't get to Birmingham until about eleven." So John Rutherford went back home and waited, and when the church clock boomed tho hour of eleven, he began to get angry. Mrs Craig was right. Nothing in the world of a rr.ere business nature should be allowed to interfere with a man's marriage, and within a few hours of that marriage, too! The other lodgers were all in, and the house waa becoming silent. Tom Kennedy had been upon his best behaviour throughout the day, and the curate could hear the faint wailings of his violin. Kennedy was musical to the very tips of his fingers. The clock ticked off another halfhour. The last train from Worcester had been in just thirty-eight minutes, according to scheduled time, and Rutherford was now really alarmed. It wasn't merely inconsiderate of Pelham, it was cowardly—brutal, and that girl waiting, patiently, trustfully. Oh! the fiendish -music of that voilin! Either drunk or sober the man was an unmitigated nuisance! Then the sweet tenor voice was heard in a plaintive song: "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? , j Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fastflying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passes from life to rest in his grave. "The loaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high. Shall moulder to d'jst and together shall lie. "The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner who darad to remain unforgiven; The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. "Yes! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. "'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draft of a breath, From the blossom of health, to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier ami the shroud— Oh, why should the spirit of mortal 'be proud?"

The violin wailed for a few minutes after the song was done, then there was the sound of a boot hurled at Kennedy's door, from the hand of an irate neighbour. "Go to bed, Tom. It's nearly midnight," shouted a man's voice. Kennedy opened the door and shied the boot back again; then, seeing a light burning in Mr Rutherford's room, he walked across to the door and knocked gently. (To be continued.)