A GIRL TO LOVE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9101, 29 May 1908, Page 2

A GIRL TO LOVE.

By BERTHA M. CLAY. Author of " Thrown on the World," " Her Mother's Sin," Beyond Pardon," „ " The Lo3t Ludy oC Haddon," " Dora Thome," " An Ideal Love," etc.

CHAPTER XXXl.—Continued. "You will dine with me, Trenwith? My food is brought in here; I'm as helpless as a baby." "I couldn't eat a morsel, thanks." "I heartily wish the mystery about Polham was cleared up, and I hope he has gone to the South Sea Islands, or some similar place. We've certainly had no peace since he came here. There would then be some hope of Nathalie estimating you at your real worth. Fortunately, you won't meet her here to-day, as I made sure that she had gone to the Carripgtons' before I sent for you As for Pelham, I wouldn't waste five minutes thought or energy upon him. These men of genius, so called, have rarely an atom of common sense. I knew one who used to disappear periodically, and wait in some London slum until his agonized friends had an army of detectives in search of him. Then he would turn up smiling. He made love to every girl he knew, simply by rolling his frenzied eyes about, and it was lucky that the Lord saw fit to take him in his golden youth. He was a source of unrest to everybody, and Pelham is another of them." , i "Hush!" .Jasper Trenwith held up a warning finger. He heard Miss Leighton'd quick.Step in the hall. "No light yet, Parkes," she remarked ta the butler. Her voice was clear and cold. "Are you enjoying blind man's holiday? Quick, I wish to read this telegram. H'm! Nothing discovered in the mines, or the canal. Horrible—horrible!" She gave a shuddering sigh. Trenwith felt that his heart had turned to ice. He glanced at an open window. "You can get out that way unnoticed," Sir Charles said, in a shrill whisper. "Why should I?" Trenwith asked coolly. "I never ran away from man or woman yet." CHAPTER XXXII. LOVE, THE ENNOBLING. "Oh, papa, how you* delight in dark places!" Nathalie exclaimed, walking into the room. "Yon are there, of course, but I can't r.ea you for the moment, my eyes are so dazzled by the light in the hall." "Yes, I am here, darling, but " "You didn't expect me until late? .Oh, I couldn't rest at the Carring- • tons', knowing that you were so lonely, and I was anxious, too, about —about other happenings. 1 pleaded a headache, wnicii wus norfectly. true, and I am here. Now, you sha'n't dine alone in this stuffy room," Sir Charles moved his bad foot ai d groaned. "My dear, can't you see that I have a visitor? I sent for Mr Trenwith to thank him for his magnanimity—his munificence " NaihaJie started, and turned icily cold. "I very much regret that you should have done so, papa. You know that it ia distinctly against my wish. I, personally, refuse tu accept anything at the hands of Mr Trenwith. Is it noble and high-souled to return that which he has cheated you of?" She laughed lightly and scornfully. "Nathalie!" Sir Charles exclaimed angrily. "Mr Trenwith ia my guest, and under my roof. He is here by my invitation. If I gambled and speculated—l alone am to blame," "No, my dear Leighton, I tricked you out of Pendmas—with an object." Jasper Trenwith .walked from the shadow of the window-curtains, and selected a chair directly opposite to Nathalie. "And if Miss'Leighton will deign to listen— —" "I don't relieve that you can tell me anything new, Mr Trenwith," was the disdainful rejoinder. She shuddered again. "Roguery, chicanery, and lies, with a little religion thrown in! Always with one object in view—gold!" "Not always, Miss Leighton, though I must acknowledge that your analysis is not Very wide of the mark. But gold has not always been my object. There ia something far more ennobling—love!" Nathalie Leighton was horrified. The man's luminous eyes, his cool auda :ity, fascinated her. She understood his meaning well. ; "You hear, papa!" she Said faintly. "And you have probably touched cue hand of a manster. He glories in being the worst man in all cioation!" Sir Charles shook hi 3 head sorrowfully. "I hope you two aren't going to quarrel," he said. "No, my dear Leighton. This littlj interview was bound to t ike oiiui-. sooner or later, and '---he modulated his voice—"open confession ia good fcr the eon!, .'tis said. Your daughter a :cuses me of unscrupulous villainy, and 1 plead guiily. I have amassed millions from j othing, and no man can do that vvi'lioufc imperilling his mortal roul. men have some form of rro.'ial worship; if not noble —then ignoi.L-. From the hour I formed an estimate of human kind, my god was gold. My estimate may' have been a i erroneous one, but it fitted in -with my ambition. My father died m poverty, a crushed and broken man; iriy Hi 1 /tiier had already succumbed to thy cr city of an unfeeling work 1 , juk! 1 registered an oath that nothing ghoul I stand between me and the god I had set up to worship. I lived for nothing else, and for nearly forty yearj I have schemed and slaved and robbed, as the law allows. Upon the rich I have had no mercy; the poor I have ruled, after the manner of the old k . c .v.s of the road. And I have

givei much to churches and charities. Occasionally tliese gifts have been refused," he smiled reminiscently, "but vlways by men almost as wicked as myself." "I observe that you say 'almost'," Nathalie interposed, with curling upper lip. "Papa, to what is this shameful recital a prelude? Do you propose giving yourself up to the police, Mr Trewnith?" "Not for the killing of Victor Pelham," he retorted. "When your evidence is complete, Miss Leighlon " He stared at her sorrowfully—reproachfully. "How can you believe that of me?" Nathalie covered her eyes with her hands. lie seemed to be reading her very soul. "Oh —go, please go! Everybody believes it! Everybody knows it!" "What a wizard I must be. Miss Leighton, if I swear to you that my last words with Pelham were of the friendliest nature—if I swear that we gripped each other's hands, with our hearts there, too, would you still believe that I have hurt a hair of his head?" "I'm positive that you have not," Sir Charles blurted out. "Nobody has hurt him; he's just arrusing himself, and laughing in his seeve. Business has turned out badly, and he and Owen have gone for a change of air. All the arguments in the world wouldn't make me believe different; and now that the pits and the canal have yielded nothing, I am surprised at any sane person worrying over the matter. Bah! It would make a pretty opera-bouffe plot." He flashed a glance at his daughter. "With the romantic light-o'-love business thrown in, of course." "And what a howling villain I should make!" smiled Trenwith halfsadlv. "But as for Pelham, he is too lofty-sou led to trifle with a woman's love." Nathalie made a petulant gesture, and laughed scoffingly. "Pray finish your very interesting confession," she said, rather confused, and glad of the darkening twilight "We've had enough of this sors of thing," Sir Charles grumbled. "Trenwith beat me at a game 1 know nothing about, but he has returned his winnings. I*, was merely the sport of the professional gamster, I take it—-for the love of the thing." ' "No, Leighton, it was for the love of your daughter. The minute I lirst beheld her, I decided that she should be my wife, I was more than double her age, but that it no wise deterred me. I had absolute condfience in myself. If I couldn't suc- ! cued in winning her by fair means, I would do so by foul means. I never let anything stand in tl.ie way of my desires. I gathered you in my net, Leighton, but I didn't meditate returning my winnings until Nathalie" —the name lingered lovingly on his lips--"until Nathalie was my wife." "Your wife!" she shuddered. "Yes, my wife." "Odious! horrible!" Nathalie ! sprang to her feet, wrathful, but trembling. "What have you gaired? JMy hatred and disgust ! Where now ! is your will—the wonderful will ' which breaks men and circumstances | like rotten twigs? Now," she point- | ed a trembling finger at him, "let me j toil you the motive —your motive — for removing Victor Pelham. You believed him to be in love with me — [ lie was the one obstacle " "No, no, Nathalie!" ! (To be continued.)