A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9151, 25 July 1908, Page 2

A HEART'S TRIUMPH.

By Effie Adelaide Rowlands, Author of "Hugh Gretton's Secret," "A Splendid Htiavt,'' ''Brave Birbrr.x," "Tl.o Temptation of Mary Harr," Lovo Story," etc.

CHAPTER X Xlll.—Continued

"Every fact, stated truthfully before a court of law," continued Mr Bulstrode, thoughtfully, "will go to prove toe base intention this man had in pursuing Miss Lacklyne; and her curious life, with its entire absence of all knowledge of the world and the world's ways, will at once proclaim how easy it was for such a girl to fall into the trap laid for her. If you will wait for me, Mr Darnley, we will drive together to find uur counsel. We must not let another day elapse before starting proceedings. I hope" you can spare me an hour or so." Paul quietly assented. "I would make such sacrifices," he said, "to do aught in my power to give that child her freedom. Now you will understand why it is she tried to hide from us, why she resolutely refused to touch a farthing of this money, which is hers, most assuredly. She imagined, poor girl, in her innocence, that poverty was her only safeguard. She did not reckon with the man's malicious anger. I hope to Heaven, Mr Bulstrode, we may carry this business through to a good end; for if we fail we must stand on one side and see that child's life pass into the keeping of a man blacker than any words of mine can paint." There was an indescribable tone of suffering in Paul Darnley's voice, and his whole bearing carried such convincing proof to the lawyer that he was deeply moved. "We shall not fail," Mr Bulstrode eaid hopefully; "and, even were we to do S3, measures must be taken to protect Miss Lacklyne. I forgot to tell you that I have had much correspondence with Sir Edward Lacklyne, the present owner of the White Abbey, on the subject of his kinswoman. Poor Sir Charles was held in abhorrence by all the Lacklyne family—not, perhaps, without some cause, for his.life, as we now know, was none too clean; but Sir Edward and his wife evince the greatest interest in Miss Cecil. I heard from them only yesterday, saying that, after consideration, they des'red me to tell the girl she would be welcome to share their home for ss bng as she liked. This latter business will make a difference, of course; but," Mr Bulstrode said finally, as the hansom stopped before the chambers of one of the greatest la.vyersin town. "I am jure Sir Edwurd will always befriend Miss Cecil and he further insists on hsr taking as her due inheritance all the money that Sir Charles Mt her, other than the entailed property." It was nearly mid-day before Paul was able to leave the vital question of Cecil's affairs, and turn into his own business. He was grateful in a feverish way for the necessity of working doubly hard. He wanted to escape thought; thought of the most cruel, bitter, horrible nature. A great mass of important business had been deferred the day before, when ha had received that supposititious telegram from Doctor Thorold, and he naturally found work waiting for him on this morning in threefold force. His clerks noticed that he looked strangely wan and worn, but they set it down to overwork. Paul, as we know, had seen the need for added devotion to his business very quickly after his marriage. The money required tor his pretty home and pretty wife proved to" be much graater than he had calculated, and he hal resolved to leave no stone unturned that should bring in a!l that was necessary. He found one or two fresh openings in his business connection this morning—little matters that would have given him such joy only a few hours back, for they signified financial satisfaction; but Paul had no joy in his work to-day. His heart lay like a dead thing in his breast; he saw nothing but the awful, the odious, fact of Dora'a falseness; he remembered nothing but those blighting, mocking words of Felix Bingham's that had proclaimed not merely her a treacherous act of yesterday, but the reason of such treachery. He had not seen her, nor spoken to her. Since the moment he had cj.U2ht her senseless form in his arm 3 and carried her up to her room, he had not even looked upon her. He had spent the nigl.t sitting alone in his study, and when morning had drawn nigh he had gone to his dressingroom, had changed his clothes, and gone out before the breakfast-hour had arrived. He did not want to speak with her till he had touched some good conclusion in his mind as to what, he should say—what he should do. At present he was like a man stunned. Except in all that concerned Cecil a .d her future, thought was chaotic. He could not realise the ful.-.ess of this terrible blight that hal fallen so s iJdenly and so unexpectedly over 113 brighttrss of his life; all he realised was that terrible hud happened, something h-jd changed tha whoh tenor of his existence, and caned a deflation in hb heart that S22ma:l akin wit'i death. He did not leave his office for luncheon, as »-ual. and ho would have worked on without food had not one of his ckr.es br ujjht him a hastily-arranged m:al f.'om a neighboring le.-tauran'. "Yo i will bo ill, sir, if voir don 't have aonething," the man said; and, indeed, he had some for alarm, for Paul looked shockingly ill. Darnley thanked the clerk, and, from a d.\sire not to seem indifferent, he forced himself to swallow the food brought, and then ho worked on steadily for another couple of hours, till an interruption came. The interruption was the entrance of a clerk bearing Michael Everest's card, and a moment later the young

man was in the room. He had the look of a man who was passing through some violent emotion; his face was pale, ami his eyes excited. "I hope you will forgive me for disturbing you," he said hurriedly; "but I had to come to you, Darnley. Something has happened that is of vital moment to the business we have in hand—something most unexpected, most terrible!" Paul Darnley looked upward at Machael. He was sitting in his chair, his pen still in his hand. "What has happened?" he asked, his voice catching the agitation of the other, and, laden with his heart's sorrow sinking to a whisper. Michael dropped into a chair. "Bingham is dead!" he answered unsteadily. "Yes, it is true," he added, as Paul started forward with an exclamation cf fear and horror. "Like you, 1 doubted; I could not believe that what I heard was possible; but 1 have just o>nie from his house. It is surrounded by an excited crowd and by the police. His body is guarded by the police also. I was not allowed to enter, but I heard all quickly. He was shot through the heart this morning by the dancer, Kate Kearney, who lies herself now at a hospital in a critical condition, having attempted to commit suicide after killing the man who, she declared, ruined her." There was a moment's silence in the room. Paul Darnley sat forward in a half-crouching attitude; his pen had dropped from his nerveless fingers. His feeling was one of horror at the awfully end to a life so base, so full of subtle cruelty; but after this feeling there crept another—one that not even so fine and good and generous a heart as his could subdue—a feeling of gladness that his man, who had dared to blacken the name of Dora, who had dared to sneer at and accuse her of shame, should lie dead and silent in all the splendour of his young manhood. Michael remained silent a little while; then he went on, speaking half-mechanically: "1 .left my mother's house this morning soon after you had driven away. I had nothing to take me out, yet I could not sit down and be inactive, and I wandered about for many hours, thinning only of Miss Lacklyne and what future it was that by before her now. It —it has seemed to me such an awful thing that this man has done, to wantonly work harm to a life so pure, so unworldly, as hers. Passing Irom the park to the street?, I met more than one newsboy shouting the contents of the early editions of the evening papers. There seemed to be the S me sound in all they said—the usual catch-penny phrase of a shocking murder in the West End—and I took no heed of it till, as I moved down Picadilly, my eye caught a bulletin-board notice, and the name oi Felix Bingham printed in large letters on it." "In an instant I had bought a copy of the paper and read the brief repcrt of the murder, and, with my brain on fire, I turned, as many another was doing, in the direction of the dead man's house, to see, to know, if this most terrible news was truf. The scene about the house," Michael said, in a low voice, "soon assured me that something had happened, and without need of questioning I was soon in possession of the whole facts of the case. It is a story »f sensation that will be readily seized upon by the public, for this woman is known to all the world, and the man had his world, too." (To be Continued).