THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3076, 22 December 1908, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER V.—Continued. He turned red at sight of her there. She stared blankly at him, and then round the room. There was no sign to show how he had entered. He was standing there in middle of the room when sne first discovered him. "Where is your mistress?" he demanded, looking uneasy and ashamed. He had forgotten all about Barbara till he saw her. "Did you knock, Mr Heathcote? I did not hear you. You had better go into the next room. This is my mis tress' bed-chamber, and she has not yet risen," uttered Barbara, in rapid syllables, recovering her selfpossessed and growing dignified and authoritative at every word. "Ah!" Keathcute caught his breath excitedly and flashed a vivid glance abou 4 . him. The heavy silken curtains swept close about Edith's couch. He could not see her, or guess if she knew he was. there. "Come!" Baibari held the door open. Servant as Sie was, there was something commanding in her voice at that mcnunt. Heathcote hesitated an instant, then obeyed it. He passed into the next chamber, and stood looking about him with the same uneasy expression. Barbara watched him with grim eyes and set lips. "If yon want the measure of the rooms, six*, for anything, I can take it for you," she said presently, in a stony voice. Heathcote stared at her. "I wanted to speak with my cousin about a little business," he said finally, and, oppressed by the woman's relenting eyes, moved towards the door into the hall. "I'll come some other time." Barbara glared after him, as he went out. "You'd better not come, again," she muttered. "I've found out one thing, anyway. If there is any secret door, it's in the bed-chamber, and my mistress sha'n't sleep in there, nor stay in there any more. We'll lock that room up, and thus thwart Mr Randal Heathcote!" CHAPTER VI. A BRIBE REFUSED. Edith had breakfast in her own room. She did not make her appearance iu the drawing-room till evening, when she swept in looking superbly handsome. Iler bhck velvet dress fitted her exquisite form perfectly, and trailed after her in rich folds. Kandal Heathcote muttered an exclamation as he saw her, and a look of pain crossed his face.

"Has Barbara told her I was in her ruoms this morning! I would give a great deal to know," he said to himself, as he watched Edith move with her swift, haughty grace across the room. "I ought to have bribed that old woman not to tell. I wonder if I could not buy her over to my interests yet. I'll certainly try." He went accordingly, and knocked at the dour of. the Nell Gwynne chambers.

Barbara Fane opened it, and the moment she saw who it was, placed herself in the doorway. "You mustn't come in here, sir,'.' she said sternly, "It'll make mischief if you do." "Your mistress is not here now. I only want to speak a few words with you."

"You can say al! the words you like to me, and J'd like the chance to say some to you," said blunt Barbara; "but you can't come in these rooms by *»y consent, so long as Mrs Tyrrell occupies them. We won't have-you seen coming out of them at any time. You were seen yesterday, sir, and by ihy mistress' worst enemy, Miss Altman. Lord knows what mischief wili come of it." " Will fou come out of doors with me, then, Barbara?" "Yeo, sir."

"Come, then." He led the way to a side door on the next floor, and Barbara, flinging her ample white apron over her head, followed him with a grim an important countenance.

"How do you know I was seen coming out of my cousin's rooms this morning?'' he aske-J, as soon as they were at a little distance from the house. "I went into the hall a minute after, and saw Miss Altman just leaving a curtained recess opposite our door. "Ah! Miss Altrnan is an industrious spy.'' "She is indeed, sir. It's her trade. But it would be an easy matter to take it from her." "By giving her nothing to spy upon, you mean?" "Yes, eir; that's just it. And if you'll pardon me for saying it, sir, I can't see how a gentleman like you can go on being so cruel to a woman you once seemed to love so much as you did my mistress." "I loved her then. But 1 love her a million times moie now that I have lost her." he said passionately. "It was your own fault losing her. She loved you. She might have been yours now, instead of another's if you had not willed it otherwise." "I know it; I was an idiot. But she loves me yet, Barbara, and I menu to have her yet, if I live." "Mr Heathcote!" "I don't mean unfairly. Fairfax Tyrrell is an old man. He can't live many years. Then " voice broke. He turned aside and put his hands to his face. "You may have to wait a great main* years'" eaid the old woman dryly, "if you wait for Mr Tyrrell to rii'-. He is vrry hale arcl vigorous, J should say be is as ■ likely to live tiva.tv years yet as you."

By HELEN CORWIN PIERCE, Author oE "At His Own Game," "Carrie Emerson Wilde," "Badly Matched," "The Cheated Brida," Etc.

"I don't care; I'll wait that time if it's necessary," he said, clenching his teeth.

"And very likely she won't have you then. Anyway, you ought to let her alone now, if you,, want her to have any regard left for you." "I or/ly desire to have one talk alone with her, Barbara. Manage it for me, and I'll give you this." He showed her a ten-pound nute. Barbara drew back, her small bright eyes sparkling with anger. "I love my mistress," she said. "Anything that is for her good I'll do without hiring and anything that is not, 1 wouldn't do for your weight in gold, Mr Heathcote." "To be sure. Forgive me, Barbara; but I love her so much, and I only want one chance to tell her so freely, and ask her to forget how I treated her once. I want to tell her that I'll never marry any woman but her, if I have to wait fifty years for her."

"I don't think you had better tell her that. She would only be disgusted." "You'll help me to see her alone, won't you, Barbara? I only ask you to go in the next room for an hour. And I will come in and go out by a way that Rose Altman cannot possibly spy upon."

"By the secret door you came through this morning?" questioned t e woman. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Don't you come that way, or any other, again. You be warned by me, Mr Heathcote, and stop trying to talk to my mistress or see her. 1 don't believe she loves you, and, anyway, she is trying to do her duty against worse odds than woman ever had yet. Captain Tyrrell is fearfully jealous oi you, and a blacker temper man never had than his. You don't want murder done, to you, Mr Heathcote" "No. But I wdnt to see Edith. I'll give you fifty pounds, Barbara. I'll give you a hundred just to leave the room when I enter it, and let me talk to her for a single hour." "No, sir!" the woman firmly answered. "Good night, then. I shall have to manage without your help." He went swiftly back to the house, Barbara following more slowly. A third figure followed them, after an interval. It was Rose Altman. She had been listening. "So," she muttered, "there is a secret door to Mrs Tyrrell's rooms, is there, and Heathcote went in that way this morning. I wonder why he didn't go out as he came in? Oh, it would make matters all right for me if I could contrive to have my jealous grandpapa catch him in there some time. He'd never believe Edith again if she swore on a mountain of Bibles." Barbara did not tell her mistress of this interview with Heathcote.

"She's got worry enough already," she thought.

Barbara fulfilled her threat about Edith's sleeping in the'room in which the secret door was.

The bed was too big and cumbersome to be moved, hut she had another placed in the next room, with her mistress' approval, and locked the door communicating with the bedchamber.

Nothing of importance occurred in the next four days. Edith avoided her cousin persistently, and ever: Rose could not, with all her spying, discover anything to hang a suspicion upon. Fairfax Tyrrell had gone away on Tuesday. (To be continued).