THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3080, 29 December 1908, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPrEH VUL—Continued. ! "What will you'do with that?" Edith pointed a shuddering finger at two dark, wet-looking on the, Velvet carpet. Heathcote looked onc~\ "D-^— n thsm!" he muttered. "I ; wish I could burn them out!" ' "But you can't!'' He pushed a lounging-chair for- j War 4 directly ever the fatal spots. ; "Sit there," he said, "till afteryour maid has been here and gone, j and at three o'clock I'll come and sed What can be done." Edith hesitated. "I thought of keeping Fantine with me," she said in a low voice. "I am afraid to stay alone in this l-oom now." Heathcote gave her a strange look, and histface grew a trifle whiter than it already was. "Then you'll have to be afraid," he said, "fantine must go as soon as you find an excuse to send her, and be sure what you say to her about —him!" Edith's lips shook as she answered: "Very well." Heathcote left her then, and Edith •went and unlocked the door which led from her appartments into the hall. She stayed near it, holding it ajar, till she heard steps approaching. Then jnly, almost at the moment Fantine came into the room, did she muster courage to throw herself into the chair which covered those two dreadful spots. She did not dare keep Fantine long. She acted her part as well as she could while she stayed, making the excuse that she would not require her services, as Ehe thought she would sit up till her husbani came in. Fantine stared. . "Has he come?" "Oh, yes," her mistress answered, with a forced smile. "He came a little after eleven.and went<i>ut again. I can't imagine what kaeps him at so late an hour. But I tnink I'll sit up till he returns." Fantine retired to her own sleep-ing-room very soon, without seeming to have noticed anything strange. The instant she was alone, Edith quitted her seat, wringing her hands and sobbed convulsively. "What folly is this?" asked Heathcote sternly, returned into the room; "you have no time to cry now. Keep your tears for ths day whe.i we are both safa out of this swamp." "We?" repeater) Edith after him. Heathcote turned and looked ac her, such a flame in his eyes as she had never in them before. Then he caughc her bv her two hands with a wrench that almost made her sen 1 am. "See here," he said, "we've had enough of this nonsense. You'll swear this moment not to tell what you know of this night's business, or —l'll serve you as 1 did him!" Edith r'elt her heart stop beating, bat her did not quail before him. "Release my wrists, Randal! For shame!" she excla>med huskily. "Will you swear?" he demanded, with a vicious snap of his white teeth. "You know I would not betray you." "Then swear it! Repeat after me these words." He uttered a horrible, blood-curd - Jing form of oath. Edith, with a sudden twist, xeleased herself from him and darted between a heavy table and the wall?. "If you touch me again I will scream! Listen to me, Randal! 1 solemnly swear not to betray what his happened to-night as long as we bjth live. I swear not to do it, even to save my own life. Now are you satisfied?" Heathcote stood scowling at her, his handsome face distorted to ugliness.

"You had better be!" Edith went on. "I don't swear that from fear of you, and I won't take any different oath, even if you do serve me as you did him!" He stood scowling a moment longer, and then went and knelt down beside the spots on the carpet, and began to rub them with a cloth which be burned afterwards. Then, without looking at Edith, he poured ink upon them and tried to rub that in. He was trembling like a leaf by the time h 3 had finished. "You must pretend you had an accident, and overturned your ink hers," he said. Edith groaned. "If they try to clean it up, it will show what it is." "They won't try," he said. "I shall take this carpet up and put down a new one." "Then they'll see it on the floor. It must have gone through, and I've heard nothing hides i% or takes it out on wood. It will show in spite of everything." "It won't! Mere superstition!" ejaculated Heathcote; but his heart turned more laden at the bare thought, and his mouth twitched unpleasantly. "Now mind." were Heathcote's parting words to Edith, "keep cool. Don't lose your self-possession; and if you don't know what to say, say nothing. Take some wine. Your very lips are white, and you look as ,if verging on hysterics.'' Edith gave a sort of quivering try.

"It is all so horrible, so awful! How .can you keep so calm?" "Because I must; and you must, or all is lost —you a3 well as me. If I'm brought up for this, I'll swear to what I said I would, and if I hang, y<,'.i stall hang, too!" Edith's eyes flashed angrily. "I'd be almost willing to suffer myself for tin sake of seeing you get von'- destrts!" ehe said.

"That will do to tell," he sneered.

By HELEN COEWIN PIERCE, ' Avthor of "At fes Own Gau.e," "Carrie Emerson Wilde," "Badly M del ed," "I'l.e Cheated Bride," Etc,

"But I'd advise y'Gd to keap your oath to me." Then he went, and his unhappy cousin, greatiy as she feared to be alone, chose it now in preference to his company. CHAPTER IX. ROSE ALTMAN SHOWS HER VINDICTIVENESS. The next mornin?, when Fantine answered her mistress' bell, she ; iouiiu trie dressing-gown Edith had j worn the night before lying across the lounging cnair. splashed with ink i down the side, and the carpst soaked with the same, j Mrs Tyrrdl stood quite across the room. "So provoking!" she said, care--1 fully avoiding to look that way. "While I was sitting up for Mr Tyrrell, with my wriimg-desk on my lap, 1 fell asleep, and that is the result. I suppose the carpet is ruined,, and I know the dress is. And, after all, Mr Tyrrell did not come back, or, if he did, it*was after I was asleep, and he went away again without disturbing me." Fantine was looking at the stained carpet. Edith shuddered as she stole a look that way and saw her. j "I wish you would ring for some : one, Frantine, and ask if Captain j Tyrrell is in the house. I want to see him, if he is." j Frantine rang, and gave the mes- ' sage to a servant. ! The man returned after a short interval. "Captain Tyrrell had ridden to the village with two other gentlemen about half an feour before." Edith could feel her own face blanch with flight as she listened. .' The next moment a thrill of : eltctric joy ran through her. Perhaps, after all, he was not dead! He might have been only stunned. Oh, she would go on her knees in gratitue to God to kiow that he was yet alive. Could Heaven be so merciful. ' Such horrors had settled upon her since the night before that the most violent language he had ever used to her would have been music in her ears this morning, To have felt his hands at her throat again, or the : dagger-point pricking it, would have | .been happiness besides this night- | mare of fear and shuddering that was on her now. "I wish vou would hurry with my hair, Fantine," she said nervously; and the iwstant her toilet was made she quitted the room. \ (To be continued).