THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3082, 2 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER -X.—Continued.

•; "You are bad enough to du it, but you would never dare," Edith said -contemptuously. "Can't you let me fclone, Randal? Haven't you made me suffer enough? If you haven't, do your worst! I will never, never marry you!" "Is this your final decision?" "It is." "Then you defy me? You are resolved to betray me, perhaps?" "Not unless you compel me to do so in self-defence. Heathcote's manner suddenly altered, He grew calmer. "That is right. Forget what I said just now, Edith. I was mad. I have never been myself since-that night. I was not myself then. You know I did not mean to kill him." "I don't know it. You often talked as if you had murder in your heart. You wished him dead, and I have only your word for it that you struck him in a passion and in selfdefence. I believe that the wish was parent to the thought," " You are" unjust. , But you won't betray me; you will keep your oath?" , "Yes." "Will you shake hands before I go?" Edith put her hands bshind her. "No," she said passionately, "I'll keep your secret. But I won't shake hands—l won't have any friendship with you," Heathcote looked at her scowling-

ly. "You won't! And this is the boasted faithfulness of a woman's love." ,! Edith only set her teeth and clenched her hands. "I dare say now you wish you had never seen me?" "Oh, I do!" " Very well. It if quite possible you may never again." Hi turned to go. Edith called after him: % "What have you done with Whispering Lois?" ''She is safe and well, and wfell cared for. That is enough for vou to know." He left the room, and, in a few moments more, the house. / ■ "Mr Heatbcote made quite a shorjc stay," Rose Altman remarked at dinner. . Edith was looking pale, and her eyes were heavy and anxious. "Yes," she said, without looking, at Rose. ' • Rose studied her face furtively. She would llave given the world to have bsen able to read it. But it was inscrutable. "Is it. to be a match?" she asked again. "Is what to be a match?" Edith coldly asked. "Between you and Mr Heathcote." "Not that I am aware of." "Then yob have refused him?" -Edith looked at the impertinent . questioner steadily a moment. "How do you know?" "1 guess it." "I am glad you are a good guesser." And Edith rose and left the room. Rose looked after her thoughtfully. "I don't believe she had the / / chance to refuse him. But I'll And out, if I Jive." Less than a month after this visit to Blackmerp, Randal Heathcote came again. He was white, excited, arid in haste. s Edith went to him reluctantly. She : had hoped she should never see him .again, as he threatened." "Have you seen Lois?" he asked ' before she .could shutAt'he dcor. 5 -'"Lois?" j Edith stood staving at him. j "Lois is missing." 1 I "What? You have let her get away from yuu after all?" ; "She has gone. I didn't let her. ' She must have had wincrs to escape from where I had hidden her." , .Edith reflected a mome.vt anxious-

"After all, she knows nothing. She did not see the act." Heathcote shuddered. "How do you know what she saw?" "She knows too much for my safety, "or . yours, -either, for that matter. Hfer silly whispering, .tongue f can say enough to ruin us both. 1 wish I had cut it out at the roots while I could!" Edith lifted her eyes to his a moment, then averted. / Heathcote scowled. "Yes, I wish I had cut it out," he said. "She will come here yet, I believe," he continued. "She was always talking of you." ... . "I will take care of her, if she does," said. Edith coldly. "You thought she would forget in a few days, and it is more than a year." "I know it," he answered gloomily. "I have had to take her food to her, and she has seen no one but 51 me. I suppose the sight of me has kept that cursed memory alive. You must not let her talk to anyone but you." "I will do the best I can." Heathcote had to go away with this promise. Mrs Tyrrell occupied a suite of rooms in the east wing of the house. There was another suite which had - belonged to her husband in his lifetime, and had stood empty ever since. The servant avoided these when % convenient, not exactly because they considered them hauhted, but Captain Tyrrell had been a stern and despotic master during his life, eccentric and whimsical, odd and arbitrary. He had perished in a •( mysterious and tragic manner. None of them fancied' being in his rooms unnecessarily now. There was, therefore, no one on this side of the house except Edith, jnd she liked her rooms all the . b tter for their seclusion. On one side they overlooked a wild and nearly inaccessible portion of ■■the cliff, whiclvhere v/as so near to Jier windows that fhe could have

By HELEN COBWIN PIERCE, Author of "At His Own Game," ['Carrie Emerson Wilde." "Badly Matched," "The Cheated Bride," Etc.

stepped from them upon the n&kSoutside, if she had wlMteTrr'"~""~~' The night after she had seen ; Heathcote was wild and stormy, j Edith fancied several time?, after | her maid had left her, and before, ■ that she heard strange sounds out--1 side her window, but persuaded her- : self it was the wind only, or the beat- ' ing of the pain, till, in glancing for the twentieth time in that direction, she caught the diamond-like glitter of a pair of eyes watching her through the glass. Edith Tyrrell was not nervous or timid, but her heart stood still for a moment. The next she slowly approached the window. She turned chillier yet as a ghostly face grew out of the darkness outside. But an awful thrill came over her as she recognised whose face it was, faded to such unreality. She threw open the window, and drew the, poor shivering creiture in. It was £iois. She was ragged, wet and bleeding from numerous cuts and bruises gained in her perilous ascent of the cliff. Frail as she had always seemed, she looked like the shaddow of herself now—so thin, wasted and wan, so scared, despairing, and holloweyed. Edith's first movement after closing the window was to lock her own door. ' , Lois had lain down upon the carpet at once. She was too exhausted to utter a word', but her large, pale eyes pxpressed and intensity of appealing and trust that went to Edith's heart. They seemed tp say: "1 have been in horrible places, but I'm safe nuw." Edith went herself to the storeroom, of which she, by accident had a key, and procured food and wine for the half-frozen creature.

It was so late she thought no one would see her. \ But some one did.

As she came through the wide, lonely gallery which ran from the main building to the east wing, a ! man slipped back among the shadows and watched her wite fascinated eyes. ' She looked, as she capje gliding along so silently, more like some beautiful, sheeted ghost than like a I living woman. Her face was so white, her eyes so bright and | desperate, her movements so swift, and noiseless. iHie , watcher gazed ! after her as long as she was in sight. Then ha drew a long breath, and muttered to himself: "One doesn't see such a face as that more than once in a lifetime. I wonder who she is?" He went away slowly to a chamber in another part of the house, feeling his way partly, and partly guided by the lightning. He . took as much pains to move without ncise as Edith had done. 4 Once within the room he sought, he took some dry clothes from a bag carried with him, and in the darkness exchanged hi 3 wet garments for them. Then he threw himself on the outside of the bed in the room, and slept till daylight. > (To be continued).