THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3084, 5 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER XL—Continued. ! "I've no choice. I'm linked with him in wickedness, and I can't help ] myself. Mow where to put her? Not i even to save my own neck will I surrender her to him again. He shall never again, while I live, hive the chance to torture her, or the tempta- i tion to kill her." i After long thought, Edith decided j to conceal Lois in one of the rooms j which had been her husband's. ; "No one ever goes near them," j she thought. "They are afraid to do j it. I'll send for my old nurse, j Dorcus Lvnn, to come and take care j of her, and, till she comes, I'll take care of her myself." ' Before she slept at all Edith contrived to drag Lois on a-cushion into the middle room of the suite. Lois was as small as a child, a».<l lighter than most children of eight or ten. j She slept soundly still, and did not j wake even while being conveyed to her new quarters. Edith fastened the doors each way, and the windows were alraady heavily barred. Tha room was a handsome and comfortable one. "It will be better than what Randal gave her, at any rate, and, fortunately, even if she is frightened she can't scream," she thought, with At breakfast Edith Tyrrell met her husband's nephew for the first time. The tall, erect figure, the handsome, manly face and frank, warm smile, the strong, cordial grasp of her hands, impressed her pleasantly. Frank caught her large black eyes watching him more than once. "Why could I not have loved such a man as that?" Edith was saying to herself. "I don't believe he would have served me as my cousin Randal has."

"It is the very face I saw last night," Frank Tyrrell mused, stealing furtive glances that way "as often as he dared. "It is the most beautiful face I ever , beheld in my life. But there is something more than mere beauty in it. There is mystery and sadness. Those lovely eyes, perplex as much as they draw me." "Such a queer,thing happened last evening," Rose said. "Do you remember Whispering Lois at Heathcote, Edith?" Edith started slightly and Rose noticed it, and it set her wondering.

"Lucy will have it," she went on, "that she saw her in the grounds last evening. She said she looked as if she had not had enjugh to.eat in a year. I told Lucy she must ha«e seen her ghost, and she is nearly scared out of her wits at the idea." Edith was looking directly at Rose now.

"She might have seen her," she said indifferently. "Lois was always, straggling about, first in one part of the country ttien in another." "Who is Whispering Lois?" questioned Frank Tyrrell of Rose, when they were alone. "She was a sort of half-idiot dependent at Heathcote. She had had some sickness when she was a child that injured her voice somehow, so she could only speak in a whisper. Her brain was affected also, and her growth stunte'd. so that she never grew larger than a child, I don't believe Lucy saw her at all. It mu;t have been someone else. She was too little and weak to ever get so far as here." "Kose, is my uncle's widow much chadged by his death? Was she always the same a' now?" "H'm. She's about as much now like what she was before thdt, as a graveyard is like a ballroom," said Rose, with a r-neer. "No wonder." Frank looked at her anxiously. "Was it the shock or grief," he asked. "Did she love my uncle, an old man, like that?" "Love," sneered Rose, "I don't think she ever pretended it. She married him for his money, and he made his will soon after they were married. Sha would never have Jived with hkr, if he hadn't." "Is that so?" young Tyrrell asked incredulously, pained, he scarce knew why, at such a revelation of selfishness. "It was an expensive business to him, too. It cost him more than money," Rose said significantly. "How more?" Rose looked at him a moment with glittering eyes. "Can't you guess? I believe itcost him his life," she said in a stern whisper. "I am satisfied that she knows more about how my poor old grandfather came by his death than any one else living." Oh, Rose! and she gave you half the money he left her." "That was to bribe me to silence

and. inactivity. She suspected I meant to hum ht=r down for it. She fancied I would take the money, too,

and go away from Blackmere. She can't' bear to see my face always before her. I suppose I look too much like him!" "The last can't be so. You don't look much more like Uncle Fairfax than Brum does," Frank said. "You don't mean to infer that you are staying at Mrs Tyrrell's own house without an invitation." Rose coloured. "Oh, she asked me," she baid, with a toss of her head, "but she didn't mean I should accept. She didn't think I would. I only stay to watch her. I hate Blackmere and her!" "Then you are a spy!" Frank said, with an involuntary look of disgust. Rose coloured, again, and her eyes sparkled with anger. "Yes," she said, "I'm a spy, if there's anything to find out. If there is not, I'm no spy. I don't care, anywav. I'd be called harder names tVati that to find her out." Frank Tyrrell bowed very low. "I beg pardon. Miss Altman. You and I never did agree, I believe," Bo turned on his heel and sauntered away.

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

"He's nobody!" muttered Rose. "I don't believe his whole income is more than five hundred pounds a year." CHAPTER XII. "REMEMBER THAT I WARNED YOU!" Edith sent for Dorcas Lynn that day. By the next the old woman made her appearance. She was tall and thin, not given to many words, but devoted to Edith, who had allowed her a liberal support since her marriage, and rented a small cottage for her. Dorcas liked living by herself, but she came very willingly when she found she was needed, and was duly installed with her charge in two of the ro:.ms once occupied by Fairfax Tyrrell. Lois was never allowed to leave the middle room. It was a strange chance that sent to the dead man's chambers to hide the only absolute eye-witness of his murder. Edith gave Dorcas no explanation of the situation. She coul.l not, because of her oath. She simply said to that faithful creature: "I have reasons for wishing to conceal this po.ir girl from everyone's knowledge except yaurs and my own. They are reasons of fearful importance, or I should not undertake so mighty a responsibility and anxiety. You will understand that, and also that not only must her existence here remain a profound secret from others, but my reason for this mystery lam compelled to preserve an absolute secret from even Ivou."

Dorcas looked grave, but she made no attempt to penetrate the mystery, not even when poor, half -witred Lois whispered in her ear words and and sentences of such blood-curdlir.g import as chilled her to the heart with a horror she dared riot name. She had loved and believed in her foster-child too long, she said to herself, to question or doubt her now, no matter what happened. Edith's excuse for installing Miss Lynn in those rooms which had been her husband's was that she wanted her near her. "It is ridiculous the fuss she makes over that old. woman!" said Rose, one day, with her usual sneer. Edith had just left the diningroom, and Rose and Frank were loitering on the terrace outside. Frank Tyrrell threw himself on a bench and pulled a rose-vine toward him. "Now, I admire it," he said. "Oh, of course," Rose returned. "You'd admire anything she does." "Why shouldn't I?" "You'd better look before you leap, that's all."' (To be continued).