THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3088, 9 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER XlV.—Continued. Heathcote did not know before in what part of the great rambling house Lois was concealed. He guessed now, from seeing the face of Dorcas Lynn at one of the casements. In the state of mind he was, nothing could have excited him more. He shook his clenched hand at the windows. "D you!" he muttered, meaning Lois, "if you were out of the way, she'd have no witness against me, and I don't, believe she is keeping you here for any such reason as she says. I wonder if she'd let me in to see you?" He retraced his steps swiftly, and entered the house, going in the direction of Mrs Tyrrell's apartments. He knew where they were well enough. Edith herself opened the door to his knock. She had just sent her maid away, perhaps fearing such an intrusion as this. She looked pale and really ill. Her rich hair was in disorder, her ejes were wild and heavy at the same time. She changed countenance at seeing him. "What do you want, Randal?" she asked, with a frown. "You should have sent forme to come down if you wanted to see me." He said nothing of Rose having come for her. He had forgotten it, indeed, in his excitement. "I want to see Lois." he answered. Edith's lips set sternly and forbiddingly. "You cannot," she said. "But I will. I want to see if ynj have told the truth about her." "That h nonsense. You know I have. You shall not see her, for the reasons I have givan you before. What is more, you must not come to roy rooms; I won't have it. 1 am compromised enough by your coming to Blackmere at all." "Compromised, eh?" said Rar.da) darkly, pushing inside the door now and shutting it. "I propose to stay, anyway, till I have completed all my business. You've been telling that cat, Rose Altman, some yarn about Lois. What was it?"

Edith whitened. "I havn not, I'll swear it! I never told her a word." "How came she to know it. then? She was boasting to me, not an hour ago, that she had a secret of yours that began with L." 'You had better ask her," said Edith bitterly.

She hesitated a moment, and added: "Randal, you'd better marry Rose Altman, if you want to get under your own eye some one that is dangerous to you, as you more than hinted in regard to me, you'll remember, yhe is dangerous." "To you." put in Randal, with an angry sneer.

"She is looking for rv.e." Kdilh said slowly, "but shs will find you, if she keeps on, and you know it. Don't deceive yourself, Randal. In a sense, I'm afraid of you; not in any serious way, however. You can't really harm me. I know that very well. I'm keeping that girl for her own sake and yours. lam keeping your secret for your sake solely, and spoiling my own life, in a great measure, to do it. I'm not in any real danger myself; I have done nothing." Heathcote's lips v;orked whitely. "Not ss accessory," he said, with a dreadful smile. "You'll find the law calls you an accomplice. Whatever becomes of me, jou're in the same boat, mind that, and don't deceive yourself." Edith put her hand to her head a moment. "We won't argue that Randal. You say that sort of thing so often, 1 don't believe it, so Where's the use?" "Good night, Edith," he said abruptly, and, jerking the door open, went away without looking at h. r aeain. "How wicked, how awfully wicked he looked!" murmured Edith, with a long, shivering sigh. "He looked capable of anything. Oh, I wish he would marry Rose. It would serve them both right."

CHAPTER XV. "OH, RANDAL ONLY TELL ME SHE IS SAFE!" It must have been near midnight when Edith, having at last fallen asleep, after a long period of reflection, was roused by some fearful sound —what, she could not tell. Something had waked her, something horrible, awful, something that made iier flesh creep yet. Could it have been a dream? Ugh ! She sat up in bed and tried to think. Her head was aching still, throbbing as if it were tenanted by revolving hammers. She pressed both hands to it tightly and tried to listen for that awful sound again, and decide whether it was dreaming, imagination, cr reality. She was drouping slowly back to the pillow when it came again, the which had waked her, she was sure, and she could not name it, even now. What, in Heaven's name, was it? Suddenly she leaped from the bed, threw a wadded-silk dressing-gown about her, ami, bare-footed as she was, ran out into the passage which separated her rooms from those others which had been her husband's. The sound seemed to come from that way, and when she tried the door of 'Dorcas' room, it was unlocked. Dorcas lay across a chair, a strange, limp," blue-looking figure. Seme presentiment of evil made her even then stop and lock the door behind her before she went up to Dorcas. Then she bent over the seemingly l'feless old woman wildly a moment. "Chloroform!" she muttered, and i). w toward the door leading to the middle room. That was locked—locked and bolted on the other side, and the sounds | which had frightened her so had '

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

come from in there. It was like the snarling of some savage animal. She could not think of anything else to compare it with. Suddenly, as she was wrenching at the door, a fearful scream rent the air—only one scream. Then a sound like a window being thrust up. "Oh!" she cried, in an agony, "this door must open!" "Here, Miss Edy, let me help you," said a voice. It was Dorcas, pale and staggering still from the chloroform. "Who screamed?" she stammered, scarcely able yet to speak. "Who locked the door? The devil has been here to-night, Miss Edy, if he never was before." "Wait!" uttered Edith, with sudden and terrible calmness. "There's another door." She ran out into the passage and along it. In a moment she opened the door from the other side and let Dorcas in. No one, nothing living was there. The window was open, and the vines torn outside and a lock of short white hair, like Lois', clung to a crevice of the window-s'll. That whs all. Lois was gone. How? And who screamed? "I believe it was Lois." Dorcas whispered, with vthite lips. "She had a voice once. Some horrible creature has been in here after her, and in her fright, poor thing, her voice returned again. Oh, Mi3s Edy, what was it?" "You silly thing!" stammered Edith, trembling, "how do I know?" "Miss Edy," said the old woman sternly, "don't tell any more lies; you do know. You guess, anyway." "Heaven forbid!" wailed Edith. "But go to Randal Heathcote's room, Dorcas. Beat the door clown in the effort 10 make him answer you." The old woman hurried away.

Edith waited a minute and followed her. She could not endure the suspense of waiting.

"The door is locked. I don't believe any one is there," Dorcas said, meeting her., "Let me try."

In hur despair and horror, Edith gripped the door as if it had been an enemy.

"Cotrc out here, Randal, you coward! you cruel coward!" she whispered frantically through the keyhole. But no answer, not a sound came back.

"Come away, Miss Edy," pleaded old Dorcas. "Jt's no use, you see, and here's some one coming." "I don't care," Edith said wildly. "All's over now. Let any one come!"

j But Dorcaa Dyrm got her up somehow, and dragged her away. Jt was Frank Tyrrell who passed. He had heard strange sounds, and fancied he reccgnissd Edith's voice. He saw her, in spite of her faithful servant's efforts. Such a sight as she was—her face, marble-white, her black hair streaming, her great eyes wild and bright, and her feet bare. Frank Tyrrell stood and stared in the agonies of mingled jealousy and love. He never forgot that face, those twisted and despairing hands. At breakfast Heathcote was absent. Edith was there, only a shade le?s pale, hnggard, and wild eyed than in the night. Frank also, almost as white, gloomy-looking, and silent. Rose wondered which one of her attempts at mischief-making had prospered. (To be continued).