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THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER XlX.—Continued. j ; "In that bend of the inlet beyond : the park, mistress," one of the men answered. "We had just cut a hole in the ice to fish, and Robert saw the body in the clear water. Miss Alt- j man told us to bring it here." "That was right. Take it into the oak room yonder. 1 suppose there j must be an inquest. | "Let me attend to all that for you," | Lord Disbro said. J 1 "Thanks, my lord." 1 1 Sne lifted her eyes to his in one long, yearning farewell, and, with a bend of her stately head, moved away. At the inquest nothing transpired ; to reveal that poor Lois had ever abode at Blackmere House. Only Lord Disbro noticed a strange, yawning rent in the dead girl's dress, where a long piece was missing, and my lord had an odd fancy that he had seen that very rag of cloth fluttering from a certain green expanse of vines. "I must make an excuse to see my Uncle Fairfax's rooms," he said to himself, with compressed lips. "There is a fearful mystery here, and [ am bound to penetrate it." "J can't give you the keys , unless my mistress consents," stammered poor Dorcas, when he asked her for them. " What nonsense!" Frank said. "I only want to look in the desks in my Uncle's study for some papers. You need not wake her to ask so trifling a question." Dorcas gave him the keys hesitatingly. She would fain have gone with him, but she did r.ot dare. Frank made short worK of his uncle's study. He perceived at once that the window he was looking for was not in that rcom. He passed into the middle one of the suite. It was dark and close, but the djst was not so old as in the one he had just left. He groped his way to the window and threw it open. There it wa3, the long, fluttering rag of cloth he was looking for. He secured it, and, going back to the oak room, placed it beside the drowned girl's dress. It fitted exactly. One was faded more than the other. Asice trom that they were alike. Lord Disbro had never forgotten the circumstances under which he first saw Edith—at midnight, coming through the wide, dim gallery, noise less as a spirit, and as wnite and beautiful as one. Turning his thoughts backward, he remembered that she carried in one hand—the other held the lamp—a basket which stemed tolerably heavy. He remembered, further, that Rose Altman had spoken the next d3y of her maid having fancied she saw Lois in the grounds the night befoi'e, and that Edith had certainly seemed startled at the idea. All this, taken in connection with the finding of the body of the gill in the inlet so near, and the torn strip of her dress hanging to the vines outside the window in the east wing, the reluctance of Dorcas to let him into those rooms, meant something certainly, but what? He gave two weeks to reflection, and was back and forth at Blackmere, meanwhile. He read ever carefully the printed recoid of the circumstances of Captain Tyrrell's murder, so lar as they were known. But he never went near Edith in all that time, nor saw her, and he never asked Rose Altman a question concerning that old - tragedy, nor permitted her to talk 'to him about that, or this new one concerning Lois. Rose was in a painful state of wonderment and curiosity. In her own mind, she believed, or told herself she did, that Edith had murdered both her grandfather and Whispering Lois. If she had only known where to find James Rial now But she did not. That clever and ambitious gentleman was biding his time, waiting lor a more favourable opportunity than the last to renew his acquaintance with Mies Altman. Lord Disbro came to a decision at last. He made up his mind what to do, and first he sent a message to Edith bv Dorcas Lynn, asking if he could see her. She was in her own sitting-room. She had not left her own appartments since the finding of Lois' body. She called herself ill, and "was so. She consented to see Lord Disbro with a feeling that new trouble was coming to her. Dorcas had told her of Frank' s visit to Captain Tyrrell's rooms. Dorcas ushered him into her presence and left him there with visible reluctance and misgiving. Edith sat by a' window, watching the tossing f.ea which lashed the rocks below. She turned slowly round as Lord Disbro came toward her. He saw how thin she had grown in the two weeks since he had seen her, ard his own face took a deeper pallor for the sight. He hesitated a moment, then, without a word, laid the torn scrap of pcor;Lois'„dress on her knee. Edith glanced at it once, and caught her breath sharply. She knew it at once. But where had he got it? "1 eee you recognize it," Lord Disbro said, after a moment. "It is a piece of the dead girl's dress. I found it hanging to the vines outside a window of one of the rooms that where my uncle's in his lifetime. Can you guess how it came there?" Edith shuddered. Too well she guefsed. But she did not speak. Pallid and silent as a stone woman, bhe sat waiting for him to go on and j blast her with the conclusions to ■ which ph' l he must have HH Lord Disbro went on af.er a toler-

By HELEN CORWIN PIERCE, Ait'ior oE "At His Own Game," "Carrie Emerson Wilde," "Badly J1 itched," "The Cheated Bride," Etc.

ably impatient pause. "I see you do guess. Edith, I guess, too. But I won't tell you just now what I guess. I may be so very wide of the mark. I have a proposition to make to you. Are you listening?" Edith bent her head in assent, and a sob or two broke from her pallid lips. Lord Disbro bent towards her slightly. "I know that you love me, he haid in a low voice. "I presume you don't exptct me to doubt it ever and that yon acquit me of any intentional impertinence or presumption in making the assertion." Edith's head only dropped lower, and tears fell on the tightly clasped hands un her lap. Lord Disbro bit his Hp as he looked at. her. He had fortified himself with every argument and excuse he coukl devise in the extenuation of the course he had decided to pursue, but he could not feel satisfied. Only his wild iove for her and the sight of her maddening beauty kept him to his resolve. "Edith," he recommenced, his voice faltering. "I ask you once more to be my wife. Wait; don t answer me yet," he exclaimed, with sudden passion, as her lips moved. "In that faded rag on your knee I believe that I hold the clue to your secret which is between us. If you consent to marry me, you shall never be questioned in the future concerning it. It shall remain locked in your own breast, for ail interference from me. If you still refuse to be my wife, if you persist in allowing this mystery to separate us, I give you mv solemn word, I swear to you, Edith Tyrrell, I will institute such an investigation into the intricacies which that faded rag is the key to as shall at least satisfy me whether your mystery is a sufficient reason for separating us. Now, then, which shall it be?" Edith lifted her head at last. Her face was deadly pale ar.d fixed in its expression, as if carved from marble. The far-away, tired, and hunted look in her black eyes, haunted him for a long while "Will you give me till to-morrow at this time to answer you, my lord?" she asked in almost a whisper. "I will," he said impetuously, falling upon his knees ana trying to take her hand. "You must consent, Edith!" he cried in impassioned tones. "We shall be so happy. I love you so dearly, and you have seen so much sorrow, my darling. I can see that some terror hangs over you. Let me come between you and that fear of your life in the future. ''

(To be continued).

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19090116.2.3

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3093, 16 January 1909, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,422

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3093, 16 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3093, 16 January 1909, Page 2

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