THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3101, 26 January 1909, Page 2

THE CURSE OF HER LIFE OR A DARK SECRET.

CHAPTER XXVl.—Continued. Frank looked up quickly. "You can end it all if you will." he said. "How?" "You know." "There," cried his wife excitedly. "I told you so. You promised never to ask me to tell you. You married me knowinc I never would, neverlet the worst come that could come." "I have not asked you." said her husband with a gloomy look. "I only wanted to remind you that " He stopped and groaned involuntarily. "To remind me," said Edith in a bitter voice, "that you have as much right to have a secret as 1." Her husband lifted his hand with a wild gesture of entreaty, and turned away his pallid face. His wife looked at him sternly for some moments. At last she said: "Keep your secret, Frank. You have a perfect right." A pause, and then she added. "Ah, why did we marry, my poor Frank? Why were you so perversely bent upon marrying me? But we have had two happy years, have we not? Two happy, happy years." "Oh Edith, Edith—oh, my darling,". Frank cried, extending his arms. With a low cry his wife flew into them, hugging him and clinging about his neck with hysterical cries and kisses. "And you won't tell me," she repeated presently. Frank shuddered, and would not look in her anxious eyes." "I—l'm a little unsettled, dear. 1 think that is all," he said nervously, "i believe I'll go away for a little time. A run into the country will do me good. I had a letter faom my steward at Disbro Castle yesterday, that was rather important. I'd better go. We'll both feel better when I attend to the matter mentioned by my steward:" Edith had lifted her head from his shoulder, and was studying his halfaverted face wonderingly, anxiously. "You don't ask me to go with you," she said, in a sort of terror. "When did you ever want to go anywhere without me before?" "I hope I never shall again," poor Frank answered. "I wouldn't now, indeed, if it wasn't very necessary— I mean Oh, Edith, can't you see that I'm almost out of my mind? Don't question me. Let me go away rjy myself for a few days. I shall be all right when I come back." His wife kissed him once more and released herself from his arms. "[ won't ask you another question," she said, "but I will give you one warning." She paused and looked at him with solemn and ominous eyes. "A more wicked, dangerous and dreadful man than my cousin Randal Heathcote never lived, I believe. I hope he is dead, but—l doubt it. And let me tell you that if by any possibility he has any connection or interest in this going away of yours, you will need to be sharply on your guard always, Frank. Go if you will, but look out for Randal Heathcote whereever you go." Lord Disbro went next day. "We must follow him. Dorcas," Edith told her faithtul servant. "Wherever he is going, we will g.), too.' Have everything in readiness. My cousin Randal has had things his own way long enough." Frank took no servant with him. As he left the house, two women plainly and unfashionably attired, both wearing black dresses of cheap lustre, and closely veiled, got into a cab at the corner and followed him to the railway-station. When he bought his ticket, the elder of the two women happened to be near enough to hear for what point he purchased it, and soon after bought two second-class passages for the same place." Lady Disbro—for the two women were she and Dorcas —looked at the tickets eagerly. "Annesley?" she said, with a startled look. "Oh, Dorc s, he must be going to Heathcote House. What can have sent him there?" "My lady," whispered Dorcas warningly, "some one may hear you." Some one, indeed, had, but neither my lady nor Dorcas suspected it till it wan too late. The noon express from London reached Annesley at four o'clock. At four o'clock Lady Disbro and her attendant, still closely veiled, gilded out of their second-class compartment in the railway-car and took up a convenient position inside the ladies' waiting-room, to watch the other passengers come forth. By two«, by thres, and singly they came, but the two women watched in vain for Lord Disbro. "Could you have been mistaken?" Lady Disbro asked Dorcas. "Impossible. I heard him distinctly." "He certainly is not here. He must have changed his mind, if you understood him rightly," Lady Edith said, with an anxious sigh, as the engine whistled its warning for departure and the train slowly steamed out of the station. "Call a cab, Dorcas, and we'll go to Heathcote House, at any rate." [t was three miles from Annesley to Heathcote House, and the return train for London passed at 10 p.m. There was plenty of time, therefore. "I would a treat deal sooner go to a graveyard than to come here." said Edith, as. having left the cab a quarter of a mile from the house, they walked thoughtfully up the cypress-bordered avenue. "The house looks grimmer and prayer than ever," shuddered Lady Di-br\ as they came in view of its s-t. e turrets "and frowning gardes, "ji positively seems to scowl at us. .SLr.ll w: go r, Boreas?". J

By HELEN CORWIN PIERCE, Author of "At His Own Gauie," "Caijrie Emerson Wilde," 'Badly Matched," "Tl.e Cheated Bride," Etc.

"As you please, my lady." "I'm half-afraid to enter," Edith said, pausing under a spreading tree and looking gloomily up at the dark and frowning mansion. "You cion't know how I hate and fear that house. Frank wanted to come down here last September. Someone had told him the snooting was uncommonly line. But I would not hear of it, and made such desperate resistance to the scheme that he pave it up, and we went to Deepside instead. But come, I am not so much a coward, I verily think, as I was when 1 was here before; certainly not in some respects. And to prove it I will visit only the one suite of rooms in this dismal house —the chambers Captain Tyrrell and I occupied while here that fatal time—the chambers in which he met his miserable fate—first of all. Come. Dorcas, not that way; I have no idea of entering that way, and having the servants in charge able to report my visit to whoever comes afterward." She took Dorcas' hand in hers, and led her swiftly along a neglected path to the right, and round to the oldest part of the house. A little gate of wire trelliswork conducted into a tiny rose garden, gay once with flowers, neglected now for years. With some difficulty they passed through this, by keeping close to the wall and in the shaddow of the deeply-arched masonry at the back. Lady Disbro paused and began feeling along the ridged wall. "There is a spring somewhere here. I have never tried it myself, but I know it is here somewhere," she said. Dorcas guessed that it was by means of this door and the passage it gave entrance to that Heathcote had conveyed poor Captain Tyrrell's body from the Nell GWynne chambers to the park. "Ah!" Lady Disbro exclaimed, as a stone at last yielded to the pressure of her hand, and an opening in the wall disclosed itself. "Come," she said again to Dorcas, turning towards her a very pale face, and extending a cold little hand. "Or—perhaps you are afraid- Would you rather not come? If you are disinclined, say so, and I'll go alone. I think I dare," she added, setting her lips. CHAPTER XXVII. VISITORS AT HEATHCOTE. "I am not afraid," Dorcas answered grimly. "What is there to be afraid of? —unless, indeed, your wicked cousin should be lurking hereobouts, in the flesh or out." "He is more to be feared in the flesh than out of it," Edith returned, as they passed in together. "But there is no danger of his coming here. The place has more terror for him than for me." (To be continued).