THE COLONEL'S ENEMY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3111, 9 February 1909, Page 2

THE COLONEL'S ENEMY.

BY WINTHROP B. HARLAND. Author of "Lady Elgin's Secret," "A Harvest of Shame," "The Elder Son," "Lord Ashton's Heir," Etc.

CHAPTER I. EOKA AND HER GUARDIAN. Several years had elapsed since the gentleman, manlv and athletic, whom we have chosen for our hero, set his foot once more in London. He had iust arrived by the train from Liverpool. Maj. Frederick Lugard, late of the Honourable East India Company's service, and now in the regular army, attached to the Ninetyseventh Dragoons, was a man who carried his o«n sunshine with him everywhere, and he had need of all the advantages his genial disposition gave him when he came back to his native land after an absence of nearly twenty years. It was more than probable that most of the frierds he left behind him then were dead, or had forgotten him, and he had nothing to look forward to beyond the resources of a bachelor's apartments and his club, except for such a welcome as he might gain from the solitary letter of introduction in his pocket. "And I am not sure they will be glad to see me," he reflected, "for people do not care to have their plans interfered with at the eleventh hour. It seems only the other day that Dora was a baby in my arms, and now she is going to be married, i suppose I ought to feel rather old when I ttiink of it; but I don't." There were no signs of age in the major; he was a broad-shouldered, deep-chested man of three-and-forty, with a fleck of grey here and there in his brown hair, and some resolute lines in his countenance; hut his eye was as bright, and his step as alert, as when, a mere stripling, he left England, twenty years ago. He had been through one memorable campaign, and bore the scars of many a wound received in conflict with the wild hill tribes. but he was here whole and sound to tell the story; and, more remarkable still, he had been as fortunate in love as in war, as he was in the habit of saying, for Cupid's arrows, like the enemy's bullets, had failed to tiring him down, as yet. He called a cab, and told the man to set him down opposite the gates in Park Lane.

Mayfair was familiar ground to him, and when he had reached any given point, he could depend upon his memory for the rest. Canon Street, the one he wanted, stood at an angle in a cluster of narrow thoroughfares between South Audley Street and the Lane; and its only visible advantages were its small houses, with their inconvenient rooms, its high rents and extreme exclusiveness.

Maj. Lugard, as he paused at No. 5. found himself wondering how any rich man, endowed with an ordinary share of sanity, could deliberately pitch his domestic tent here, when, like Adam, he had all the world before him where to choose.

"Perhaps Mr Dacre is a bachelor, like me," he thought, "or a widower, and doesn't i)ot require much space; that may account for it." JThe_ door was opened by a man in livery, who too'c Card respectfullyl and left the soldier for & few moments in thy h^l!. He had barely iL/.e to notico the rich, old paintings on the staircase wall, and an antique china bowl, with a hundred i ivets in it, on the table, and the fine workmanship in the frame of a full-length mirror, when the man reappeared, and ushered him into the back dining room, with a bow.

There were two persons in the apartment, a middle-aged gentleman, who received him with an ope.iweicome, and a tall, slender girl, of whose ictenti'.y he was almost sure.

"Maj. Lugard," Mr Dacre said, "[ need nnt say how ghid we are to see you here. The colonel mentioned you in his last letter to Dora; you are such a very old friend of hers, that I p.ei j d not intrcd ce you now." Aft< r this brief speech, Mr Dacre, who seemed far frjm strong, took a seat in art easy-chair.

"I should have recognised Dora." said the major, witn a gentle smile, "by her resemblance to her mother." "And you remember her," Dora said, "though it is so many years since she left India?"

"We do not easily forget our dearest friends," the soldier responded, with a thoughtful tenderness it l the dark eyes that rosted on the girl's face; "and Mrs St. Hilary was the kindest a:.d best a young man ever had, and you are very like her — very; and to think you were a baby when I saw you last; a little toddling child of three c r four, and novy you are go kg to be married." "The first week in the new year," Dora said simply. "You will come to the wedding, of course?" "I hope so, but I am not so sure about the first week in the new year. Your father is about to retire from the service, and his physician has t'old him he may risk the voyage at last. It was a fancy of his that he would like to be present, and give you to the man you have chosen; here is the letter he gave me for you." "The colonel's presence was the one thirg wanted to make Dora's happiness complete," said Mr Dacre, whose countenance, always pale, seemed to have undergone a singular change that left it colourless; "and I am ft lad his health is so far restored that he can undertake the journey without much danger, to himself. At one time the doctors were of opinion that it would be fatal to him." "It would be as fatal for him to remain where he is, now that he has set his heart on coming over," the major said. "He is a man of powerful will, and with him the body must obey when the mind directs; and his desire to be present at the wedding is not his only motive." "Th'/re would naturally," Mr Dacre said, with a reflective glance at The 10. g. white fingers he warmed ior an instant at the fire, "bs the

desire for an Englishman to end his days in his native land. 1 know it brought rr.e back from the colonies, though, all things considered, I should havi been happier there." "The colonel's motive is even stmmrer than that," Lugard observed; "he has heard that there is SL;:xe chance of finding the man who lobbed him. But that is a long story, of >viiich you cannot know anything." "You shall tell it at your leisure, major." Mr Dacre said. "You came in a cab. I suppcse; is ycur baggage OJt:idf?" "I brought none with me, except, a dressing bar. I left the rest at the railroad station. I had not re. i lea to put up for a few days." "Here, of course," was the prompt i-t joinder. "Ours is not a large establishment, but we shall find a room for you, and my man can fetch what you require. We dine at seven, rather an early and old-fashion ad hour now; and you can dispense with the ceremony of a dress suit to-day; there will be no one here, for we do not reckon my nephew. I hardly know what the poor lad will say, when he knows the wedding is to be postponed; but you will not mind if he i& a little bit cool at first."

"If he feels inclined to blame me, I must bear it," said the soldier, with a shrug; "but lam simply the colonel's messenger."

"And Leonard will be delighted, I am sure," Dora said; her beautiful eyes were the softer and brighter for the tears of joy with which she had read her parent's loving letter. "What does it matter for a few months—or years even—if my father is coming home at last, my own, dear father' Will you tell me all about him, Maj. Lugard? Ycu must know hirn so well; you have been with him every day for a lifetime nearly."

"Not quite every day," the soldier said; "but few men in the service have been together more, or understood each other better."

"Fattier teils me in his letter, " Dora said, "that you have always been like a brother or a son to him." "We will say like a brother," obserycd Lugard, "as the colonel is only fourteen years my senior, tnough his rank and habits and his character make him seem older at times oldsr than he has a right to look at seven and fifty. His illness, his wounds and his troubles have aged him, but he has been getting stronger during the last six months, and had he been left undisturbed for anutner year or so, I believe he would have been entirely restored." "What has disturbed him?" Miss St. Hilary inquired. "Your marriage for one thing"— the major had settled down by this time in front of the fire, with Mr Dacre on one side and Dca on the other—"not that he objected to it in any way; he felt that you could not have made a better choice than the nephsw of this gentleman, who has evidently IJGSP f" respects a second fatJlir to yotf.'-i "I can never tell you ho\V kind Mr Dacre har been," Dora said, "and I can never be sufficiently grattful to hitr." ['JO UK CONTINUED.]