THE COLONEL'S ENEMY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3133, 9 March 1909, Page 2

THE COLONEL'S ENEMY.

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

CHAPTER Xll.—Continued. "I have no faith in it," the major said: "but I will give it a trial for a few days—three—and then I come out with an offer of a reward. The same hand which sent the telegram here could easily reply to an advertisement, and nothing less than the sight of the colonel will satisfy me." "In your advertisement." said Mr Dacre, "you can easily ask him to wait for you at some given point. However eager he may be in his quest, he cannot be always on the move, and should the fail, I will put no further objection in the way of offering a reward; but yeu must remember that when that .is done, Dora will have to know everything." "1 would rather trust to her courage to behave whatever may be in store for her, than lose a chance of finding her father," the major said. "He who tempers the wind to a shorn lamb will not be less gentle to her. And I am convinced, by what I have seen, that nothing is to be gained by keeping her in the dark."

CHAPTER XIV. "WOMEN NEVER FOROET, AND RARELY FORGIVE!" It was agreed between them that the truth shuuld be kept from Dora for the present, and when Miss St. Hilary came down, she had not the slightest idea that the major's absence was in any way connbcted with her father. She had the tel-» gram, and was quite satisfied with it; she expected the letter to follow soon, and that woyld tell Nr exactly when to expect him. "But Ido wish he.had not taken the trouble to go after that wicked man," she said, when they sat together in the evening. The major had dined with them. Miss Dacre, coaxed by Dora out of her retirement for once, had taken an unobtrusive corner, and Leonard, a shade more thoughtful than usual, had come in after dinner. "It would have been so much nicer for us all; it was such a shame, major, that you should have had your long journey for nothing." "My journey!" the major, said. with a guilty start, for he thought she alluded to his Boulogne expedition, and wondered how she had heard of it. "From Ravernskerne," she aid, "where you were so much in .request." "Oh," he said, relieved; "they can do very well without me for the present, Dora, and if I bad not come to London on the colonel's accjunt, I must have come soon on my own. There are several things to be done before I can settle quietly down in possession. I have not told ysu much about my affairs yet, have I?" "You have told us nothing," Dacre answered; "we have hardly sfen each other for five minutes at a time." "Well, I am in London for the remainder of the winter," Lugard said, cheerfully; "My man has taken rooms for me in Half-Moon ritre.et, and is now keeping them warm against my return. He is a capital fellow; [ have never to speak twice or a=k ftr anything; he seems to know by intuition juat what I want. But, then he has been a soldier, and that is the best training in the world for a valet. The Ravernskerne people are very affectionate and willing, but they are exasperatingly clumsy." "YOU have. S* large establishment?" Mr Dacre said. "Thtrj muit be a little army on and off the premises. I am always meeting strange faces on the stairs and in the passages; and as I make a point of them who they are, the information I acquire is bewildering. Housemaids, laundry maids, kitchenmaids, and dairymaids. As for the men, Ido not know what on earth they can find to do. The housekeeper tells me that nearly fortymale and female—sit dowji to dinner every day in the servants' hall." "The late owner, your uncle, was a bachelor," Mr Dacre said, "did he keep as many?" "Yes, it appears to have been the custom of the family; and though Percival Lugard had a reputation for eccentricity, he was not a miser, or a niggard. There was no stint in the household below stairs, and though his dry toast and an egg for breakfast were followed by a broiled chop or a plain dish of mutton cutlets in the afternoon, his dinntrs and receptions were magnificent. It was strange that he should have made me his heir, to the utter exclusion of many, who had at least an equal claim upon him." "Perhaps he knew you were the one most fit to be trusted with the property," Mr Dacre observed; "he had the others under his own immediate observation, and cmild form his own opinion as to their mental and moral fitness to bear the respon sihilitv of wealth." "There is something in that, and I arn afraid that most of them were failure?. He was pleaded to think that I had won some distinction, and perhaps he put to my credit the fact, that I never bothered him for money, or troubled him with correspondence. I was rather an offhanded, independent boy, and looked upon him as a eurly, crotchety old man. lam sorry now. I think I should have grown fond of him if we had seen more of eaob other." "Where you in any way to blame for the estrangement?" "I hope not. I think not. He was the only relation of whom I had anj distant recollection, and I oftei. lineed to write ro him, but wa* Uj. . ,«..j by the fear that he micb e it «•* a hint tnat I wanted r.if. t i terras i rnv allowance; and he wat j^u 6 ijg io atnii for «i«, l*ut tL«-

habit of self-restraint, worn so long, held him back, and so we never met." "It was a pity," Dora said, "for you might have so much to sot ten trim towards those other relations, who might have done better if tney had had just one more chance; but you will find them out and help them, will you not?" The major shook his head with a gentle smile. "Most of them have already found me out," he said. "I have had more than a few personal visits, and some scores—l may say hundreds—of letters, pleading, touching, funny, comrade-like, aggressive, even threatening, but all cousinly, and all hinting that an immediate use cculd be found for a remittance or from anything between ten pounds and a thousand." "And you have helped them of course?" "No, dear, I have not. I did at first, strongly against the advice of lawyers; and I have had to admit that they were wise in their counsel. Now I place all the applications in their hands. The only two relatives I should care to find, and am anxious to find personally, are my Uncle Pereival's sister, now Mrs Walton, and her daughter, my cousin Mary. Is your arm in pain, Mr Dacre?" That gentleman had started in his chair with a writhe and an involuntary groan, while a spasm of such dreadful agony crossed his face that no one could have beheld it unmoved. "It was, for the moment," Dacre said; "the heat of the fire on the bruised muscles, I suppose, or I may have got slightly cramped while listening to you; but I am all right now. You were saying that your Uncle Peteival's sister was a Mrs Walton.", "Yes, site married a clergyman, a genlleman—l say advisedly, a gentleman—of elegant appearance, and fine attainments, though he was of lowly origin; on that point my uncle had au incurable mania; he would recognise, receive and treat most generously any man of ability, but it was with the condescending toleration of a patron, not the friendship of an equal; and when his sister married the curate be closed his doar against them both." "That was most unjust," said Dora. "Yours is a sympathetic and a womanly view of the question," the major said, "and so to you it would seem most unjust; but it was her deliberate choice, Dora; her election lay between her brother and her lover, and knowing her brother's unconquerable prejudices, she chose her loved; so I cannot think my unci 3 was all to blame, though I do think he carried his resentment to a pitch that could not be justified, and his resentment had consequences which he never could have contemplated, for the Waltons became very poor—they even have wanted bread." "How dreadful!" Dora said, "and he so rich." [to be continued.]