THE COLONEL'S ENEMY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3134, 10 March 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 XlV.—Continued. "Their poverty was not his fjult," the major went on. "They had some money —enough with his income as a clergyman, to support them in modest affluence, had the money been properly invested; but. strangely enough, they fell into the same evil hands that robbed your father. Crombie took it to invest for them not long before he absconded, and they lost every penny." "This Mr Crombie seems to come very curiously into our lives," Mr Dacre observed, with a reflective glance at his own, white, benevolent hand; "and he appears to have left misery and ruin everywhere. I won der if he ever tried to make restitution, or if anywhere in the world there is anyone who could tell of a kindness done by him?" "Dozens, I have no doubt —hundreds, perhaps," the major said; *'these men who take such desperate risks to get rich in a hurry are generally notorious for their indiscriminate generosity; but I question if all the good he might do, even if he were living and a millionaire, would undo a fraction of the evil he has done." "You should not be so hard, major," the philanthropist said, gently. "Yours is not a'good creed if there is no room in it for the footprint of a repentant man." "I am only a plain, blunt soldier," the major said; "and though I might easily forgive a man for wronging me, it would not be easy for me to forgive a m?,n who wronged my friends; here I have to instances, both of which came closely home to me. The colonel gone on a chase that keeps him away, and Mrs Walton keeping a school somewhere, for that is the nearest information we can gain, living in proud privation on a few shillings a week, and she knows her husband died of a broken heart." "Ttiis man Cromoie, if living, must carry a heavy heart with him," said Dacre, "and if dead he must carry a heavv reckoning to . his account. He must originally. I should think, have possessed some good qualities, or people would not have believed him." "He was a matchless hypocrite, Mr Dacre." "Pardon me," said Dacre, "no man begins by bei; g a matchless hypocrite; he may have had the qualifications which would make him one, but these same qualifications, if left unperverted, would have made him a lovable and estimable man." "I dare say you are right. I have no doubt he was a painstaking, plausible, gentlemanly scoundrel; but he is not a pleasant subject for conversation. He may be beyund our judgement; and, if not, I, for one, hope he will get his deserts here." "He might not fare so badly, then, if the balance were struck evenly," Mr Dacre said. "Have you amy idea, major, where to commence your search for Mrs Walton?" "No. She was last heard of at the East End, keeping a school in some very humble neighbourhood, and under a name not her own. Our lawyers have advertised for her over and over again, but she never replied to them." "I belong to sevc-ral societies employed in Mission work in the East End," Mr Dacre said, "and it might be in my power to find them for you where any search instituted by you might fail." "I should be grateful for anything you could do in that direction: but I could only give you the very vaguest instructions. She would be a little over fifty now, and her daughter •ab'jut thirty. My lawyer speaks of Mrs Walton as a beautiful and graceful woman. But whether she was tall or short, dark or fair, I cannot sav." "Nor is there much occasion. A lady belonging to the Lugards of Ravenskerne would be sufficiently noticeable in the East End of London, however changed she may be. Was she personally acquainted with Mr Crombie?" "Yes; she stayed at his house in Scotland?" "And she would be able to identify him, if they mft. "Undoubtedly. Women never forget, and rarely forgive; and if her evidence could place him in the felon's dock I think we might depend upon it being tendered willingly, and without a reservation of any kind."

CHAPTER XV. A LOVER'S PRESENTIMENT. The major did not stay late in Canon Street on this particular evening. Old campaigner as he was, the events of the last few days had tired him, and he longed for a good night's rest in his new abode. It was not much after nine when he rose to go, and he was somewhat surprised when Leonard offered to accompany him. "I should like to walk a little way with you." young Dacre said, if you do not mind?" "My dear lad," the major said, kindly, "I am always glad of your company, and we shall see more of each other, I hope. We have all been rather unsettled since I came back to London, but things will be different •when the colonel is with us again." He thought it strange that Leonard should care to leave his friends, including Dora, for the sake of a stroll with a middle-aged bachelor, with whom he could have few subjects of interest in common; but the young man had evidently taken a strong liking to hir», and he was too genial to discourage it. "I have been wanting to speak to you," Leonard said, "but could not easily get a chance before my uncle,

and my mother did not wish me to speak of it before him. The fact is, major, my mother wishes to see you, but if you are good enough to visit her, she would not care to ht uncle know it." "I will ?ee Airs Dacre with pleasure," the major said, "and of course I am not oblige:! to mention it to your uncle; but you must see, as I do, that it seems rather an underhanded kind of business. He makes a friend of me, you are his nephew, and if I visit your mot'nor he i* nut to know." "It mus r s3em strange," Leonard admitted, "and I liave to admit that my mother is singular in all things where Mr Dacra is concerned. Yet she always speaks of him in the highest passible terms, tells me I could not have a better guile and friend; aid all the time she steadily refuses to visit him, ar.d he has never, to my knowledge, set his foot beyond the threshold of our door." "Surely, there must be some strong reason for such a very extraordinary state of things." "I have often thought so," said Leonard, "and tried to solve the mystery, but it is the one subject on which my mother will not talk. In her gentle way she is like adamant; and now, at seven-and-twenty, I have no more power to make her speak than 1 had when I was seven." "Your uncle alluded to it once," the soldier observed; "he said that she had never been in his house since she lost her husband, and that she blamed him for the one fatal step her husband took. Have you any idea what it was, and why it was so fatal?': '•go far as I can judge, it was some rash speculation, which ruined him and ethers, injured his good name, and caused him to go abroad. The ruin would not have mattered, had it fallen on him alone. She could have borne that, and woi'ked with him, or even for him, but could not forgive the injury done to his good name, and this loss in which others were involved." "But your uncle is a wealthy man, and could easily make good any losses incurred by others on account ot' jour father's conduct; and he would have done so, I have no doubt, especially if that conduct the result of his advice." "My uncle did all that," Leonard said, "and more. If my mother tells him, through me, of anyone who is in need of relief, he takes a delight in sending her whatever may be required; but he cannot restore the husband he took from her. That is what she said once when I pressed her very hard." "And there you have the explanation," the major observed. "He cannot restore the husband he took from her, the lover of Iter youth, the good and honourable man with whom she looked forward to a very happy life. That, to such a lady as I take Mrs Dacre to be, would be the one unpardonable sin. Still, I think she might have forgiven him by this time." [to be. continued.]