THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9600, 21 September 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAPTER I.—Continued. When Norton, had said "Lady Harcourt" the woman behind the tree started and turned herself to listen. When Lady Harcourt replied, she harkened with bated breath, and a suJden tension of the whole figure, aa if brought to some excitement by j her ladyship's clear, decisive voice. But when Lady Harcourt added "My dear, (loos this suit you?" and a girl's voice said "Yes, think you. this is very delightful," the woman gave a little shivering sigh, and came around the tree. She was a woman with a remarkably good figure, a net veil over her face, and a basket of primroses in her gloved hand. Now primroses were long past their season, and thia basketful with wide, lovely petals looking like embroidered morning light, set in their circle of wrinkled velvet leaves, were beautiful to behold. Lady Harcourt had a passion for primroses. They had carpeted her favourite playground when a child, they had greeted her, strewn in bandfuls in her path, when she went a bride to what was now her favorite dower house near Uffculme, Devon. The basketful, long out of season, product of some chill and shaded deil that yielded its favors late, now caught her eye. Persis was still standing, with a care graceful and beautiful in the young, waiting on her elder friend, who had taken her seat, arranging tha folds of her shawl, and disposing of her parasol, little cares that Lady Astraea never thougt of performing for herself. , The owner of the primroses came closely to the two ladies, so closely that s"he pressed against Persia' side, and looking swifly from one to another, but longest at the youngest face, she said: "My lady, will you buy a basket of primroses?" Lady Harcourt drew out her purse at once, and taking from it a crown, took the dainty basket and dropped the money into the hand which had held it. "Is that enouah?" she asked. "Thanks, my lady," replied the flower seller, closing her hand over the money at which she never even glanced. "I wish I baa a basket for the young lady." Persis suddenly lookd her keenly in the face, and drew away from her with a moiion of displeasure, taking a seat beside Lady Astraea. "She does not look like a coramin fiower-sßller!" exclaimed her ladyship, finding time to glance from her beloved flovvets. " Why, she has the air of a lady, and is veiled, and, now that I ibink of it. she wore kid gloves! Why, how very extraordinary!" and she followed with her eyes the stranger passing over the hill. "Mo, not like a flowe - seller certainly." "Nor yet like a common thief," saii Presis to herself, and yet she had distinctly seen this woman abstract her handkerchief from her pocket. "1 am glad she is gone," said Lady Astraea. "i thought we*were quite alone here. How oddly she acted. Did you notice how closely she stood by ycu, and absolutely stared into your face? 1 was about to reprove her as she turned away, but—here she comes back again." The woman came quietly up the hill, holding a small cambric hand' kerchief in her hand. She stopped before Persis. "Miss, I think you must have lost this handkerchief." "It is mine," said Persis, taking it, and eying her. "Thank you," said Lady Harcourt, considering Presis lacking in courtesy. The woman again withdrew, but Norton came back. "My lady, have you been annoyed, have you lost anything?" "Nothing but a handkerchief, which some person returned" "I saw her go behind a tree, examine a handkerchief which she took from her pocket. I think she was looking for a name. Then she shook her head, disappointed like, and came this way, and brought it in her hand " "That will do, Norton," said Lady Astraea. "Pisappointed 9 " thought Persis. Yes, the expression of the woman's face had changed when she came back with that bit of linen. The two wer§ alone at last; the primroses in their dewy morning beauty lay in strong relief lap of Lady Astraea's black velvet carriage dress; but their new owner was ot looking at them, nor reveling in their varied associations; she was studying the pale, absorbed face at her side. Presently she said: j "Persis, how much ot that conver- ! sation did you hear?" "I was asleep in my own window i behind the curtains," replied the eirl. "I often sit there when she seems to get restless and tired of having any one near her. I was sleepy, for last night I was in her room several hours, and I fell asleep, and 1 awoke up juat as she was saying 'You force me to speak!' after that you know all the rest came quickly before I could move or call out. 1 heard all before I knew what I was hearing." "Persis, when you heard these words, 'She is not my daughter.' how did you feel? Had you ever guessed it?"

V EY DUNCAN McGKEGOR ? Author of "Kennedy's Foe," '-Ishmael Kefornied," V "A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril." / Etc, etc.

f "No; but, Lady Astraea, I felt, !'Thank tiod?'" "Why, Persis?' "Oh," said Persis, turning an earnest face to her friend, "you do not know what a weight was for one second lifted from my heart. Ido not know if I can make you understand how it had all been, or'what I felt." I "I w : sh you would try. Remember, I charge myself with your destiny. We must unravel this tangled thread of circumstance."* "You are very good, but Ido not expect " "Say no more," interrupted Lady Astraea; "when once my neart and my word are given, they are never taken back. No young girl in all my acquaintance, not even my granddaughter, has so strongly at ■ tracted me as you have. I think I must, have known you in "some other state than this,' before we came into the world in our present bodies, perhaps," laughed ths old lady. "I catch in you a ,; something so natural which seems to have drifted to me out of my youth—when all young people were "so much better than they are now. But explain to me this feeling of relief—this 'thank God.'" "Well, Lady Astraea, did it ever occur to you that— Mrs Ormesby, whom I called mother—never loved me?" "Why, Persis, she has always been devoted in her cares for you, and has she not a loving nature?" "Yes, she has been devoted in her cares. I have been waited on, educated, taken everywhere,received the most intense physical care, been loaded with all that the Ormesby heiress could expect; and yet it was all care, and no tenderness; she often seemed to shrink from me; she followed me of ten with her eyes as if I were some haunting ghost. She never caressed me, never once in all her life said to or of me, 'daughter' I was 'Persia' or' Miss Ormesby,' or 'tSeauty,' as occasion, served, and accordingly as she spoke to or of me. I often wordered at it; I shrank irom it. When other mothers and daughters were by I felt the difference, aa one would feel a winter chill projected among summer flowers. I told myself that hers as not a loving nature, and that she had even disliked her husband ; yet, 1 had seen mother nature triumphanting over these disadvant' ages, but never 111 her."

I TO BF, OONTIN JKD. i

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