THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9604, 25 September 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

V BY DUNCAN McSKEGOR

CHAPTER ll.—Continued. In a little darkened boudoir Persis was standing be3ide the tinsel-filled fireplace. Lady Astraea reclined in a fauteuil near her. and old Allen Bird, with hia hands behind bis back, paced up and down the narrow room. "I am sorry, sorry that this is so," he said. "I vish in my heart that you, Miss Persis, were as I always believed, the real Miss Ormesby. This Dugaid Probyn is truly a pet child of fortune. What favours she heaps on him at other people's expense! Well, my dear Miss Persis "Pauline, if youj)lease!" said the girl incisively. The lawyer started. "Well, Miss Pauline, now all shall be arranged exactly as you desire. Speak your mind; you have given up everything magnificently, but now plan to suit yourself." "Will you agree to what I ask?" said the girl. "Yes," said both the lawyer arid Lady Astraea hastily. "You have promised," said the maiden calmly. "I hold you to that promise. After this is all over, I want the house shut up, the servants dismissed, and Dugald Probyn informed of his inheritance. For myseif, 1 must never be called Persis, nor Miss Ormesliy again, and I must be allowed to drop out ot a place where I do not belong. I will not remain among former acquaintances to be gazed at, questioned, commented on, scorned for my nameless origin, and innocant imposition, and made a nina days' wonder, I shall disappear, .and you must not tell where I am gone." "'Child, are you crazy? This is madness!" cried her friends. "Especially," said she, calmly pursuing her theme, "must I be lost to Dugald Probyn. I will not see him nor discuss this matter with him, nor take any lavour or charity from him, I could nor endure him as a boy, I know I could not endure him now. and the one grand embarrassment of my life would be to see bim. You have promised to fulfil my wishts. You are to t-II him that I am glad he has his own, that I have fifteen hundred pounds and a case of jewellery worth two thousand pounds, and so l am rich, and want nothing except to be let go my o#n way." "But my dear Miss " began the lwayer. "Pauline," said the girl sharply. "I have no doubt that is my name by right of christening; thai and nothing else wnl 1 be called, until 1 find some name to which I have a right." "Until you marry," suggested Alien Bird smoothly. "Marry!" retorted the girl. ! "What! give a family an ancestry that runs into namelessness and suspicion in one generation'back!" | The lawyer continued his pacing up and down, glancing in puzzle and admiration at this black-robed girl, her lace white as marble, her bright brown hair pushed back in careles3 waves and her feet upon a brilliant leopard's skin, her hair gleaming in the one ray of sunshine that flashed in through the top of the bowed shutters, and the spotted iur at her feet being the only brijjht lights in the sombre mouring room.

"But,, Miss Pauline, you must not be lost to u. c , your friends. J am to be your trustee, and keep your little property, and that mysterious packet, and the jewels that you do not wish to use. Surely, you will not hide from her ladysh-p, your warmest frieno", Lady Astrae , I know." "My love,'' said Lady A&traea, "do you mean to run away from me? " "Oh!" cried the girl, softening a little, "I do not know what I want or where J shall go If you will only both promise to keep me away from this terrible gazing at and questioning, and from Dugald rrobyn, who will look at me as an interloper who has defrauded him " "lam sure," began Allan Bird, but she hurried on: "Or will else look at me as an object of charity. Oh, Lady Asttraea! Oh. Mr Bird! no one knows anything of this terrible story. Will you keep it from those who have no need to hear it?" "Surely I will," said Allen Bird. "At once after the funeral, I will go myself to Florence, and tell Dugald Probyn the whole story. The house shall be closed, the property passed , over, and you shall retire where j you choose. All that need be said j publicly is, that by the late Mr > Ormesby's will Dugald Frobyn in- [ herits everything but the private . personal property of the late Honorable Charlotte Ormesby. No one | need know how much or how little that is." I "Thank you," said the girl. "It, only remains for me to give into your , hands that packet." I She left the room to bring it. I "I wi3h," »aid the solicitor,' looking after her. "that I were '■■ twenty years younger, and she should not complain of having no name if, by any chance, mine would suit her." Lady Astraea smiled. "At forty-five, Mr Bird, you would hardly be a match for a girl of nineteen. I shall take care of her." "She is happy there indeed," said Mr Bird. "She willjmiss neither name nor fortune." He took the oacket from Pauline,

1 (, Author of "Kennedy's Foe," '-Ishniael Eeforme Y "A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril," / Etc, etc.

- who returned at this moment, and withdrew. ,^ Lady Astraea. motioned the girl to an ottoman at her feet. "Child," she said, "after the funeral we willtdismiss your maid, and you shall go north with me to New Castle, and we will see if we can unravel this mystery of your parentage. No one shall know about it except my woman Birkin. She, you understand, was present at the birth of the real Persis, and had known you for years. After we have been north we will consider what caurse you shall pursue. In two years, at all events, I think that i packet will unfold what we wish to know." Lady Astraea would have been appalled if she had dreamed what that packet contained. CHAPTER 111. ——i — ON THE,TRACK OF THE SECRET AT NORBURtfWAIN. A lovely evening—the first of August—the river Tyne ran saffron and silver in the light of the setting sun; soft purple and white clouds floated along the horizon. In that northern, land the fields were just growing faint green again after mowing. Into the towers of the ancient.ivymantled church of Norbvirywain gay swallows, and burnished doves, and noisy rooks were fluttering, coming in and out in restless preparation for darkness; the rooks, the swallows and pigeons, each having had from old time prescriptive right to certain portions of the tower. That tower, with its floating ivy banners, cast a long dark shadow south-eastward over the many-centuries-old burial ground, the silent village of the dead; and from its base wandered away in one long, rambling street the plain, cheery, thatch-roofed village of the living. At the gate of the churhyard stood a hackney coach from New Castle. In the yard itself, just in the light where the shadow of the tower ended, two women stood' beside a grave—they were the Lady j Astraea Harcourt and Pauline. The ! grave upon which they looked was marked by a small pillar bearing , the letters P. O. Here were the j ashes of the baby heiress, whose ; life had seemed to flow on and ripen in the life of the handsome, resolute girl now looking upon it. j Here Charlotte Ormesby, in dis- ' appoinmenr, wrath and pain, had buried her owh daughter, and here —we can hardly say temptation had me: her; but stie had walked boldly into a temptation to substitute a child and defraud the rightful heir. Pauline looked at Lady A strata. I TO BE CONTINUED, i