THE DOUBLE SECRET.
CHAPTER lll.—Continued. "I have an odd feeling that this is my own grave, and that I have lain in it, and then have coine out for the life 1 have lived, and now die here again to enter on a life so different." Birkin, an elderly woman, Lady Astraea's personal attendant, had been standing near the churchyard gute, and she now came up in sup ■ pressed excitement. "My lady, I have just seen the perso;-. named Hannah Bolton, to wI:o:e cottage you were going——"
"Weil?" said Lady Astraea, as Bit kin paused. "I thought I recognised her—l was sure of it—and I asked the sexton who it migl:t be, and he told me Mrs Hannah Bolton, who let lodgings in the co.ttge last in the village overhanging the river." "Well, Birkin?"said her ladyship, a little impatiently. "If you please, my ladv, she is the very nurse we had in the house for my Lady Thomas Harcourt when Lady Lina was born. You remember her, my lady?" "Be sure T do. A very excellent woman, tou."
"And she and I were quite intimate, mv lady I may s&y particularly so, and I thought—l thought if 1 was to ree her, my lady, sociably like. I could soon find out all she knew about whatever we have come to ask "
"Lady Astrsea " cried Pauline, eagerly, "let me plan something! Let ua now drive back to New Castle and tomorrow let me be your maid and wait on you for a few days, and let Birkin come out, here and take ivlrs Bolton's lodgings, and in a littla time she can make all the enquiries we need, and come back to us.'"
"That is a good plan in the main,"' said Lady Astraea; "but my dear Pauline, the idea of your wailing on me, when it is only a week since you ceased having a maid yourself after being waited on nil your life." "I get on beautifully," said Pauline, "and you might as well let me try, Lady Astraea; it will be good practise fir me. I must hereafter earn my Jiving somehow." Birkin threw up her hazels j n dismay.
"You have 'fifteen hundred pounds," b:gan her ladyship. "That is capit: I to be saiely inves ted, so that in old age or sickness 1 shall not be a pauper," replied Pauline 4
"But you will msrry " "'Never!" sai 1 Pauline firmly. "A woman without a name—how, my lady," and the forced a smile, "would I put my maniage-notice in the paper? Lord, or duke, wr marquis so and so, and Pauline Nothing, how would it look?" "But perhaps the lord, or duke, or marquis, is not indispensable?" suggested Lady Astraea. "Something very like it." said Pauline; "if I marry at all I find in myself a fitness for a title, a rentroll, and a long list of tenantry."
Meanwhile, Birkin, as socn as Pauline haii mentioned self-support, had prudently withdrawn to the gate. "It is growing late," said Lady Astraea, pulling her shawl close over her shoulders. "We have proved part of thi-j strange story of poor Charlotte's in finding the stone marked P. 0. and making sure that Hannah Bolton takes lodgers in her cottage. We had better return to New Castls." "And to rrorrow Birkin may come and take lodgings?"
"Yes, if you wish it," said Lady Astraea , As they neared the gate her ladyship bethought herself and said to the sexton, who waß lingering near: u "My good man, could you show ub the church-registers. We wish to look at the register of deaths for some fifteen or sixteen years ago." "The clerk, my lady," replied the sexton, "has just gone into the vestry where the books are. If you were pleased to come," he turned into the shadow of the church porch and Lady Astraoa. Pauline and Birkin followed him.
The darkness was settling fast along the ancient aisles and arches, and the sexton lit a lamp hanging m the vestibule, and then a large lantern by which he showed the way into tha vestry, where he made known the wish of ths visitors. The clerk ran his fingera hastily along a lin6 of books in a niche, took down a thick volume, blew off the dust, and opened to a partially filled page. "The village is healthy madam, and the parish is not large. There are all the deaths for the year you mention."
Pauline's quick eye glanced down the page over which tha clerk held a flickering candle, and she laid her finger on the record of the burial of Persis Olden of St. Andrews, aged three, died August 10th. "That must be the one," said Lady Astraea, following with care the registrations on two pages. "But I see no Mary Martin," she added, "Probably she gave her own name at the last," said Pauline.
"But these all seem to be names of residents, natives of the parish," suggested Lady Astraea. "Well, Bitkin can find out." She teed the clerk and sexton, and as the twilight was now gathering, returned to the cab. Birkin took her
BY DUNCAN MoQKEGOE Author of "Kennedy's Foe," ♦•lshin;:el Eeforrue "A Game of Three,'' "Edna's Peril." Etc, etc.
place by the driver, and under the brilliant stars they rolled swiftly along to New Castle.
This same bright August evening two gentl?men were strolling in the Boboli Gardens in Florence. One was short, gray, nervous in movement with keen gray eyes glittering with youthful fires under white brows and lashes; his companion w?s young, tall and slender, with a singularly musical voice, capable of expressing unalterable questions in the most engaging way. These two were Allan Bird, solicitor. 8 Grey's inn Lane, London, and Dugald Probyn, attache to the British Legation at the court of the Duke at Florence. The two stopped in their promenade, and Dugald leaned against the base o± Gion Wolonga's statue of Abondance.
"I really wish," said Probyn, "that things had not turned in this way. I never admired the Honourable Charlotte Ormesby, and she and my father were always at swords' point?, but I am sorry to think that any woman could be capable of a lifelong fraud Dress it up as we may, it was falsehood and robbery, and those are hard sayings to write against a won-an. I have set up all women on a sort of height of saintship in my idea, and it's hard to bid any one of them come down."
"I should think,"- said matter offact Allan Bird, glancing toward the city, which surged in noisy, glittering waves outside the severe simplicity of the facades of the Pitti Palace~"l should think that every day as you go about the world you would have to be taking down people from such an elevation as saintship." "i had always a fashion," said Dugald, "of assuming that things were as I wanted them to be unMl I was forced to admit otherwise, as I am in this case. But, as I said, 1 am sorry. I never expected the Ormes • by thousands, and I never craved them; Ido not need them. My tastes are not expensive; my father left me somethirg, my position here is good, my expectations are better. 1 had much rather things had really been as they seemed to be." "You might make over the inheritance." suited Allan Bjrd, "but, in a legal point of view, 1 do not advise it."
I TO BE OONTINUED. i
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Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9605, 27 September 1909, Page 2
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1,250THE DOUBLE SECRET. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9605, 27 September 1909, Page 2
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