THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9635, 29 October 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAPTER X, THE SECRET REACHES PALAZZO RIDOLb'I. The narrow seas were less disposed than French captains, saiiot'S and couriers to treat the English travel ■ lfil'ti with courtesy. L.ml Harcourt and Pauline were the only comfoitable members of the party, and they devoted themselves to promenading the deck. Pauline felt herself watched, not so much by Mrs Viitnorpe, as by a pair ot eyes behind a veil, and the veil covered the face of a woman who was among the steer age passengers, but not of them. Undoubtedly she watched Lord Thomas find Pauline.

Lord Harcourt bethought himself that he must go to wait upon his mother Kiid daughter, and he left Miss Percv standing looking into the steerage. Presently she dropped her handkerchief and glove upon the lower deck, and glancing hastily about to see if her party were occupied, she went herself after the dropped articles. A child had picked them up. and she might have returned without saying a "word, but instead she went straigt to the veiled woman. "Mrs Bemis, why are you following us, and watching us?'" The woman started; then spoke angrily: "Has the Harcourt family some especial chartered right to travel, while all the root of the world should stop at home?" "But you are following us?" "I am going to Paris." "To stay?" "As long as I please." "Mrs Bemis, whom are you folIwoing? I" i 1: me or Lady Linn?" "Both! crifd Mrs Bemis as if driven out of her reserve. "If you follow me, tell me why. If,you will follow me and not Lady Lina if'l separate from her, I will leave these friends rather than to subject ther* to what is painful. I have ng claim on them, that my presence should be a means of their an • noyance." "Go with them," said Mrs Bemis bitterly, "nothing must occur to trouble them, as they walk upon the heights of life. But, Miss Percy, one thing I warn yon: you are not to mention that you have seen me today, or that I am on this boat." She rose and looked fixedly at Pauline. "I bind myself by no promises," said the girl* trying to turn away. The woman suddenly caught her hand. "You shall promise. 1 command you not to speak! I have a right to command." "And why? What gives yuu this right?" said Pauline trembling. "Go, and be silent," said Mrs Bemis, "this is no place for you." She turned away so resolutely that Pauline left her, and slowly returned to the upper deck, wondering what she should do. The question nearly found its own solution when the boat landed at Boulogne, a solution in ths silence of death, Only Dugald Probyn prevented it. Not that Dugald knew that his history was in any way entwined with that of the woman from the steerage who lost her footing as the gang plank &lippdd in its place, and who went down without a cry under the sullen waters. Lady Lina and Pauline were standing together on the upper dick of the steamer and were watching the departure of the steerage passengers and the oming of Dugald Probyn, who drove up, as the steamer made her landing. "See tliit stalwart, light-haired god of the Northlands!" cried Lady Lina. "Pauline, what a goodly couple you and Dugald would make." £ She spoke with such a sudden excitement as it to conceal an emo- j tion, that Pauline wondered if she | too had recognised lhat veiled wo-j man on the lower deck. And then all at ojice the woman slipped from the gang plank, and Lady Lina shrieked ard fainted, arid her father carried her back to the cabin, while Dugald plunged under the water, and came gallantly up with the woman on his arm, limp and white, with a bruise on her temple.

Pauline only had time to think that perhaps this was her mother whose death she had nearly witnessed, and she tan down to the lower deck, and begun to minister to her, while all her companions made way for the young lady of the first-class passengers. DugaJd in the?confusion never saw that it was Miss Percy who knelt by the woman, rubbing her, and giving her wine and smelling salts; his duty was done when he laid the rescued one down in safety, and he made his way to tha cabin,- where Lady Lina was the centre of excitement. Presently Mrs Bemis recovered consciousness. She recognised Pauline, but her mind seemed to wander. "The other young lady?" she said faebly. "She fainted dead away when vou fell," interposed a woman who was drying Mrs Bemis' long, heavy hair. Then down came Birkin. "Miss Percy, Lady Astraea sends for you, and, is there anything; that we can do for the woman?" j<t£t Pauline hesitated. *!

"Tell Lady AstraeaJl will came in &n instant, as soon as the woman is better."

V BY DUNCAN McGREGOR «£ 1 1 Author of "Kennedy's Foe," '■lsLimiel Keforiuo (« "A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril," | Etc., etc. jjf

Birkin turned away. Pauline bent closer |o her patient. "Did you fall, or did you mean to do it?" she whi-pered. "I slipped and then I felt all at once as if I did not care, and it would ha better so,replied the woman. "And you cannot trust me. Y.iu will not tt!l me anything?" "Nothing: and you had better go." "You dn no't care for me? You do not wish me to stay'?' "No, no; you perplex me; you distract me; go!" Pauline rose -from her knees. "There is nothing that I can do? Have you money enough?" "Money? Yes, plenty. Always a question of money. Go, I say." Birkin was returning, and Pauline hastened to go to Lady Astraea. A few days more, and the Harcourts were established in the Pal ■ azzo Ridolfi, in Florence. Dugald Probyn was daily there. Lady Lina was unusually complasent, and Lord Harcourt finally concluded that w : thiu a few months, in this land of romance and love, his wayward daughter would be safely married to his heir-at-law. His lordship did not know that but a few days after he moveJ into the Palazzo Ridolfi, a woman remarkable for graceful carriage had taken a lodging on the street behind his new abode, and that her window happened to command the small rear gate sheltered by the olive trees.

Now on one of these enchanting May days when Italy is at her loveliest, a student of Pisa. Granitto Marie Arriano, was lying on the greensward, in the shadow of the wall of the Campo Santo. He had in his. hand a book, no other, than a French novel, a novel by Victor Hugo. He read and luxuriated. While thus engaged, an ancient canon of his church came by. As he drew nearer, and his shadow fell across the voung man's book. Granitto instinctively dropped it on its face and laid his arm over it, for concealment is native to your Italian. The old man smiled. 'Nephew, you need not hide the hook; I have seen—and a French novel is none so bad; though, especially as this is a public a place, I could have wished it had been your bonk of hours." "1 don't take naturally to books of hours," saii Granitto. "That may be. Human nature is a balky steed. But you might take to them from a sense of duty as an adjunct of your future profession. Almost everything in this world, my son, that io worth pirsuing, or competent to yield a living, demands a sacrifice. "I could make sacrifices, and be faithful to death," *said Granitti, "for anything that could fire ny blood and waken my enthusiasm." "And cannot the church do that?" "It might fire an antiquarian, uncle, or some spiritual enthusiast, but not me." fortune!" cried the eld canon. "What would do it?" I TO BIS CONTINUED.! The cougn tnat is contracted in the winter, and which continues through the spring and summer nearly always indicates some throat or lung trouble, and should not be neglected. The ordinary cough medicine may f.octlie the throat, but it has not the power to heal. Recovery is not complete, and a second attack is mere liable to follow. You .cannot get a better medicine for coughs of this description than Chamberlain's Cough Kemody. < liamberlain's Couah Rpmedy is an excellent medicine for all throat and lung trouble, for it not only soothes the irritation, but it heals the affected parts, and leaves them m such a healthy condition, that the danger of a second attack is removed. For sale by all chemists and storekeepers