THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9644, 9 November 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAPTER Xlll.—Continued. The girl brooded over the disastrous termination of her folly of clandestine meetings. Remotely ahe felt herself the occasion of Arriano's outlawry and of Madzo's death. Dugald Probyn unconscious of any tender feelings between Arriano and Lina, undertook with great zeal the pursuit and punishment of the audacious Italian. Lord Thomas continued his method of heart-cure by telling b&fore Lina all ihe damaging things which he heard about Granitto, and reading h<er accounts of him from the Italian papers, while the Italian servants matte ltud mourning over poor Madzo, wlio had been cut off in the bloom of hi 3 youth, unshrined and all unready.

The government of the Grand Duke of Florence, took up with much zeal the case of Granitto Marie Arriano; he had long been looked upon sus pieiously as belonging to a set of young men who longed for a United Italy, aid favoured the House of Savoy; the liberal views of Arriano had awukmed the hostility of the reigning house, but the influence of tnc young man's family, and the resentment occasioned by government hostility, and h j d his errors to be passed over in silence. Now that Arriano could be said to have attacked, evidently for purposes of plunder and murder, the house of an English peer, the home of a member of the British Legation, the highest fury of the Tuscan authorities could only be looked upon as zeal for England, and fear to offtnd so great a Power, and so the sins of Granitto were proclaimed on a placard that graced almost every streec corner. All these things were promptly conveyed to the eard of poor Lady Lina. The man whom she loved was a fugitive with a price on his head, and while she dreacud ana shrank from the very thought of meeting him again, she had no idea of ever being able to love any other, or to find in life any further charm. Meanwhile there was no news from Arriano, and a gloom settled over Villa Pazzi.

The alarm in the garden had occurred the first of September; the first of October an opening fete was given ,at the Castle Vinegiliata, which in 1855 had fallen into the hands of an English owner. The fete was one of unusual splendour, and Lord Thomas Hari:ourt insisted that all his family should rtccept invitations to he present. He felt sure that the magnificence of the scene would arouse Lina from her melan choly. Long betore the girl agreed to attend, ltd bait been despatched as an especial messenger to Paris lo faring his young mistress a dress and jewellery for the occasion, and when these arrived the day before the fete, Lady Lina almost forgot tba 4 ; she was inconsolable 1 , ami had decided to forsake the world. What girl could ignore the potent charms of a pale blue brocade Ire's*, covered with a web of costly lace, suggesting soft, fleecy clouds over a sapphire sky and add to this the clusters of delicate blush roses that caught the lace into puffs' and matched, the faint rose hug of necklace and bracelets of pink cameos set in pearls. Pauline had nut on no bright colours since the death of Charlotte Ormesby, and she ridw wore a cream coloured eilk trimmed with laeeof the same sha<?e arid knots of violets, and a remark ably beautiful chain and rings of amethysts, which she had heired | from Charlotte Ormesby. This amy j thyst chain consisted of a nundi'td 1 and twenty gems set in a silver J filigree of almost invisible fineness o+' texture; it had been a gift from | Mr Ormesby to Charlotte on their wedding tour, and was at its pur- ' chase the chief glory of the famous 1 Ponte Vicchio or Jeweller's Bridge. As it had never Been worn by Charlotte Ormesby who had some ! superstition about it, Pauline felt I that she was safe in using it. Duj gald Probyn was always so enrap- | tured with the face of Pauline, that while he had a general impression that her dress was exquisite and always concentrated attention upon j any of it parts. It was only then when they were dancing, and Paul- j ine's chain caught upon a button of his vest, and he was obliged to dis--1 entangle it, that he especially no ticed the costly bauble. Some association at once seemed connected with it, although he felt sure that he had never before seen it; he was bo absorbed in striving to trace out this association trm Pauline found him but a silent partner. Ab for herself, since she had determined to stay with Lina, and conquer her own growing preference for Dugald, she dared hardly trust herself to be with him, and was glad when the dance was done and Probyn led her back to Lady Astraea. At the same moment young Lord Milcourt came up with Lady Lina 'on his arm. Lord Harcourt was standing at a little distance with the Duke of Birmingham, and as he saw the beautiful girls on either side ot the stately old lady he remarked to Lord Harcourt: "Your two daughters are very beautiful and very unlike. The elder is more like your family." "I have but one daughter, Lady > Lina, the one in blue; the other is my mother's ward, and it would

V BY DUNCAN IIcGREGOR ] L Author of "Kennedy's Foe," "TsJimael Eeforme V "A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril." / Etc., etc.

give me infinite satisfaction if I could claim her for a daughter," re plied Lord Harccurt, feeling that Pauline would be m far less perplexing daughter than dear Lina. Meanwhile Probyn withdrew a little into an alcove, where with his eyes fixed on Pauline, he with his usual pertinacity over a new subject, sought to unravel the mystery of the amethyst chain. He thought of his own mother's jeweis, and of a time when (hey had been exhibited to him by his father. 'lhen the Rial o rose before him and his father's face, and then the shop of a jeweller in Venice with an old man setting an ametnyst. He was on the right track now. He had it; he heaid again tthe very tones of Peter Probyn'a voice, inveighing against the extravagance of Ormesby who sought to buy for himself the love that a vain and selfish woman had not to give and then a description of this wonderful amethyst chain a hundred and twenty curiously matched stones set in silver filigree, like spiders*' webs with the dew tremblnig on them. Now he had hold ot ! the clue—this girl's face had always seemtd subtilely connected with the past; sometimes at a tone in her voice his boyhood had risen as at an enchanter's call—this girl who had avoided him, who had been so nilent, who never spoke of her early life or friends; this was no other than Persis Ormesby, whose fortune was now peacefully reposing to his account at his banker's, and who, without money or a name, had sunk out of sight. He felt likerushing to her, and saying : "Ah. I have found you out! Do you remember how we quarrelled as i boy and girl, and how I took away all your peaches 9" Would she not come nearer to him on this ground of childish acquaintance? But what right had he to penetrate her secret, and display his knowledge? Was she not a girl that thus discovered when she would be hidden would promptly put sensa and silence between herself and pursuit? Had he not better fly to her. and call his Maud out into' the garden and offer her his heart which waa and would he hers alone? But just here Lord Harcourt went up to Pauline and gave her his arm, and presently ihey were lobt to sight in the conservatory. Then an Italian signoriiid, a bright girl, whose name was in the Tuscan gold book, beguiled Lina to join herself and some others, who had taken refuge beside a bank of flowers where ices were to be brought to them They sat on the silken couches, and in the light of the chandelier, like a flight of brilliant birds, in the sun, and the music of their gem voices rippled from their fair retreat!

"Such an adventure." cried the Concesse Bartelli, "as my brother, the duke's 'secretary, had here in the Apennme. This famous new bandit, who is seemingly in every place at once, and master of all roads, met,him and -his servant at a turn of the way. The bandit stood under a big chestnut tree, and. hsd a little basket of figs; from anions the t r <?e 3 a dozen. da,rK faces looked out and one saw the " ghfrie of musket barrels', The baodit stepped aereas the road: 'A thousand welcomes, signor Condescend to a few figs from your, huinbli SSrvant. . You need support <M your journey, and lest so merry a young man be bur dened, those letters and dispatches which make you doubtless very fettxious may be bestowed upon a poor rascal, who has no home but the hills.' And so, if you will credit it, he took the dispatches, and when my brother hand d him his purse, he just toss.d it to ore: of his followers, saying: 'As a loan from the signor. Then he asked the horse as a souvenir, and then requested the pleasure of my brother's company for a few hours until a messenger could be sent into Fkrence for a large ransom. And so he kept my brother until the money came." "I have heard," cried Signorina Fetraia, "that he is the most distrantingly, handsome and genteel of knights of the road. He is of excellent famly and has been a student at Pisa."

"Did you hear," asked the Countess Bartelli, "how this new man came to go to the hills?" "There are a thousand rumours," said Signoritta Salvi "I have heard that there was a band of eight on the hills to the northeast, and unluckily their captain was killed in a strife with the gens d'armes, and they c ould not fix on a successor. So finally they agreed one night to stand guard on a hill path, and the first man that came up the path should be their leader; if they did not like him in a week they would send him over the French frontier. Well, as they watched, up the path came a gallant youiig man, and another; they had been in some trouble and killed a man, and as this brave lad came to the brow of the hill the party met him and made him captain. The second day after he made a dash into Pisa, and came back with ten young men to join the band. Within a week he seized a wagon load of ammunition going to Genoa. His name I have not heard, but they call him II Mettino. and they say he is learned, and affable, and liberal." 'TO BE CONTINUKD. i