THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9657, 23 November 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAFTER XVlll.—Continued. "Mv eon said nothing whvn I told hi in of Agnes Clifford's marriage. Three days alter he informed me of his engagement to the woman of my choice for him. In four months they were married. My son h:is lately told mc Hint within the first ye;sr after hi.-; marring:: he was sure that Agnes way three or lour times va: ir liarcourt Towers. Once he thought lie saw her parting with an under housemaid oi" ours—Susan-now Susan Larkin. They seared.to have been speaking at the wicket gate leading i'lto the forest. Once he thought he saw her *>t a distance in the village street, hi d once he made sure he saw her face thn.ngh the window of old widow Larkio'u cottage; but he sent Timball to inquire, and Mrs Larki" said that she had no strangers. Tuis last time w:-s within a werk of the birth of my granddaughter, and about ten months after my son's marri ■ age." Lady Asfrae'i tnen proceeded to tell ot the fears which Lord Harcnnrt had entertained that this woman should gai.i the friendship of his daughter, poison her mind and thwart his plans. She told of the lodger and the ring at Susan Larkin's and of the mysterious Mrs Bemis at Marke Holme.

I '.'Have you any proof that this Mrs Bem'is is Acnes Clifford, or that she has been lately in Italy?" asked Allan Bird. j "Yes; I feel sure of both," I "And what was the after history of Gervase his wife'?" i "The old lady died and left Agnss the cottage. Six months after her marriage she began to he absent from home at intervals. Finally, after an absence of six weeks, she returned, bringing; luv babe. Gervase seemed mure and more uiv ' happy after his marriage. His health grew infirm, he lost interest in j everything, and did not care for his ! child. A year after his wife's return, ' when she brought home the babe, she and GerVHs:; must have had some fierce quarrel, for she disappeared, taking the child, and for two years and a half was absent. She returned alone, to find that Gervase Lewis had been dead for nearly a year. He never mentioned htr name after she abandoned him. When she found trnt ha was dead she shut her self in the cottage alone for nearly a month, having thi least possible intercourse with any one. - After that she sold the furniture, the doors, and the windows, and leaving the place to go to ruin—the cot'tige stood with half an acre of ground, a very ancient little freehold—she went away, and has never since been heard of in Marke Holme. The village folks set up a story that she had committed suicidf, ai.d that her ghost haunts the cottage." "Had she any property?" "Fifty pounds a year."

"Well, I see. You think this Mrs Bemis has carried out her plans, and has secured this unfortunate marriage of Lady Lina and the Italian. It is a bitter revenge and lasting, for, my lady, the marriage was legal, and there are no grounds for divorce—" "Sir," said Lady Astraea, "I thank Heaven that the marriage was legal; aid I think that divorces are wicked."

"I heard," continued the lawyer, "of some English lady at Torre del Pucoo, but I neither heard her name nor saw her. I was captured merely to get from me the sealed packet containing Miss Percy's secret. I feel sure that the Englishwoman at the Terre wa3 the moving cause of that robbery; it that woman is Mrs Bemis, Why, then, it seems to me she holds in one hand the mystery of Miss Percy, in the other, the revenge of Lord flarcourt. A horrible fear seizes me. I should be cruelly sorry to give to Miss Percy this Mrs Bemis for a mother."

"Miss Percy is fearful that Mrs Bemis is her mother; certain facts in'her conduct at Marke Holme suggest it." "So unlike, so utterly unlike. Miss Percy is so proud and so lofty in her ideas of right and wrong, like yourself, my lady, moulded on your model, as if born of your blood."

"And ray granddaughter has eloped with an outlaw!"

"There are'perversities of flower and fruit,' as an American poet elegantly expresses it. But Lady Lina is a most fascinating creature, and at her marriage looked lovely as a serapin. Oh, I wish you could have seen her, my lady." "Meanwnile, my son is frantic and disgraced. I may yet relieve part of the force of the blow. There is a paper containing three questions for your careful study. Good morning."

Allan Bird gave his arm to her ladyship, and accompanied her to the waiting cab. Lady Astraea had thought good that the Harcourt coach should not exhibit itself during her invsstigations that morning. She told the cabdriver to take her to the house of Sir heibert Lester, a famous physician residing in Hyde Park Square. While Lady Astraea was being taken thither, Allan Bird had opened the envelope and direct wonder grew on his face as he read Lady As-

V BY DUNCAN I«r'G.HI<:GOPv, ) . %» Author of "Kennedy's Vov,' *■ L-iiiu.'.cl KYfunue V "A Gram* of Three/' "!vh,-V Peiti/' i Etc,,to,

tram's three questions, Then he rose, and unlocked three drawer.", one inside the other, ami put i_.a-.ly A?ti\.e;.'s pap,„r into n drawer •nmrdc'l by a secret spring, and locked the* oih: j r three drawers upon it. ;t 11.i thus hid I.sidy Af';;h.'m\s secret from nioi'ta] eye, ami after that betook himself t> u very profound thinking indeed l/:dy A.-'trnea'ti busioe?'; with Sir Le.s.tr was brief. "You were pre-unt ;;t the birth of mv !'j'a-:ddaiio-hler; did you make any onto of a peculiar marl; on the child?" "My dear l-uly, I al-vnys notice these tilings; they are the subject of my profound stick. 1 am preparing a large and exhaustive work in two parts. It ha work greatly needed in tiij medical profession, and I have devoted 11 it the study of years." "Hut this mark on my granddaughter." irit?riio. ; !Gcl Lady Astraea, as Sir H.rbert Lester paused for breath. "A very unique mark; four inches below the hollow of the throat: three minute pear -shaped moles, forming an exact triangle. I made a drawing oil tlii! spat, and it is in my bookPart First: Se.tion First: paragraph twenty, kage forty-two; name, of course, in asterisks.'' "And it was a mark not likely to grow less or pass entirely away?" "13y no means'. Madam, my clear lady, I watched that mark carefully during ten days; it was clearly defined, unmistakable. At; long as her ladyship your granddaughter, the belle of the aeason, I hear, lives, that i mark will remain, unless it is rei moved by some needless surgery of which I beg you will not think. The mark so placed is no blot on her dazzling beauty, and r I regard these marks as advantageous—a stamp of identity." "But if I told you that this child, from an early period, after the date of your last notice, has sliown no mark at all "

"Quite impossible? I think the nurse asked me if it would go away, and I emphatically said no." ,™ r "Bin if the child had soon "no mark?" ;:,"",^ "Then it could not be the same child," cried Sir Lester. "Which is impossible," said Lady Astraea.

"But ten times more impossible for the mark not to remain the •eame," cried Sir Lester, de?ply excited, setting his wig crooked, disarranging his neck scarf and collar, dropping his spectacles and handkerchief, and bustling frantically for a pile of papers and plates, and dragging out one which he introduced as No. 10, with all the dignity with which he would have introduced a peer. ""-

"Here is the plate of that mark, full size, a remarkable eccentricity of nature, cs if design-id expressly for a lady uf such high fortune and remarkable beauty as Lady Lina Harcourt. Madam, this is perfect." Lady Astraea looked, sighed, was silent, she was wisa nut to use speech, where speech was a superfluity.

And yet, returned to her hotel, when Birkin had left her alor.e to get a little rest. Lady Astraea asked herself, in a sorrow of soul, a question : "Shall I rob him of the child who has displeased him, him childless; shall I tike away a sad certainty by as sad an uncertainy?" Then came the question ever paramount with her: "What is right?" That evening Lady Astraea told Birkin that they would next day set out on their return to Florence.

"My lady, you will be captured, like poor Mrs Vilthorpe!" "Mrs Vilthorpe and I are t*o very different persons. She travels with a poodle," said Lady Astraea, with great severity.

"But," remonstrated Birkin, "the poodle was not to blame for h«r being captured, if you please,Mny dear lady." "There is no one will dare capture me, Birkin; I have never met an uncivil w. r! in all my life."

Then Birkin, trembling in her very soul at thought of bandits, wa9 constrained like a modern —well salaried —Ruth to respond: "Where thou goest I will eo." "A letter for Lady Astraea Karcourt," said a servant, at the door. It was only a line or twc from Allan Bird: "Can you devise any method of getting that packet from the Italian? Could your granddaughter persuade him to give it up? Would he be likely to seli it? I fear lest this Mrs Bemis may destroy it. I would be ready to offer an enormous price for it." "The packet? Of course, Mrs Bemis has destroyed it, if it contains anything initrical to herself. Poor Pauline, she must leave her origin unknown; but better that than known to be disgraceful. If she is Mrs Bemis' child, is she legitimate? Gervase Lewis was a gentleman and a man not to blush for ua a father. But, if illegitimate, whose child is she? And yet, as Agnes Clifford rises before me now, it is as a furious woman, a revengeful woman, but not as a lost and dishonoured woman,"

Tvo be continued. )