THE DOUBLE SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9661, 27 November 1909, Page 2

THE DOUBLE SECRET.

CHAPTER XX. -Continued

"I made no one a sharer of my intention. Widow Lark in did the fine laundry work for the Towers, and had throe times each week the baby's clothing to iron. One day when your child was about two ! weeks old I engaged Widow Lark in to go on an errand tor me, sayit:g that I would carry the babe's clothes to the Towers. I had ascertained the routine of affairs from Susan. I dressed my child in the Elarcourt babe's clothes, gave it an anodyne, laid it in the basket under the muslins, and Susan took me up to tne nursery at the Towers, were she was to remain while the babe's nurse breakfasted. I asked Susan to leave me alone a moment. She did so. I put the child Horn the cradle in the basket, my child in the cradle. I had only to excharge the blanke'-, and the ornarmnts on the sleeves. FcrI tunately fur me, Lady Harcourt's [ infant was the more vigorous, and the few days difference in age was I not evident unless the children were I compared. I hurried back to Widow Larkin's, put my baby's plain 'clothes on his lordship's daughter, liioned the little dress that she had 1 worn so that it might be sent up to ' the Towers as an article which I had 1 forgotten, and so defeat suspicion. i That very day I set off for Marke ' Holme, told Gervase Lewis thatmy feelings had changed that l was tired ' ot wandering, that a dream had made !me fear to have my child claim Marke Holme tor her birthplace, but that here was his child, ani I would live for him and it. My heart at rest from planning, my revenge being now in progress of accomplishment, I grew Tvjore calm, and the devotion of Gervase Lewis began to win upon me—my fancy for Lord | Harcourt was gone. 1 thought how j happy and content I should be if I had never seen his face. I grew to love Gervase. But my long absences, and singular conduct, and hints that ! he had heard, had sown suspicion in his mind, and the child fed these suspicions —she looked like neither of us—she did look like Lord Harcourt and she had no instincts to- J ward Gervase, she never seemed to cling to him, she shrank from l.im as a strangt r. To my dismay, this feeling of the child grew. Gervase pondered over it. One day, when she was a year old, his suspicions seemed to culminate. He turned to me in sudden anger, cr.ving: '"Will you take your slolemn oath before God, Agnes, that this child is mine?" "My lips refused to utter the perjury. I would not tell him that while he was not her father I was not her mother—he L.ttrpreted my silence but in one way. "'Woman!' he cri d in fury, 'you have betrayed me—you are false! 1 will to-morrow leave you and this child forever! I will never see you again!' "That evening I took child and fled.Gervase should not be a homeless wanderer on my account. I left a note that if he left Marke Holme I would drown myself and the child as soon as I heard of it. I went into North Ireland „lo'a distant relative, telling him that I was a widow. He received me as a daughter, and in a year died, leaving me one hundred pounds a year if I would take his family name of JtSemis. "Leaving Ireland, I went to NorI burywain. Separated from Gervase ! Lewis, my love for him grew. I ! remembered all his goodness. It I I could have gotten rid of the child I ' would have returned to him and ha"e told him the whole story; but to return the child to Harcourt Towers would be to relinquish revenge, bring on an investigation, and disgrace the honest name of Gervase Lewis. I would not do that. I heartily wished the poor child dead, but I attended her with most devoted ! care. I have always been superati ' tious, that trait caused me to treat I the child most tenderly lest her guardian angel should avenge her on me; 1 it also deterred me from changing her baptismal name, or destroying the copy of tier baptismal register. i My mental tortures brought on 1 feeble health. I was attacked with a lung trouble and seemed likely to die. I dared not die without confess ing my crime; I wrote out my confession and sealed it in a packet with t'hi copy of the register." 1 I "Who lodged where you did at | ' Norburywain?" asked Lady Astraea. I "A Mis Olden. Her child, just the little Pauline's age, died. I lay at j the point of death. Mrs Olden sudI ' denly offered to adopt my child The [ j terror of death was on me; that ter- | j ror and my vo.w of revenge strove tn- ' gtther for conquest. Mrs Olsen asked I me if my alias of Mary Martin was i my real name; dying, I could not lie. j I said 'No.' 1 gave her the packet, making her swear to keep it unopened until the child's 21st birthday. 1 also in my agony of remorse, feared for the innocent little one's future, and made Mrs Olden swear to treat her with tenderest | love, and not to lit her make a bad marriage. 1 saw that Mrs Olden was a lady, and Mrs Bolton, with whom we lodged, told me she had been a i devoted mother to her lost little one." / "And why this charge about

T BY DUNCAN HcGREGOK. 7 (, Author of "Kennedy's Foe," 'Tslmmel Eeforme V "A Game of Three," "Edna's Peril," / Etc, etc.

twenty-one years?" asked Lord Thomas. 'To ease my conscience, and secure my revenge. I made sure that trained in your noble my child, if she reached twenty-one years would be highly endowed, and by that time wouM have made a noble marriage. I dared not die without confessing, but I made my confession secret through all these years, and while one side of this Double Secret concealed the origin of my child, ostensibly your daughter, the other shadowed the lineage of your true Pauline, until very likely her lot in life would have been tied." "And then Mrs Olden took your adopted child away?" asked Probyn. "Yes; and I did not know until a year ago that Mrs Olden was an Honourable Charlotte Ormesby. Rut the giving up of the child, ami of the sec et, getting it out of my hands for so many years, and being relieved from its rsponsibility, gave me a new spring of life. As soon as the child was gone, and my crime no longer hourly haunted me, 1 got better rapidly. I determined to return to Marke Holme, tell Ger vase the whole story, and beg him to go with me and live on the Continent. My heart pined for him and his tenderness. I was not of a nature to live unloved. I went to Marke Holme, and Gervase was dead!" Mrs Bemis' face changed, her frame shook, for a few minutes she gave way to a bitter burst of sorrow ; all respected her pain and were silent. Lina put her arm about her neck and wept with her for.-the-father whom_sjje- hrrd never seen, "Child," said Mrs Bemis. amid her tear?, your father was one of the best men that ever lived!' "I can speak for that," said Lady Astraea warmly "Gervase Lewis was an artist and a gentleman." "Ger;ase Lewis lost to mo, said Mrs Bemis, "I yearned with an aeony of love for his and my child. But now I could not Becure her. I had lost Lord Harcourt's daughter and my moat eager search could find me no trace of her. Oh, in those bitter years how I longed for my own child's face, and how seldom I could get a glimpse of her; eveo when I lived in London, when you were there, and went sometime} to Harcourt. And so the years went on, and the fatal twenty one approached, and my girl was not married, the hour of explanations clime on apace when that fatal aecret, committed to another's keeping, would be made known, another daughter would claim Lord Harcourt for her father, and my girl might suffer the consequences of madness. I resolved to get entrance to the Harcourt family to make my daughter's acquaintance; to urge her with all my power to make some noble matrh re. 1 went to Harcourt. I heard that you desired her to marry your heir at law, and I strove my best to aid your plan and get Lina married to Mr Prooyn and Pauline to Granitto. I thought when I followed you here that Arri ano was courting Pauline, and I helped the courtship with all my heart and so helped Signor Arriano to marry—not your but my daughter.'" TO BK OONTINIfKD. I A CHARMING LOVE STORY. A wonderfully captivating story, spirited and lifelike, and teeming with dramatic action, will be placed before our readers next week, under thft title of SIR JOHN'S HEIRESS. By F. L. DACRB, Author of "A Loveless Marriage," ) "A Change of Heart," "Trenholme's Trust," "A Case for the Court," etc. The heroine is a young woman of ambition and determination, chained to misfortune by poverty. Her father is a ne'er-do-well, selfish and unscrupulous, who so envies his more enterprising and fortunate brother that toward him he enacts the part of a trickster and traitor. Because of the rascality of this recreant brother, the daughter is spurned and despised, her uncle deeming her as unworthy as her father. But just befote his demise the uncle relents, showers kindness upon her, and makes her his heiress. Her ambition partly realised, by the opportunity to revel in wealth, she soon finds herself beset with troubles far more irksome than those pertaining to poverty. Her improvident father anchors himself in her home, and becomes an exasperating barnacle, introducing to her attention an audacious comrade whom it is difficult to suppresa. The story is replete with exciting scenes and cleverly planned tableau, ' all of them pourlrayed with artistic I skill and vigor. There is not a dull chapter in the entire work. The opening instalment will appear in the Wairarapa Age on TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30th, 1909.