FIGHTING HER WAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9712, 7 February 1910, Page 2

FIGHTING HER WAY.

CHAPTER Xll.—Continued

'She will grow wild again the m >- j ment she sees me,' he explained j 'Bind a towel over her mouth to prn- | vent further confusion, and lift h(;r J speedily into the carriage. | He then " walked into Christine's room. She had so far recovered herself that she lay with her face hiddf n under the edge of a pillow, sotibii g bitterly. . Doctor Howard laid his hand on her and spoke. She writhed awsy from him, and starting to her feet commanded him, in a frenzied manner, to quit her presence and leave her in peace. The two men entered, and at sight of their strange looks and their uniforms, she drew back with an instinctive dread. 'What—who are these men?' she asked hoarsely, and regarding Doctor Howard with an expression of mortal j terror. She now believed him capable j of anything inhuman or villainous. I 'They have come to carry you where you will gel some new plants, my dear,' said the doctor, iD the persuasive tones one would use with a child who cannot comprehend. Hisreply only strengthened her tenor. 'What nonsense are you talking to me, Doctor Howard?' she demanded of hitn imperiously. He only smiled compassionately, shook his Head, and made a sign to one of the men, who had already provided himself with a bandage for Christine's mouth, and now sprang to her, and with wonderful swiftness performed the operatiun of effectu- I ally hushing the cry that already j trembled in her throat, A few moment sufficed to place •her in the carriage with Doctor Howard, who gave a hurried direction to the driver, and instantly the carriage rolled rapidly away, both the policemen accompanying the doctor and his charge. Except the immediate neighbours, no one to heed of what had happened; :jhe stream of busy life flowed on and closed over the half hour of excitement in the flower store. At the appointed time, and just a few minutes after the carriage had disappeared from the avenue, Mr Marlow called at Miss Castlebar's store. It was empty. He made a noise to attract her attention from the inner room, where he felt sure she must be. | Not a sound answered him. He called shortly: 'Mias Castlbar!' No reply. He rapped several times on the casement. Still profound silence. She could not be merely sleeping, for at this time she would have been roused from any healthy slumber by his summons. Moreover, he saw the evident signs of her recent presence in the store--the heap of unassorted flowers —the half-finished bouquet on the floor. j He grew alarmed. His hand touched the lace curtain that hung within the doorway, but remembering it was her sleeping apartment, a feeing of delicacy held him back from intruding on the sacred precincts of the young girl's chamber. He called louder, 'Miss,Castlebar J' The dead hush chilled and awed him. He lifted the curtain and looked in. The room and dressing room beyond were quite empty; but something in thp aspect of the place held his sight spelled for a moment. It was so pure, so dainty, so like . Christine's own delicate loveliness. The impression of her form was onjthe snowy bed and pillow; an open book lay w.here she had put it hastily 1 aside on a table near a vase ot roses ' half blown; at the edge of her conch a tiny pair of embroidered slippers, absurdly small things for a grown woman's feel. They fascinated him as if they had been live objects. He fancied the warmth of the shapely feet might linger still in their crimson linings—he wished he might dare touch one uf them! His eyes travelled reluctantly from the 'wee shoon' and encountered on the carpet, near the door, a little knot of bright cherry silk that had dropped from her hair in the dreadful struggle of which he guessed nothing then. He could pick it up from where he stood; it was sweet with the odor of her tresses. Almost without volition he slipped it id his bosom as he turned from the empty room with a sieh. 'She must have gone next door,' he thought, and stepping to the little grocery hard by, he questioned Kail Bergen of his neighbour. 'Ach, meni Gott! you ish not know dat vot ish done happen mit der fraulein, mynheer?' 'What has happened?' The look and tone of the kind old grocer tairly terrified him. 'Christ! she ish clean gone from errieht self—she ish von mad womansh now, der klein fraulein!' 'ln God's name, say where she is!' cried Roland angrily, and in pain as well. It seemed to him that some imp from hell was iet loose on the fortunes of this poor girl. 'I ish not knows vere she ish gone away to, mynheer, on ole mansh, vot ish der doctor, vash mit her dish , mornish, an' he ish done carry der

BY ROSS ASHLEIGH. Author o£ "Eleanor's Luck/' "The Widow's Wager." "Pui d Gold," Etc, etc.

fraulein away in one big carriage mit der policemansh.' 'Who says she is mad?' broke in the young man, with a desperate impatience, for a keen mistrust lest foul play or equally fatal blundering again might be under it all had seized Roland's mind. 'Oh. I ish see for meinseelf dat she ish mad as von hare in de March season, mynheer. .She vash like someding mit you leeetJe deevil in her, ven I vosh looking at her.' Roland waited to hear no more, but left the Dutchman staring after him as he hurried up the street in the direction indicated by Karl Bergen's hand as he made the announcement that Christine had been taken away; but remembering it was important to know what old doctor had been the person to carry her off, he returned to make further inquiries, and learned from others in the vicinity of the flower store that Doctor Howard, oi the board of health, had been the man. The probable conclusion was that he had taken the girl to the insane hospital or asylum. With this idea Roland pursued his inquiries, Meantime Doctor Howard had reached and was taking tickets for his patient and himself at the depot of the Erie Railroad, with the intention of shutting her up in a private asylum. CtfAPTER XIII. OUTWITTED. With the impatience of a man whose consciousness of guilt makes him dread the overtaking hand of retributive justice, Doctor Howard paces the platform of the depot in feverish agitation, while waiting for the train that has been due half an hour. A dispatch has explained the detention, and the arrival is looked for every moment. Meantime the unhappy Christine remains a captive in the closed carriage between the two policemen who have no sort of doubt about the genuineness of her madness. Her impotent struggles to free herself from their hold, ahd to cry out from behind the heavy bandage that muffles her mouth, only increase their conviction of her dangerous state. They wish as much as the doctor that the train would come and relieve them ot their harrowing task. The haggard eyes of their poor captive haunt the manhood in their breasts, for no duration of such service as theirs can quite harden a man's nature against the pleading influence of youth and beauty like Christine's. They both feel that they could weep over her if tears could restore her reason. They each give an involuntary exclamation of satisfaction as they catch the first sound of the incoming train, which is the signal for the departure of the one on which the doctor has taken tickets for himself and patient. Doctor Howard makes them a sign, and they prepare to transfer the girl from the carriage to the coach in which the doctor has engaged a whole compartment so that the other passengers may not be distressed with a sight of the mad girl. Doctor Howard's deep-set and now dilated eyes watch their proceedings with a painful intensity that renders him oblivious to everything about him—his dark, wrinkled visage is ashen and strained. Oh, what keeps them so long with her he wonders, as he waits. At last they have removed her from the carriage. She is so closely enveloped in a veil and shawl that nothing save a slender form moving between the two policemen is seen by the bystanders. They are almost at the steps of the coach, another instant they will have placed her within the car that is to bear her to some unguessed-of fate that she feels must be horrible since it has been designed for her by this wicked old fiend. 'Quick with her, men !'called the doctor, in great excitement. 'Halt with her, men !' commands a strong, angry voice from behind Doctor Howard's shoulder. They all turn to see a splendid looking young fellow, who is stamped from head to font with the look of a gentleman, and beside him stands the chief uf polke. | To the latter i"ctor Howard proj tests against aii> interruption, of | his painful but tot. patent duty, but j recognising Kolai.d Mariow his hear*, j thumps with a dull, hollow sound of fear and apprehension. I 'We shall look into the matter a I little first, sir,' says the chitf, with authoritative dignity as he motions I the subalterns to a waiting room Gf' the depot with their now unconscious charge, who had tainted at the sound of the voice that she recognised as that of a friend and saviour. Roland had taken the plac« of one of the policemen beside the poor ; girl, his arm was round her limp form, her veiled head rested against his stalwart shoulder. TO RE CONTINUED