A GREAT WRONG, Or, The Mystery of Black Hollow Grange.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9994, 15 March 1910, Page 2

A GREAT WRONG, Or, The Mystery of Black Hollow Grange.

/ BY EIOLA GAERJ ON JONES. V Author o£ "Pelf and Power," "St rathmore's Sin," / Etc, etc.

CHAPTER lll.—Continued. He turned to the lounge and looked at the face of the child. Clotilde crept a step nearer and looked down upon the pretty face; it was cold and still; but a faint colour presently came to the cheeks and she could see the eyelids quiver. The mother's heart stirred with an infinite pity and tenderness. 'Oh, Andrew,' she cried, clasping her husband's arrae, 'he is alive. For the sake of our own boy, sparn him. I will do all you ask, only spare the boy, and let him go back to my sister.'

'That he may appear by and by, j like the hero 01 a novel, and wrest i my title and my wealth from me?' he answered, with a hoarse laugh. 'No, I'm not such a fool as that. I'll maKe everything secure as I go.' "But Andrew, no one knows. Oh, for Heaven's sake! do not stain your soul with murder,' implored poor Clotilde in agony. His face whitened and his lips twitched. He was not wholly cruel; but he steeled his soul against the pleadings of his better nature and turned upon her with the face of a fiend. 'Silence! Woman, remember your oath!' he thundered. 'The dead tell no tales. He shall die!' She cowered away from him, and he took up the body of the child, rolled it in a blanket and left the room, with a bundle in his arms. Clotilde stood white and breathless for an instant, then she clutched at her shawl, wound it about her i head, and followed him out into the dark rainy night. J She reached the banks of the Loire \ even before he did, so swift she flew, ! and crouching beneath the low-droop-ing branches, waited and watched. He came on, his step crunching upon the sands. He approached the shore, half a dozen yards from her hiding-place, Ipwered his burden, ar.d looked cautiously around. The dreary sands were silent and dark, but from below came the muffled beat of oars. There was no time to lose. He raised the light bundle and hurled it far out into the dark stream. As the body struck the water, the guilty man turned and fled like one escaping with his life. Clotilde * arose like a spectre, straning her eyes over the black rippling tide. 'I must save him,' she murmured. 'Holy Mother, do thou help me!'

Then she plunged in; she was a fisherman's daughter, and in her girlhood could swim like a fish. She had not forgotten the art now. She struck out for the place where the body went down, her eyes watching every ripple with agonising eagerness. Presently she uttered a tremulous cry, for something arose to the surface just beyond her. 'Holy Mother, help me!' she breathed again, as she darted toward it.

A few more strokes and she grasped the rising object, and, panting, she made her way to the shore and was soon safe upon the sands. Uttering prayeis with every breath, she tore away the blanket and lifted the child's head to her bosom. 'He breathes! he lives!' she exclaimtd. 'The water has restored him to consciousness!' She rained tears and kisses on his little white face. 'My darling! Oh, thank Heaven, I have saved my husband's soul from the sin of murder!' The dip of oars was now heard* She wrapped the child in the dripping blanket clasped him close to her panting bosom and then laid him softly upon the moist warm sands. 'Help! help!' she cried.

Then as a boat'* keel grated on the shore beyond and the sound of voices came to her ears, she bounded up and darttd through the rainy darkneas like a lapwing. And the little lad, the waif of the wreck, all stunned and wounded, and half drowned, yet still alive, lay abandoned brink of the swiftflowing river. Clotilde sped on over the sodden fields with a strength and endurance almost superhuman.

Her cottage was closed, and silent when she reached it, yet she quivered with terror as she crept into the door, kst her husband should have returned. Despite her terror, however, she entered, for within, in his little cot-beo, lies her son, the one child of her wedded love: and no peril, no danger could cause her to torsnke him. She crept in and found that her husband was still absent. Looking down upon the sleeping boy a swift thought came to her. She would take her child and run away, no matter whither, so she could escape from her'mad husband. Swift as lightning she tore off her wet garments and put on her best ap> parel; then she took the sleeping uoy in her arms and darted toward the door. She was out, and the summer rain was falling on her throbbing t.e.-id befure she remembered her oath, never, under any circumstances, to desert her husband.

A piteous cry came from her ashen lips, and she reeled like one in a faint. 'I swore by the crucific,' she moaned; '1 dare not break my oath.' Her husband's laugh of exultation answered her. 'No, you dare not break it,' he repeated. 'You are a dead woman if you ever do. Take the lad into the house, and bestir yourself; we have no time to lose.' She obeyed him without a word, and before break of day they were on their journey. CHAPTER IV. THE MYSTERY OF BLACK HOLLOW GRANGE. 'Lenere, my dear, I have good news for you this morning.' Mies Trevethon arose lazily from her favourite sofa and closed the book she had been reading. The very handsomest young lady in all London, the belle of the gay season that was only just over, and an heiress in her own right, this was Trevethon, Sir Geoffrey Trevethon's ward and kinswoman. The baronet bowed gallantly as he advanced a chair. 'Good news, my dear," he repeated, rubbing his shapely white hands together; 'excellentnews! Come, now, can you guess what it is?' The young lady's wonderful blue eyes darkened, and she brought down her dainty loot a trifle iraj patiently. 'No; ,1 shall not try. I am not good lat guessing, Sir Geoffrey. If you have anything to tell that is worth hearing, pray speak out at once. My book is and it is very provoking to be interrupted.' Sir Geoffrey smiled graciously on his imperious young ward. Of aH guardians that ever existed he was the kindest and most forbearing. From her childhood pretty Miss Trevethon had reigned and'ruled like a queen. 'True enough, my dear. But when one has good news, you know. So you won't guess? Well, well, I must tell you! Richmond is coming home.'' Miss Trevethon threw back her graceful head, and laughed until the room raner with silver echoes.

'Well, now, Sir Geoffrey, that is too good a joke. Richmod coming home! Why, he has been doing the self-same thing for the last twelve months or more.' 'So he has, Lenore. He is a sorry dog, as I told him in my last letter. I K don't wonder that you are indignant Indeed, the woi.der lies in youi extreme forbearance.'

'My forbearance, oir Geoffrey? Bless you, sir, there is no need of forbearance! Richmond could not please me better than by staying away. I only hope he'll make a trip to the antipodes before he touches England.' The baronet laughed with genial good humour. A pleasant, handsome, good-humoured gentleman is Sir Geoffrey, thirteenth baronet of t his line, albeit his brow is furrowed and his hair growing gray—a favourite with all who know him, especially with the ladies.

A dozen times he might have chosen a wife from the fairest and best born women in the land since his accession to the baronetcy; but for some cause he had seen fit to remain a widower. Some say that a youthful tolly, which caused so much trouble between him and his dead father, cured him forever of all thoughts of love; others hint that he lives loyal and true to the one woman for whose sake he resigneed his noble birthright; that his heart is buried in his wife's far-away grave. At all events, the baronet has not married, though his chances, have been tempting. For something over half a score or years he has worn the honours of his noble race, and led a genial, hospitable lite at the ancestral mansion, Lyndith Hall, an upright, honorable gentleman, a Christian and a philanthropist; a man widely beloved and universally trusted.

But for some reason his fair ward and kinswoman has never thoroughly liked her guardian, though she lived under his roof so many years. She obeys him; or, to tell the truth he obeys her, for the pretty spirited young creature has a will of her own, and Sir Geoffrey suffers her to have her way, and indulges all her capriches. He only controls her immense fortune.. Of that L< ore is utterly ignorant, and equally i.,different. She only knows that she will foreit it—all the fine old estates and the immense Trevetaon wealth—if she ."ails to marry Mr Geoffrey's son before sne attains hsr twenty first year, and being passionately fond of elegance and ease and luxury, Miss Trevethon has no dream of forfeiting her right to her queenly heritage. TO FR CONTINUED