A GREAT WRONG.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10024, 21 April 1910, Page 2

A GREAT WRONG.

CHAPTER XXI. Continued. j He was a prisoner in the black j the haunted manor, upon ! whose reeking stones he had once be- / fore lam mangled and almost dying. Then the presence of the woman for whose sake he would have risked a thousand lives, soothed hid crutl pain and filled the loathsome pla<e with sunshine, now he was utterly alone, and without hope of escape. Bold as he was, the young man's cheek grew a shade paler, as tie realised all the horrors of his situation; but he trimmed his lantern, and gave h ; ,s broad shoulders a shake.

'Caught like a mouse in a trap,' he muttered 'and in this horrible hole.- Who could have forseen such a calamity? The rope Broken, and that confounded trap-door shut as close as the grave; Well, the situation looks bad, I'll confess, but it will go hard with me if I don't find some loophole. Now for a look at my surroundings! I wonder what I shall find fur my pains?' He brightened his lantern, and swung it aloft, throwing a fitful glimmer round the spacious black vault. It ran the whole length of the building, a low, tombliku place, "with stone flooring and solid walls, and no sign of an outlet. . Nothing but the slimy walls met his gaze, as he groped along, peering into every shadowy nook—nothing but the accumulated dirt and the reeking filth of years, until he had penetrated to the remote, northern end, and there he spied a Btone bench, and a heap of something, that, in ages past, must have been a rude bed.

This must have once been used as a prison cell, and what an awful place for a human creature to languish in! The thought had barely escaped his tips when he stopped with a sharp exclamation. Beyond the stone bench, beyond the moldering semblance of a bed, in a sort of alcove, his eyes caught sight of something elst —a human ekeleton. The face of the skull was turned toward him, with its hollow eyesockets and grinning teeth, and for an instant the young man drew back with a shudder of horrow and fear. But in the next breath his eyes lit, and he hurried forward, raising his lantern and throwing the light full on the kneeling figure of a man, the mouldy garments still hanging from the fleshless limbs; the skeleton hands, on one of which a diamond glittered liKe a star, clasping a roll of something that looked like yellow paper. Ambrose drew his breath deep and hard. j 'I have unearthed the mystery of Black Hollow Grange,' he said, putting his lantern on the floor beside him. Kneeling before the awful skeleton he proceeded to extricate the roll of yellow paper from the fleshless fingers. Jt»e did go with great delicacy of touch, and without displacing a bone or dislodging the starry diamond from its place on the right hand. j The yellow paper proved to be a small diary, damp and discoloured with age, "but closely written on every page as Ambrose saw by the dim rays of his lantern. Forgetful of himself, oblivious of the fact that he was imprisoned in that terrible place, liable to die a death of lingering torture, such as the man before him must have suffered; only eager to get at the bottom of the ghastly mystery he had unearthed, Ambrose remained on his knee before the moldering skeleton, and proceeded to smooth out the damp, brown leaves preparatory to deciphering the faded lines. He had not read a dozen words when something perhaps a bat, swooped across his light, extinguishing it, and leaving him in utter darkness.

CHAPTER XXII,

THE DEAD ALIVE. 'The nddest thing, Lady Tresham, that one can well imagine, to marry and run off in that barbarous fashion; but whatever did Lenore Trevethon do that wasn't odd? The maddest madcap outside of Bedlam, a s I've often asserted. No, indeed, 'tis just about what we might have looked for.' ' Lady Halstead sat in the morning boudoir of her bosom friend, Lady Laura Tresham.\The hour was just after noon, and before the two plump, well-attired titled ladies was spread a small table, all aglitter with silver, and fragrant with the odor of chocolate and broiled partridge. Lady Tresham put down her tiny china,cup with a little sigh. 'Well, I'm truly thankful the marriage is well over, and all the talk at an end. Of course Miss Trevethon meant to marry her cousin; it would have been insanity to think of refusing, ind the great Trevethon fortune at stake, as I've told Harry a dozen times; but poor, dearjfellow, he would have it that Miss Trevethon would never marry her cousin; and

Or, The Mystery of Black Hollow Grange.

BY EMEA GAEEJ OK" JONES. Author of "Pelf and Power," "Strathmore's Sin," Etc, etc.

I between us, my dear Lady Halstead, ine would have taken her, penniless I and disinherited, and all the shame of that old mystery with her, and i thought himself fortunate to get her, i so great was his infatuation.' 'That was the way with ail of them,' replied Lady Halstead, tapping her jewelled snuff-box. 'Every man she met fell in love with he; 1 , and she cared for none of them. A pretty, hearless coquette was Lenore Trevethon. Yes, I'm glad she's married, and her fortune secured to her, for, despite her follies, I was fond of the girl. And, heavens! the worry I've had with her--no wild coic was ever harder to manage. And after all my care and trouble, that she should run off and marry in that fashion, and never even let me know. The ungrateful creature!' 'And when does she return?' 'Heaven knows; Sir Geoffrey teiis me they may remain abroad for 1 years. It is Lenore's wish, as her health is quite poor, and England doesn't agree with her. He says ahe suddenly took the notion to be married and he let her have her way, as he always has done.' 'And Richmond, the baronet's son, will he make a devoted husband?' 'On, I dare say he will. If he contradicts or thwarts her, she'll box his ears, as she boxes her woman Clotilde's. She has the temper of a termagant.' Lady Tresham laughed and sighed in the same breath. 'Poor Harry! he was so foalishly in love with her!' 'Ah, well, he'll get over if, now she's married. Nothing like that, to kill a grand passion. He'll soon turn his thoughts to Edith Marlowe again,, who is a superb girl, though not quite so pretty as Lenore.' 'Yes, and she comes of a good family, too, and will be well dowered. I wish I could persuade Harry to go abroad with them in , Novemher.' 'Yes, and Sir Geoffrey Trevehon is to Ije one of .their party. He is settling up his'affairs for an indefinite tour; and I've heard it hinted, Lady Tresham, that he has thoughts of Edith.' 'What! Sir Geoffrey Why, he's twice her age.' 'No matter; he's a wealthy, titled gentleman, and Edith will think twice before she refused him. I'd advise you to persuade Sir Harry not to waste time.' 'Dear me, what would be the use? He cares for ho woman alive but Lenore Trevethon, and I haven't the least hope that he'll be brought to think even of Edith. But here he comes to speak for himself. My dear Sir Harry—' But she stopped Hhort, her' words frozen on her lips at sight of the young man's face. Lady Tresham started to her feet with a gasping cry. 'Why, Harry, my son, what has happened? Are you ill?' Be tried to speak, but his bloodless lips gave forth no sound. He only pointed to a paragraph in the paper v which his shaking hand held. 'What is it?' demanded Lady Halstead, adjusting her eye-glass. 'What's happened 9 Who's dead?' 'She's dead,' he gasped out at last, as he threw the paper on the table and rushed from the apartment. Lady Halstead eagerly seized the paper. A single glance and all the colour faded from her cheek. 'Merciful heavens!' she cried. 'lt's Lenore, Richmond Trevethon's bride. She died a week ago in Naples.' . Dead! so young, so beautiful, and the bride of a few brief months. Belgravia went into sackcloth and ashes; Sir Geeoffrey Trevethon was quite mad with his wot. The girl had been to him as his own child. A week or two o± tears and lamentations, and then the body, all embalmed and preserved in fragrant spices, was conveyed to England. And from the old, ancestral mansion, Lyndith Hall, she was buried, followed by an imposing pageantry, under the storied marbles, beneath which her ancestors slept. The young bridegroom, who, of course, came home with the body, was utterly overwhelmed with grief, so broken in mind and body that he could not bear the Bight of England, and took ship for tar countries, onlv a day or two after the funeral, leaving his father, the baronet to manage the vast fortune which his dead bride brought him. The day after the funeral was a miserable one, chill with winds and rain. Sir Harry Tresham, who had. gone up to Lyndith Hall to see the last of the woman he had loved so adoringly, journeyed back to London under the cheerless, weeping skies. TO BE r ONTINUED