"The Chains of Bondage."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10058, 4 August 1910, Page 2

"The Chains of Bondage."

CHAPTER JX.—Continued. "In refusirg my offer, you may have vindicated your pride, the disinterestedness of your motives; but have you not overlooked one point,'' . he said smoothly, "the sacrifice that your love demands of my son? For I am a man of my word. As 1 said, I have other views tor my son; and, if he deliberately disregards my wishes, "le has nothing to bore for from me I have argued with him uselessly; I appeal to you. Your marriage with my son means ruin to him—the ruin of his prospects, his ambitions, his career. Is your love selfish enough to demand this sacrifice of him? With out me, what chance has he of a parliamentary career? That dream will pass like a breath on a glass. For I stand by my word. If he thwarts my wishes, he's no longer a son of mine! He can go! That's what your love will spell for him—ruin, a disappointed future!" He paused. Elsie's eyes were startled a.= u.ey searched Jim's face. His future—the political career on which he had set his heart—to be sacrificed through her? Her face was pale and troubled. She ■ would have disengaged herself from his arms; but Jim held her tight — held her the clo-er, as before she could speak he n.ade answer: "You demard s mt thing you have no right to Bel: .1 r»,v, or of ht-r!" he , cried; and ihtre was an indignant ring in the words, and a flash in bis eyes that. Ir*- *■■ -;-:r had seen there hefo»e. " l uu am my father, but you go beyonr 1 a father's rights!" "What do yoi mean.? How dare yoii?" cried Paul Kalston furiously. "Dare? I dare to speak the truth!" And Jim gave a curt laugh. He was not afraid of Paul Kalston's bluster. Just for a moment he thought of his mother—the gentle, timid mother he had loved, who had died two years ago. How pathetically frightened she had always been of her bullying, blustering husband! More than unce Jim had intervened—the pity that it should have been necessary ! —at the sight of her shrinking before her husband's harshness of speech And that thought lent added emphasis to bis words now. "You began by accusing Miss Hood of being mercenary, l.y insulting the woman I love with your contemptible bribes; you have had proof that she ist incapable of what you imputed. Well, what then? It was part of the unspnken bargain between us, when I took up,your challenge, that, if your imputations fell to the ground, you would withdraw your opposition—or so I read it; so you meant me to read it! And you have misarably failed, and you break your side of the bargain " At first Paul Kalston could haidly speak for rage. "How dare you speak to me like that?' he stormed. "Go your own way, since you are fool enough to be so infatuated and blind to your own interest! Only, never forget this—that when you awaken—as you will awaken—to the sense of all you've thrown away, it will be too ltf! I shall have washed my handd of youf Jim faced him with a look of resolute will—that one attribute he had in common with his father. He spoke very quietly; his very lack of emphasis gave his words greater weight. "You apparently offer me the choice between love and your money —you, who were so ready to impute sordid motives to others seem eager for your son to show himself despicably sordid!" he said scornfully. "Well, as the girl 1 love has chosen between love and money, so I, too, choose! Were your fortune t«n times what it is it would not buy me! I < have to choose between the girl i love ' and my father, it seems. Well, I ; chooseher!" J "Go!" cried his father furiously, shaking a trembling fist at the soa '■ who had defied him—"go!"

# # * * # Paul Raiston was alone now. The door had closed upon the girl and his son whom he had passionately disowned. He sat, with a bitter, vindictive facs, listening to *he retreating footsteps in the hal! as he stared out moodily into the dark garden, alone with his sense of defeat in this, the bitterest moment of his life. This girl had come between him and his ambitions—to shatter them, to leave him utterly baffled. As he sat staring out into the dark, weeded garden, his mind filled with fury ana chagrin, a faint sound outside made him raise his head suddenly in a listening attitude. Was that the sour.d of a stealthy foothtep? Again, as earlier that night, an inexplicable nervousness seemed to trouble him; that strip of open window framing the darkness outside seemed to fester a sudden uneasy sensation in him. Something Paul Kalston had read in the paper that morning had for some reason disquieted him a little, had left his nerves a trifle shaken; it was the account of a man called Spence, who had committed suicide in consequence ol his ruin through speculation.

BY EMILY B. HETHEKINGTON. 5 Author of—" His College Chum," " Worthington's t» Pledge," " A Repentant Fee," etc. *)

It was absurd, of course; but Paul I Raiston could not rid himself of the ! feeling that eenne one vas hovering | outside, watching him. Paul Raiston sprang to hisi feet He took a quick step across the room; then suddenly stopped. Round the edge of the open window a hand bac> appeared, grasping something that glittered with a sinister gham in the light of the room —a hand holding a revolver levelled full at him. And behind it appeared, deathly white against the darkness behind, a haggarJ, desperate face, with wild, olooubhot eyes, tilled with a queer, mad gleam that meant mischief—a figure suddenly springing out frcm the dusk like a brooding spirit of vengeance! With a gasping cry of terror Paul Kalston shrank back appalled from the menace of that rim of' steel. Jim and Elsie, passing through the wide hall after that interview that had terminated so passionately, had almost reached the front door, when, from the room where they had just left Paul Raiston alone, through the closed door behind them came a wild, excited voice that was not Paul Raiston's. "Do you know me? I'm the son of the man whose death lies at your door, Paul Kalston, the son of Walter Spence, the man you ruined! I've found out the truth, and the truth's going to cost you dear! My fathei's lyirg dead—hounded to hi 3 death, and by you ! And I'm here to avenge his death!" At the first sound of the wild voice Jim had stopped with a started look sweeping into his face. The man in there with his father was the son of the man Spence, Elsie's neighbour, lured into mad speculation by that 'bucket shop' in disguise that called itself " The Legitimate Investments Compauj." Ai;d could it be that his father, Paul Kalston, was the unscrupulous, unknown man who financed it? With that thought in his mind he left Elsie and rushed back to the room. As his fingers were on the handle of the door mere came, breaking the stillness of the bouse startlingly, the sudden report of a shot within the rhom!

CHAPTER XV. JIM TAKES THE LAW INTO HIS OWJN HANDS. The shot rang out with a simultaneous cry for help in Paul Ralston's voice, shrill and hardly recognisable. Jim threw open the door, dreading what he might see. His first glance fell on bis father, who had retreated in terror into one corner. The man whose voice Jim bad heard had sprung forward into the room, driving the financier back as he made a rush for the door. Through the thin haze of wreathing smoke following the first shot, Jim saw the wild figure witn the revolver taking aim at Paul Ralston's cowering form, as . determined this time not to miss. As Jim sprang forward, the manquite a young man, evidently labouring under intense excitement, with clothes torn and muddy, and wit.,, ~ wild gleam in the haggard i ; >.<. Almost like that of one wnosu il>\'-< trembled on the border line of i- b ..- ity—cried to him: "Keep back! I have noqi.i?uvl with you! 1 don't want to harm >ou; but you interfere at your peril!" "Drop that weapon!" cried Jim, in tones of stern authority. "Drop it, I say!"

As his words rang out sharply, Jim sprang forward before the other divined his intention. He seized in a grip of steel the wrist of the hand that held the weapon. The revolver fell with a clatter to the floor. Elsie had rushed back to the room in terror on her lover's behalf, to see the disarmed man in Jim's grasp—a nerveless, shaking creature now, who must have been, as Jim saw, in a half-distracted state that left him scarcely responsible for his actions when he made the attack on Paul Raiston. "Shut the deor, Elsie!" cried Jim quickly. "We don't want the servants here." Paul Raiston came forward from the'eorner to which he had retreated. Probably he owed his life to the son he had just disowned; but he did not seem particularly grateful. TO ES CONTINUED

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