"The Chains of Bondage."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10064, 11 August 1910, Page 2

"The Chains of Bondage."

CJ-J A ITER XlX.—ontinucd. Anil there was a quick light of pride and gladness in his eyes as lie thought "of Paul Ralston's last 'high bid to this girl—that cheque for ten thousand pounds, left lying in tiny fragments on the carpeted floor in the great house behind them. Elsie's scornful answer to the man who sought to bribe her. " Besides, after to-niglit—after that relevation of what I never dreamed, how my father's money was made—l could never bring myself to touch smother penny of it! I should feel that such money came dowered with a curse,wrung from tears and suffering and tragedy!'' And Jim Ralston's hand- -me face hardened, and his voice ring stern, as he thought <jf that trag,:l- u> his father's making in t.'.e l-ouse where Walter Spence iay 'had. "Dearest, the surrender 1-a/es in.! a poor man, with the battle r,f life before me; but I don't ret'"< t itcome what may, I slivl .'.»'\c-i regret it! What moi-y I hv3 c:. in the future shall be made honest 1 v. cleanly; and, with the thought of you to spur me on, I am not afraid of the battle! " He felt as he spoke that he would r.ot have exchanged his lot for that of the richest man in the world. "And I am not afraid but that you'll succeed triumphantly! Oh, Jim, dear, I was \or.» proud of my lover—very proud and glad to hear your resolution to surrender your father's weaich-.-.. ■ I loved you all the- more for it!" the girl said, with shini-g eye? "Such money would only bring a cmse!" it was not every man who would have laughed then, finding in an hour all his prospects in life reversed, faced by poverty and the hard struggle of the future before him, after having never known what it was to want money; but Jim laughed. It would be easy to put his shoulder to the wheel, and show the stuff he was made of, since he would be working for Elsie, too. They walked down the lighted street, talking happily of the future, building radiant dreams, as lovers will. What a good place this old world was for youth and love, in spite of everything that to-night had come into their lives! v "And, at the worst, we shan't have to g» to the poorhouse, sweetheart," laughed Jim, " for I have something like seventy pounds a year from my mother, you know. I suppose it seemed a prophesying disaster, but it seems a pretty important item now. It will give me time to look about. Oh, there's nothing to be despondent about, sweetheart! I'm full of hope that, without a penny of my father's money, it won't be so long before I can make you my very own—make a home for you. Only a tiny home at first; but your kingdom and mine, my princess!" he whispered. And a rather sharp-featured woman, very loudly dressed, who had the air of having just come from a suffragette meeting where a vote of censure had just been passed on man and all his works, glared at them with a sniff in passing, as though it was sheerly ridiculous that anything any mere man could say should bring such a look of radiant happiness to a girl's face as Jim's words had brought to the bewilderingly pretty face at his side.

"And, of course, your mother must come, too," he added. "That's understood. We shan't leave her out in the cold." She looked up him smiling. What did it matter if the home Jim spoke of would be tiny? Would not their love make it the sweetest, dearest place on earth—that home she and he were to build together ? They had lived so long in furnished rooms, Elsie and her mother—ever since they came to live in London; but furnished rooms, however comfortable, could never be made to feel like home. "But what will Mrs Saxon say when you rob her of her lodgers in this fashion ?" Elsie said gayly. "And she has just lost her other lodger—did I tell you? And, for my part, I'm not sorry he's gone. There always seemed something furtive and mysterious about him ; he aiways gave one the impression that he was full of curiosity about one. Besides, I know that he used to ask Mrs Saxon questions about mother and myself in a veiled, roundabout WilT."

"Oh, did lie? I wish I'd come across this inquisitive gentleman, that's all!" quoth Jim grimly. " Well, lie's gone now, and I'm ■:"ry glad." she said frankly. "And do you know, a curious thing happened just before hj? went. One day mother, going upstairs, met him slipping quietly out of our sitting room. He turned very reel, and apologized, and said that he had gone into the room,- quite accidentally having mistaken the door for that of his own room—which happened to be on the story above. It sounded rather unlikely -" "Well, rather!" broke in Jim ironically. "The curious thing* was," w>it on Elsie, "that later mother found that papers and letters in hor bureau had been disarranged, ;s though some one had been rummag-

BY EMILY B. HETHEBINGTON. Author o£—" His Colieg9 Chum," " Werthine;ton's Pledge," " A Repentant Foe," etc.

(To be Continued)

ing among them. I am quite sure that Mrs Saxon wouldn't do such a thing, and consequently one can only think " biie paused and gave a little surprised cry. "Look! Isn't it strange! There he is—the very man we are thinking of!" A cab had just passed ; the light from a street lamp was full on the face of the man inside. The man who had just come away from Judith Fairfax's house—Mr Herbert 'Waco.

The sight of Herbert Wace had apparently interested some one else besides Elsie and her lover. A tall, rather shabbily dressed girl, walking slowly along the pavement some little distance behind them, whose face with a skin of that dusky pallor that is seen among the Creoles of the Southern States, it, is not beautiful, was at least made striking by a pair of wonderful dark eyes, that seemed to glow with all the passion of the South; inscrutable eyes, dark green, like jade, that lighted up suddenly with a startled, feverish excitement as they fell on the man in the cab whom Elsie had just pointed out to Jim. "Heavens! at last!" the muttered exclamation broke from the girl's lips. "Fate has thrown him across my path at last!" Near the curb an empty cab v."as passing slowly.

Eagerly the girl hailed the dtiver, who drew up quickly. Jim happened to glance round, and his eyes fell on this girl. He saw her point excitedly after the hansom in which the rather mysteriously late lodger at Mrs Saxon's had passed; it was going more slowly in consequence of a congestion of traffic. The girl was carrying her gloves in her hand. On the extended gloved hand was a heav; gold ring, set with a large red stone. Jim caught the gleam of it in tine lamplight. "Follow the cab!" she was saying to the driver. She jumped inside, and the strange chase began. • Quite unconscious, Herbert Wace sat in the hansom in front with a frown on his face, as he thought of that humiliating and awkward meeting with Ellstree at Miss Fairfax's house; but perhaps the look in his eyes would have deepened inte a fourfold anxiety could he have known who was following him now. The girl with the green eyes leaned back in the cab as it started in pursuit.

There was a strange, intent gleam in her face, a look that the sight of Herbert Wace had called there, as she sat twisting on her finger the ring that Jim had noticed—a ring that had a curious inscription engraved inside it. Just a date and the one word—- " Remember."

CHAPTER XX. THE NINE OF DIAMONDS. Herbert Wace jumped down from the hansom outside a tall block of flats, not far from Victoria station. As he made his way into the building lie had not the remotest idea that he had been followed or that the girl whose dark, striking, creols-like face had arrested Jin: Ralston's attention earlier that night, was watching him with h.— inscrutable green eyes from the cab that had stopped a little way d 0.,., the street.

, Wace went up the stone steps: the flats were small, and there was no elevator. The furnished flat that he had engaged was at the very top of the building. As he let himself into the narrow hall there was a look of ohagrin on his face. He was thinking of his interview with Judith Fairfax—the interview that the interruption of Sir Wilfred Ellstree had abruptly terminated.

"Of all the ill luck, to ru» up against Ellstree again!" he muttered, with a frown—Ellstree, whom he hated, who had thwarted that pretty scheme of his four years ago in America. "Well, he can't ed sullenly. " Pre got the whipeel sulenly. "I've got the whiphand !" l The secret George Craren had confided to him had put Judith Fairfax into his power.