PRIMROSE DELORAINE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10301, 2 August 1911, Page 2

PRIMROSE DELORAINE

OUR SERIAL.

THE MISER'S DAUGHTER.

By MAISIE PENDENNIS. Author of "Sir Reginald's Whim," "The Forgotten Heir," "Rival Beauties,' 'etc.

CHAPTER XVlll—Continued

And with a chill, deadly terror, a sickening sense of mortal fear, Primrose met the sullen eyas of Poker Bill fixed full upon her. Poker Bill! A ghost from the dead past. A reincarnation of dread, horrible,, unspeakable things that she thought were over and dono with forever. Poker Bill! .' "Oh!" sho said, "I never thought that I should see you in England." Poker Bill laughed brutally. "That's where you made the mistake," he said. '"You might have known, if you'd taken the trouble to think, that if you were in England I should be in England, because where vou are I must be. Didn't I tell you in tho old days that I wanted you and meant to have you ?. Surely you weren't fool enough to. think that' you could escape me by just coming over to England. Not much! I love you now as I loved you then, and I mean to have you. You have got to be my wife, so you may as well look pleasant over it.' A smile is prettier than ,a. frown any day." . And then, as Primrose stood there, helpless, spellbound, rooted to the spot, with trembling limbs that refused to .move and trembling lips that refused to speak, to her increasing horror and dismay he came quite close to her, and put his great powerful arms around her. "You owe me a kiss," he went on, bending his savage face over hers, "and all honest women pay their debts. Come now, be a sensible girl, 1 and wo.shall get along famously. Give mo a nice kiss, and then I shall tell you verything that I have planned and thought of for our wedding—and afterward. It's a bit o fluck, my finding you here iiko this alone. By Jupiter, it is! Yon see, it is like this: After you got away that night with that confounded Captain Jack—oh, I hate him!—l had a go of fever, and as ioon as! was well enough I got away after you. I landed up in England yesterday, and made my way down here on the look-out for yoii; and now that I've found you by luck I am going to kiss you. I never kissed you in Australia." , Primrose struggled frantically in his rough clasp, but he only held her the tighter, and bent nearer, thrusting his dark, sullen face closer to hers. And she shrieked involuntarily, with a piercing shriek that rang clearly through the silence. Poker Bill laid a heavy hand on her mouth. "You little fool!' he muttered, "you keep still, or " ■ He stopped abruptly, a sudden shiv; er running through his powerful frame and as Primrose watched in frozen silence she saw him turn and look over ,his shoulder with a stealthy, shrinking movement, as if he saw something there that made him afraid. Then, still watching, fascinated by the look on his face, she saw him pass his hand over his brow with a dazed, fearful gesture, and heard him sig' as a man will sigh who awakes from a nightmare dream of blank terror. A moment later he had turned',. teller again, and was scowling menac irigly. j "Why did you m&e that noise?" he demanded huskily. "1 hate to hear a woman pcream. It gives me •what girls call 'creeps.' Did you do it;to frighten me?" His eyes looked so wild, his manner so.strange and confused, that Primrose was more terrified than ever —so terrified that she could' not -speak. : Poker Bill wont on muttering to himself.' ; ; "There was nothing there, of course, so why did I think there was?" he half whispered. "I am going mad, or something, I suppose." Then he turned to Primrose again. "Now look here," ho went on, "you have got to come with me, you know, and,you'd better come quietly. , This is a nice lonely place" where I have found you, and I've got the motor car waiting at the bend there that I came dptt'.n yfjrpmi .London, iih.; ■.-_ $ ooiare * :g<H ihg back to London with me in it, and when :-ym : get torLohdon we are goirig to be'married by special license., and ,then we are going; away on our honeymoon. ' Perhaps I will let you choose ; where:we. go, but it will, have to, be somewhere that 'suits. me as well as you. I am,not going to play"second fiddle'to my wife, I promise you. Now come along, or I'll make you. Come along, I tell you!" . He seized Primrose's arms in his great hands,.;that closed on them like iron bars, arid began to drag her along the lane by main force, and she fought and struggled with all her girlish strength, while her whole soul went out to Heaven in a desperate prayer for aid.

As the,thought came to her she shrieked again with panic-stricken desperation, shrieked and shrieked. And Poker Bill snarled a savage oath under his .breath, then loosed one of his arms, and took something from his pocket. A second later she was struggling and gasping wildly in the folds of a thick, black shawl that ho had thrown over her head. Poor Primrose! There seemed little hope for her then —little hope of help or aid. She felt him lift her in his arms, and stride on with his heavy, lurching gait, then heard the panting and throbbing of a powerful motor engine that seemed quite near, yet sounded strangely muffled and far away through the blackness that enveloped her. Then her senses began to reel as he carried her, half blinded, halfsuffocated, and for a moment all was blank blackness. It was the sound of a voice that brought her to herself again—a clear, familiar voice. "You unspeakable scoundrel! Wh '. are you doing? Put the lady down at once; at once, do you hear? It is a good thing that I was near enough to' hear Eer scream. After you have put her down you can stand up to me if you are half a man." And Primrose felt herself dropped to the ground. A moment later the black shawl was torn off her, and her dazed eyes rested on the smart, alert figure and familiar face of Smithers, the chauffeur. "Smithers!" she said. "Oh, Smithers, thank Heaven you have saved me!" Then her head drooped, and she fainted. Poker Bill swore again, his red, glaring eyes flashing from one to the other in a frenzy of baffled rage. Then he made a dash for the motor car. But as his foot touched the step a hand caught his arm and pulled hhr. back. "No, you don't," said the chauffeur with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Not so fast, my friend. We have got a Little account to settle yet, you and I. and you have got to tell me a few things I want to know." Poker Bill was so taken aback that he stood stupidly still, staring. . "Why, who are you?" he growled. "What do you mean by talking to me like that? You may settle your account yourself, young man, and as for telling you things you want to know, I'll see you hanged first!" Smithers smiled,- a peculiar, selfsatisfied smile.

j "The chances are," he said smoothj ly, "that it is I who will see you hanked first. But'even so, 1 you're got to tell me one or two things before. Now, listen, listen to me—Poker Bill!" And Poker Bill looked up suddenly, his face growing livid . "How do you know my name?" he muttered thickly. "What are you playing at? How do you know who I am, and who are you, anyway?" Smithers smiled again. Then he bent forward., and whispered a few words in the other, man's, ear j And as Poker Bill listened lie shuddery,ed like a, man in jnortal fear. 1 "•■ j* , *"'.:.' *'" *..; "* *■ ~ J And while this dreadfu' occurrence, I that bordered on tragedy, was.happen- | ihg to Primrose at Lesbie Manor, a-, 1 way in London > in her charming little j pink-and-whito Tx>udoir, Mrs, Vivian J was facing a crisis in her life. r She was going through a bad quarI ter of an hour for the iron barrier of restraint that she had helped Sir Gerard with great care to erect between them, had broken down at last, and human nature, human passion had risen above and beyond all bounds, ■ all barriers, sweeping them away on a surging sea, as a leaf is whirled away by the raging force of a mountain torrent. ,

The look in Poker Bill's sullen eyes, his voice,, his touch, all filled her with a hate, a loathing, a fearj so passion-, ate and ghastly, and overmastering, that she felt as if she must go mad. Every fibre of her being shrank from him in wild revolt, and, thinking of the man she loved, she felt that, sooner than such a fate as that Poker Bill threatened should overtake her, she would die a hundred.deaths. Horror and fear unspeakable tore at her heart wildly, and filled her .with a black, shuddering dread. Suppose She was not able to escape, from him, and suppose he should- sue--ceed in forcing her into the car, and \ carrying her off to London, a wild,! desperate captive, as he had carried • her off to the cave in the mountains ' m the old, lawless days ? What then ?

Sir Gerard had come to Pont Street quite unexpectedly, that morning, and ~walked into heri boudoir after his usual unceremonious habit; walked in and found a tumbled: heap of frothy, seagreen muslin and lace buried in an i^old-rosebrocaded : c]iair^-a 1 -broken butterfly sobbing its heart out among the silkjar cushions. v • For a moment he stood gazing at Valerie's bowed head, the Islim. jewelled, fingers, clenched hands, too ished and astounded for mere words, He had never known before thattibut- . terflies could cry, and the sight was a revelation to him. And as he watched the memory of everything that he ought to have remembered went from him as ift it had never been. In a flash he had stooped down and lifted the crumpled, scented mass into his arms. a.nd pressed his dark cheek against the hot wet one that was like a dew-wet rose leaf, and covered the small .quivering face with long, hot, passionate kisses. . , ■ •' "Valerie!" lie said, in broken, pas-sion-filled tones; 'why, my dear girl, you are crying. I didn't know you could cry. Oh, child, child, stop for Heaven's sake. It drives me mad to see tears in your dear eyes. Mad, I tell you. Oh, Fate has been cruel to keep me from you when every fibre of my being, all the heart and .soul of me* aire crying out for love of you day and night—night and day. I'am the man who loves you, and has the closest claim to Tie near you by right of that love; and yet Fate holds us apart from the sAveetcst tie of all, bocause .of j the fetters of an old chain that only one thing can break: Great, powers that be! how pitiless life is sometimes to a man and woman in love!" (To be Continued).