PRIMROSE DELORAINE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 1035, 16 August 1911, Page 2

PRIMROSE DELORAINE

UUR SERIAL.

J-R'S DAUGHTER. . _iIE PENDENNIS. R.i t. "Sir Reginald's »"The Forgotten Heir." "Rival realities,' 'et-c, \

CHAPTER XXlV—Continued. Fo lowing Iris cry came tho sound of ii-soft, low, woman's voice. ' "I'm no ghoit, Bill, so you needn't play tho coward any longer. You thought you had killed me I know ;voa meant to kill me, and you left me for dead in the cave. But I wasn't dead. I was alive. Alivo enough to follow you to England, and, thank Heaven, I've got hero in time to hear all that I've heard to-night—in time, I pray, to save a ghastly tragedy." Kvo threw back tho long, dark cloak in which she was wrapped, and itood there in the full glow of the enmson light; a strange picture with her white face and oddly fascinating eyes, with their ever-changing lights, the silver starshine from the outer world glinting on the loose waves of her red-gold liair. She looked straight at Lord Eversdene witJi an expression that puzzled him. "Captain Jack," she said quietly, "do you remember tho letter I gave vou tho night I helped you and Primrose to escape from tho cave and Poker Bill?" Lord Evprsdene looked hack at her for a moment in some perplexity, then he smiled whimsically. , "Good Heaven!" he said, "I had forgotten all about it. But now that you remind me I remember that you did give me a letter, and told me to read it in a safe place. Of course, I meant to, hut I shoved it into a, despatch box with a lot of other things, and somehow or other I forgot it was there. You see, my last days in Australiawweree —-er —somewhat exciting, and since I've been in England I've had a good deal t-o think about, too. I'm awfully sorry, Eve—upon my word I am. I hope it doesn't matter to you my having forgotten." Eve drew a long, slow breath. "No," she said, 'it doesn't matter to me, but " She passed her hand over her eyes. "Where is the letter ?" she asked. "Read it now." Lord Eversdene glanced at the detective. . . "If you will-allow me," he said.. "I am sorry to keep you." Then he moved toward his writingtable and unlocked an old, shabby despatch box that stood in one corner. A confused litter of letters and papers lay within, and at first he could not find what he was searching for, but at last he came across it, and broke the seal.

touch, did straighten them slowly but surely, one by one. It was some few months after the dramatic scone, with its startling climax, that had been played out at Eversdene Castle that Sir Gerard Lesbie was sitting alone in his comfortable rooms in the Albany, smoking and thinking over many things. There wero many things for him to think over, too. To-morrow was Primrose's wedding day. To-morrow Primrose, of Red Tree Camp would become the Countess of Eversdene, and so a troubled chapter in two lives would ho closed. A troubled chapter in two other "liver, was already closed, for Poker Bill, the bully of Red Tree Camp, the evil genius of more than one woman's life, was dead. He had been stabbed in a drunken brawl, in a low, drinking bar, and Eve had nursed him faithfully to the end; and the end had been dark, dark as his evil, misspent life. For no touch of remorse or repentance had come to soften it. Ho had died as he had lived, wicked, remorseless, unregenerate; a- bully, a brute, and a cur to the last. From that ghastly picture Sir Gerard's thoughts wandered to Valerie Vivian, the woman he had loved so passionately, and who seemed to have gono out of his life forever. For ever since that final tableau at Eversdene 'Castle, when so many matters had come to light, ho and she had never met. There was no bitterness in his heart for her, tho wrong she had done him was fully and • freely forgiven; but generous, loyal, enduring as he "was, he was only human, and he had felt that to see the woman who had tricked and fooled him so mercilessly, and made such cruel sport of his love and loyalty, was beyond his strength. Some day, he thought, some day, perhaps, when time had healed some of the wounds that this woman's hand had dealt him, and smoothed away some of the scars that seemed branded on his soul, they two might meet again, but not now—not now. And, as he thought, his manservant brought a letter;. arid as he opened it his face went suddenly white. A subtle .perfume floaed up to him from out the written sheet within; the perfume that always clung about Valerie Vivian. Like a man in a dream he read her letter to him.

A moment later he looked up, and the pleasant smile played round liL mouth again.

"This is really quite interesting," he said casually, "and it makes the situation ever more melodramatic than before. Now, you know, Lester, if I were to give you the rest of your life to guess in, you couldn't guess what this letter contains. Don't be offended. You simply couldn't. It's —it's—" He paused, glancing round with lazy amusement at the eager, expectant faces turned toward him. Then he laughed softly to himself. ''Life is a funny thing," he mused, just above his breath, "and the world is a funny place." Then he turned to Eve, and held the letter out to her' gravely. "Perhaps," he suggested, j "you will tell the contents of the let- ] ter yourself, Eve." , v - I And Eve took the letter from him, I her whi,te face growing whiter still. | Then she too looked round at the tening group. 1

"For the sake of days that are gone, come to me, Gerard, if only for five minutes. There are things that I must say to you. I have -had a terrible motor accident, and I am dying. If I were not I would not ask you. Come, please.—Valerie." The words were blurred and shaky? stained and blotted with tears, almost unreadable; and Gerard Lesbie's face grew whiter still as he crammed the letter into his pocket. '

A little later he was once more in the pretty house in Pont Street that he had thought never to enter again,' looking with grave, pitying;eyes ai the pale, pain-lined face, the crushed, broken form, the pitiful wreck of womanhood that was all that was left of the brilliant butterfly he had known as Valerie Vivian.

"This is," she said, "I think what one might call the end of the story. This paper is the confession of my late husband, a man who went by the name of Brandy Dick, written on his deathbed, and signed in the presence of reliable witnesses. The confession that he, and he alone, murdered the man whom Captain Jack was accused of murdering." She paused for a moment, and a faint, scornful smile flickered over her still face.

"Brandy Dick," she went on, "did not'do many good deeds in his life, but; bad as he was, when things, came to -the -last with him, he- wouldji't die and leave another man to pay the penalty-of his cnme. -Ha wrote that confession and signed it, and gave it to me, and laid a sojemn. cbarge iipon, me 'to give, it ;£o Gapftiim' Jack bow in time. l to save him from the Vengeance of the law. Captain Jack will remember that I gave it to him, just when he and Primrose were leaving the cave on the night I spoke of; and if he hadn't thrown it to one side and forgotten it, if only he had remembered it, and read it " She broke off, and shrugged her slender shoulders eloquently. "Ah! if," said Lord Eversdene, in a soft voice, "if."® He turned to Primrose, and went a*nd knelt by her side, and put liis arm round her. Then he looked over to two faces that were distorted with baffled passion and impotent rage — the faces of Valerie Vivian and Poker Bill. , , • . "The game is played out," he reHiaTkeflKcoolly;, 'ring;,dowp. the,i curtain!"

"Forgive me," she pleaded, the words coming in. short, panting gasps through her quivering lips. "Forgive . —me —(jterard—before—l—die. Prim rose has forgiven me—and Jack lias forgiven—me. I sent for them this morning, and I made them promise they would say nothing to you until—it—was—all over. I meant not to send for you. I—meant—to—die—without seeing you —again. But. somehow, when the time went on, I couldn't—l simply couldn't. You have been so good always, Gerard, the best man in all the world, the only man in all the world—l—think—now. I could not die without seeing you, and—tell-ing~-you—how sorry I am—for all—my wrongdoing—-and begging you—to forgive-. For lam dying, Gerard, and if I had lived —I —would—have counted nothing toojygreat—to —wipe—out my sin." '

CHAPTER XXV.

TWO SCENES.

So of the strange cross threads that had been so cruelly knotted were unravelled in the tangled skein in which so many lives were bound tip, and the skein itself was partly smoothed out, but not entirely. There were cross-threads left yet, knots still there, waiting for the hand of Providence to straighten them. And the hand of Providence, with its gentle, soothing

She paused for a moment, and lay with closed eyes, and he watched her >vith; a 1 keen, bitter sorrow' that • was /;as. iron .entering into the soul. He had loved her so, this woman, and now—now she was going from him, out of the world of life into the world of death. , "I have been a wicked woman." she went 011 painfully, "but I never realised the depth of—my—wickednefes till I was brought, face to face—with—it that night—at Eversdene Castle, and since then—l—have—been a changed woman. Nothing could,ever make me the same again. I—have—repented— I have suffered. Only—Heaven and myself—will—ever—know how keenly. 'I have prayed—just for the chance to—live and atone. But my prayer has not been—granted—and now l—am dying. Gerard—forgive me—before—l go. Forgive— me—dear boy. Forgive ine." She starred,-feebly on her lacy pillows, and reached out a tiny hand to him; such.a .weak, feeble,'fluttering hand, it seemed scarcely able to lift itself. And as Sir Gerard caught the nelnless fingers in his own strong ones and held them fast, as he looked into the white, drawn face, the big, imploring. forget-me-not blue eyes, darkened with pain and anguish, he fell on his knees and cried out with a great broken cry—a cry that seemed to hold all the passionate, loving, faithful heart of him. (To be Continued). I