AFTER RELEASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10612, 19 April 1912, Page 2

AFTER RELEASE.

OUR SERIAL.

By VIOLET M. FLINN, Author of "The Master Passion, "What Shall It Profit?" "Veren-," "By Devious Paths," Etc.

CHAPTER XXL—Coatinued. Eldytdi seemed very tired when she came in. Her pupils were unusually tiresome, she said. Tresidder looked at the photograph and frowned. "I was not aware that you -know the Duke of Ludworth!" he said abruptly. "I have met ham," she said in, a low voice, and he saw her beautiful hands trembling. "He was very anx- j ious that I should have my voice well j trained." I

"J did not know he took any interest in music. I have always regarded him as an idle trifler, given over to pleasure seeking." "Indeed, no!' she said", her eyes flashing. "He is not like that. You do not know how much he does for St.

Clement's. I do not know what they would have done, without him there.

And he is intensely musical, and —and would have helped me if —if " Her voico choked and broke. "He is noi >ne who advertises himself in any way, :md I am quite .sure that his own people do not know or. appreciate him, but they do at St. Clement's." Tresidder's grave pyes watched her n her excitement. "And he wanted to 'help you, and ivould not let him?" he asked musingy. "And do you often, >see him?" She turned her head away. "I never see him now,' she said in i low tone, and then her gaze met Presidder's gravely sympathetic look, uitd tall her composure completely deserted her. Only that afternoon she Had seen Lucl worth and he had not ;cen Jier, and the sight of him only served to prove how great was her onging for him. How cruel was "the ! ato that made her as nothing to him vhen she would so gladly have been ill things to ham! She raised her Hands to 'her face, and all the barriers uid restraints of the past few weelcs iverc utterly swept away in the passion jf grief that consumed-her.. She.wantid- him—she. wanted him,'. just to touch lis handj-to Jve4r the soft, laughing roiee that was ihe sweetest music' in, ler ears;' and he was far, far above ler reach, and never, never again vould they meet! "My poor girl!" Tresidder's voice, tind and sympathetic, reached her >ars; his hand touched her soft, dusky lair tenderly. "My poor child!" he said again. "Won't, you tell me all axmtit? I want to be your friend. I im old enough to ibo your father. Can rou noi confide in me as you would wive done in him? And I am Ludvorth's friend, too. Perhaps I can. .lelp.you —both!" Eldyth could never understand how she tiGi' heart as.S&c did thai '*v. The truth was, she had reached she limit of her endurance, and Tresidder's kindness, and the conviction that he meant what he said, and that he was really "desirous of being her friend, were the last stroko to the breaking down point of her restraint. It was impossible to look at the kind, grave face and not to trust him. Like a child secure in her father's love she told him of the golden episode in her dull, gray life, and its untimely close. "And because yon cared so much vou would not stand in his way ?" Tresidder murmured. It was a story that was boaind to appeal to him, who all his life had -ever had hefbro him the ideal of a iapless love that had heen the animating purpose of his life. Out of the gray ashes there stirred the memory of his own days of glad desire, of brief glimpses of joy, as precious as they were rare. He looked !»t the girl crouched in the big.chair, and he/realised, perhaps as only he could, all that her sacrifice had cost her. In that hour of mutual confession, >f mutual. confidence, the strangelyassorted pair came very close together, vnd a bond sprang up -between them ;hai was never 4x> tiiow any weakenn* Out of the depths of loneliness md sorrow, two lonely figures caught hands and became truly one. Tresidder could have been almost angry with Ludiworth for accepting Eldyth's ruling so easily, yet as he thought over it all he saw that there was nothing else that the young man could in honour have done. ">He wrote to me," Eldyth said, "after Mr Courtice had seen him. "It —it made me very happy, very proud, | ni t_even if there were iiotLady Hermione " "Ah, poor girl!" Tresidder said com, passionately. There were indeed complications, wheels -within wheels, and at the centre of them all was the duchess as she had ever heen. He was aglow with indignation when he thought ol it It seemed to him that there was no one to he disliked and despised a£ Elizabeth Duchess of Ludiworth, whoa love of power was without parallel and whoso ambition was insatiable. He looked again at Eldyth, tear stained ami unhappy,, a friends •rrji-1 who. because she held-honoui dearer than self, had ahut tlie'dpoi on all that she most desired in lite and (bis resolve was taken. There wa no child of Charles' Marcham's to tak for his own, hut might it not be tha thin ffirl needed more? Eldyth sat in astonished silence i. he unfolded his plan, yet it did no strike her as being so quixotic and mi 1 possible as it might have done it six ; had been in her normal state of mine Tresidder was one who inspired cor fklence in himsetf-and ho was Lud worth's friend: Yet it seemed unrea; unusual. That she should have tol< a Granger all that she had kept hid den from an old friend like Viyiai Courtice, and that this man, of avlios existence she had heen in ignovanc

(To be continued;)

a few days before, should be seriously proposing to adopt 'her. She pinched herself furtively and wondered if it were all a dream. "My lawyers would assure your relatives and friends of -my credentials." Tresidder said, -wondering at her silence. "I don't propse that you should take any steps that later you might regret, but I think that we could be of some service to one another. And I am ii lonely old man without kith or kin. It would mean a very great deal to me to rtlhitik that I could bo able to help you in some way. It would make life happier for me than tho prospect of benefitting a hospital does." He looked at her with a smile that lid not disguise the real anxiety with n-liicli he waited for her answer. If lie could only go to Ludworth and say to him-: "Eldyth Grainger is my adopted daughter, and henceforth, will bo jhe chief and dearest concern of my ife!" It would surely gladden Ludivorth's heart and relieve him from some of the caa-e he must be feeling mi her account. "Of course, I don't expect you to lecide at once!" he said. "Think it >ver well, and got your friends' and .-datives' advice." Eldyth flushed and grew pale. "Mr Tresidder," she said, bravely, 'I too, will be perfectly frank with pou. Mr Courtice is my only friend,' ind I have no relatives. I have never jad any except my mothers' mother md brother. She—she-rl do not know svfoo or what my fatlher was! No one loes!" He could see what the admission cost her. "If—if things had been lifferent with the duke, if—if he had lot been engaged to Hermione 1 jould still never had. You see what I aim—a fraud, an impostor, .vithouit a family, without—a name!' rhe old terror woke and leaped up n her eyes as she confronted him. ind in it he saw that look of horror that was ever haunting her. "I_do adt kiiow- what I am," she cried. '•My mother—there was no one',to -say' « harsh' word against her, and yet «he—-&<*-oh, and I, oh—l am afraid for myself." ■ ; . . . Tresidder caught her hands m Ins. "My child, my poor, mistaken.chila. Lear!" he said, and the strong, kiiid voice compelled her attention, and the tn-ip of the protecting hands gave her strength. "You. need have no tear for yourself. No woman'who was weak would -havo Sehaved as you have done —no, not even in desperation. i<mr mother, I think—nay, Lam surclimist have been.a very good woman, whatever hev gUiB may have bm-b * lia syea ef iho since you are her daughter." . ' , Eldyth's eyes brimmed with grateful tears. , -, , a ™„ < «I—l of ten think sne loved me m uch,'V S Shew^v^er hands from Ins grasp. I ™lshaw you her portrait. .1 do not think it l the facTof a bad or foolish woman, and—she was my mother. | She went to tlie old-fashionedLdra ver on whicli the portrait of Ludworth Jad stood, and he saw that Jewas manipulating the mechanism of a «eCT <fe a very beautiful piece of old furniture,' he said, rather with tte ?lea of KghUnng the than from any great interest ui tlie Mr Itam-arde the surgeon-«-ho was in the accident with you. was SSfruTg t, too. He seemed to know aarau ™t ]d f uvm ture; he a good deal about oiu u told me he did a lit* e collecting, flus was part of the furnishing of my nothi».T«« when she •S" 1 fore she wait away. J think it was one of my earliest rejections butl neve r. knew of the existence «f Sret drawer until I came up to LooSuppose the jarring: mi«»*ave. t£ pigeonholes ■^g^£ r . pressed,at one end, levea tag * fc old enough to liaic vu before then, «nd I found it late j when my uncle died.