"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 23 May 1913, Page 2

"Mrs Lorrimer's Folly."

(OUR StRsAL

CHAPTER Xll.—Continued

.John Ellinge.r was bewildered by this new ;ilann, which so terribly influenced these wnen, but which he did not understand. He said whatever lie ibought would be most comforting and likely xo pacify them. "Where is she? Why, more than half-way to England by this time, I trust, and your little boy with her, safe and sound. Pray, pray don't give way to these alarms. I will cable her to bring the ibaby bad< ; only becalm, be patient. A good, .kind, "iiotherly woman she is,'' he went on, saying anything to lessen the anguish of that pale mother, and somewhat encouraged by her seeming > to listen quietly, " a woman thor- , oughly fitted for the charge. In | fact, she'is the stewardess of the—" 1 Oh. what a scream of agony was tint which stopped his speech! Never did he forget it. Next moment Lillian—white, wild, desperate, with ! burning, maddened eyes and liands j outstretched a« if to tear an answer J from him—sprang up before him. i 'Tho na.ne—the name of the ship in which my husband sailed?" she J cried, in a terrible voice. "Tell me j the name? There ha« been a ship- J wreck! All. all are lost—all gone! j A \ woman—the stewardess —found

lashed to a spar; an infant in her arms. <lend —cl^-a-il! Was that"—she seized John's arm with such force that he actually winced under the grasp—"oil, man! was that my child " And K<oso foil on her knees, crying aloud : "Answer her —answer her! Nothing cm he worse than she is' Suffering now. Look at her face! Answer her —answer her!" But John could not answer her. A j ■sudden, terrible foreboding 'of tho truth —stunned-amazement, fear, the horror of hei\ suggestion—had literally stricken him dumb. He asked himself if ho were going mad. Gould this terrible thing l>e possible "Xo, no!" he cried, at last, when voice came back —and he felt that he strove to quiet his own alarm a.s much as hers —"no. no; don't think of anything so horrible! You are mad! T have heard of no wreck; there lias been none. Or if—" He saw tho newspaper at bis very feet and caught, it up. "What is the name of the steamer?" But Lillian snatched i lie paper from his band. "Answer that, .question, yon!" she cried, -with frantic passion of despair. "Deceive me nn longer—let me know the worst! If they are dead, let me die, too, and follow them! I know ; ''e name of the vessel that is lost, (ill. Rose, I scarcely listened to yon read, but it all comes awfully clear to me. My child ! my' child! Tell me the name of the steamer .in which fie sailed," she pleaded to John —and it seemed to him tha,t her wild vehemence died away as she gazed on him and rested one hand in solemn appeal toward heaven —"I charge you in the name of God!" There wa>s silence for a moment that seemed iiko an hour —silence broken only by Tios:a's weeping—then John Ellinger answered, brokenly and low : "It was the Ocean Star!"

chapter xnr. Twenty-four hours hi tor the news of tho, loss of the Ocean St'r Jia<l been spread all over the ommlry by tho newspapers, and had fallen like a thunderbolt upon tho quiot. s-orro.'. ful household at Seville's Hotel. "It can't be tho samo!" Bertha fried, in the incredulity of grief and horror. "Look a.t Fred's tele.rrani again, Dick for licwon's sake, it can't Jusp-e been tho Ocean .Star!" But tho telegsam dispelled Wli doubts -and at once. It ran thus: "Cr.nnot see you. Plans changed Sail to-day in -.ho Ocean Star. Bertha )>;>]>y till I com© aga ; n. /(Joodby all." "Until he comes again ! Until he comes again!" mourned Bertha, repeating the words that were fraught with such a new and sorrowful meaning now as she nursed and rocked tho still ailing child. "Oh, Dick, will he never oome again, indoedp Was no one saved? What does the paper say. dear?" "Not much," Dick answered, glancing at the columns. "There isn't much to be said, Bertha, just at present. But I'll road it." I And he read sorrowfully: "The Martha, arrived at Boston, reports having passed a quantity of wreckage at sea. and picked up Eliza Wilson, stewardess of the. .steamer Ocean Star, bound from ,New York to ' Liverpool. The stewardess was lashed to a spar, and bad 'an infant—a boy—bound to her 'waist. She was alive when found ; but being severely wounded in the head, sank rapidly, and died without being a,ble to give any intelligence beyond that they were wrecked in the night, and all had perished. The child in her arms was dead. Some of the floating wreckage was marked Ocean Star. There can. l>e little doubt that this illfated vessel had been totally lost, and ; it is to be feared that both crew and | passengers have perished." J This was the paragraph that had brought consternation to so many hearts and homes; it brought it to Bertha's now. The thought of her ; cousin—so young, so unhappy, so lately hei'p, so terribly dead—filled her heart/i already so sore, with new anguish. "Poor Fred! poor, dear Fred!" she mourned; and her tears fell fast upon his child as it lay asleep upon her I>osom. She kissed the child. "I will keep you till he comes again—and that'll be forever," she cried, "for Fred's.sake!" j Dick Saville offered no objection

By Charlotte M. Stanley. Author of "Edna's Vow," "His C ountry Cousin," "How an Oath Was Kept," "A Wo man Wronged."

. to this resolve, onlv he said doubt- ' fully: "Unless—l wouldn't have set your heart on lit, and suffer another bereavement, love—unless we have to give t.ho child up to —his mother." "If is mother!" Bertha turned on him in wide-eyed surprise. "Whv --she is dead—" But his look checked her. Sho saw that he had something to tell her. "Isn't she dead?" she asked him wonderingly. "Didn't Fred tell us of hor divtli?" "Fred said he had lost his wife." Dick answered, "hut lie never said that she was dead. T noticed that, and. when we were alone, quest ion,ed him. Ho answered: 'Sho is dead to me, Dick. Don't ask me any i more. Wo have parted.' And that'.s 1 all I know. But don't you think we. ought, to learn more .somehow? If Fred had come back, the responsibility would have been his, not ours; but his death alters matters. I don't liike to part a mother from her ' child." Bertha sighed heavily. "You're risht,- Dick, quite right," said she. "We must find Lillian." Then she sighed again, as he fondled the child more closely. "I should like to have kept Trim, too," she murmured. "He has brought more comfort to me than seemed possible. Little baby, little baby, I wish I might have kept you, as your poor father willed', until lie came again." Nevertheless, they agreed together to wait until the news of the steamer's loss -was confirmed, and all hope of Fred's escape and return was over; and then Dick wa.s to go to New York and seek out Lillian. He was to ascertain all about her; bow she took the news of her husband's death, how she lived, what sort of a person she wa« altogether, for Bertha said : "I won't give the child up to a bad mother! He is Fred's leg.icy to me, and I'll do as he bids me —'keep the bov till he comes back'—rather than that!" So when another month had gone, Dick went to iNew York on his mission, and after spneding a fortnight there, brought home no information whatever. (.To be Continued.)