"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1940, Page 10

"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET WATSON.

CHAPTER IX. (Continued). He turned his head suddenly, and met her eyes with a curiously level glance, and smiled. ‘‘Martin not ill, 1 hope? I suppose not; he never is. But it’s so odd to see you without him." “Oh no, it’s business. At least, he called it that; but it must be rather a strange kind, for he’s gone away for two or three days, and won’t tell me why." “It’s strange,” said Jon, in a soft bantering tone which he could use at will whenever she seemed in danger of losing her poise, “to conduct one’s business in the evenings. I suppose it is business. I can't think he’s found a mountain to climb even here in the middle of Stockholm. But perhaps he’s swimming in the harbour.” Erica laughed. “No, only crossing it in a boat.” “That certainly does sound a strange kind of business. Though, believe me, the business of a man like Martin is often strange.” “This one is. We’d arranged to go to Upsala this afternoon, and come back late; and then a perfect stranger stopped him in the street, and stood talking to him for a few minutes in German; and from that moment his plans were changed. He’s gone off to one of the islands in great excitement, and I am left lamenting.” Jon laughed, a soft, rich sound, as impersonal as the sea. "Oh, I wouldn’t lament, if I were you. Now you can at least stand here and look at the lights of the harbour in comparative safety. No one will rush up and tell you that he was second mate on the old “Captain Macheath” of Cardiff, or passenger in the ‘Flying Dutchman’ on her recordbreaking flight to the Cape, or champion marksman of the Fiji Isles the year you were President. You can walk the streets of Stockholm and oe free alike of reminiscence and celebrity. What do you say?” All Erica said was: “I must be going, I suppose.”

But she stood there for one more long minute before she moved; for the sea and the night were beautiful, and the company of Jon, even though he knew and cared little about her, comforting. They stood close to the wall, and looked across the waves. As far as they could see there were islands, and the sparkle of light from the windows of their great houses fell down upon the waves in little broken crescents of gold. Nearer, the tall masts of a few Baltic ships speared the air; and the many steamers lay compactly black. There was life on board them, but from the shore they were ghost ships, upon an enchanted sea. . "Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Erica. There was no answer, but she looked for none. She lifted her throat to the soft wind, and drew a deep breath. Jon had moved nearer. His hand had touched her arm below the elbow, was circling it with a curiously firm clasp. Without paying much attention she tried to free it, but it was held fast. Then she turned with a little cry of astonished protest. “Jon!”

She saw his face close to her. beautiful, purposeful and passionate; and then his arms closed round her, and she was lifted against him like a child, and kissed.

Nothing had ever been like that in her life, nothing. She could have believed that she dreamed, but for the struggle to breathe in his tight hold. She had been a fool, what a fool! Nursing a tender child of a love, as she thought, cut of pique; while in reality her innocent, graceful, candid affection was a monster far beyond her power to encourage or check; had been that monster all along, while it wore a gently smiling face and talked of the three stars in the dagger of Orion, and bided its time.

She gasped: “Jon! Please!” and braced her arms against him, and tried to push him away. He did not even have to exert hirnself to hold her; she could feel his arms smooth and easy as a garment, but she could not break their clasp. “Let me go, I thought you were my friend. Let me go!” “Why should I?” he asked, in a very soft voice. “I’ve waited a long time, Erica, and now you and I are quite alone at last. There’s no Martin now to interfere between us."

“Unless you want me to hate you," she said evenly, “you’ll release me now, and be my friend a’gain. If you will, I promise I’ll forget what you’ve done."

“Forget? 1 want you to remember it for ever, as long as you live. I want you to love mo. Stop thinking about your Martin; forget him. and think what I’m offering you in exchange. Wliy should you go on for ever casting your pearls before swine?”

Erica said with conviction, even with some dignity: “Martin’s better than I am." “How much do you know about him? How long have you known him?” "Long enough to trust him. After tonight I hope you and he will never meet again: it might be unfortunate for you.”

“And worse for him. There are not many people in the world who know as much as I do about Marlin Hirsi. I've known him for years, you see, instead of a few months. Did he ever tell you about his early ventures? The truth about them? About his smuggling of Chinese into Australia? Or did he tell that in the old way, complete with malignant partner? About his gun-running for both sides in Central American revolutions? And all his other activities? What do you know about him at all’ Simply what he’s

chosen to tell you.” "1 can take his word,” she said quietly; but she was frightened; for had she not accused him of lying to her that very day? And was he not, at that very moment, away across the harbour on some most mysterious business, summoned by the most sinister of messengers? She felt the ground sag beneath her feet; and then, quite gently, Jon set her free; and she did not turn away from him. She stood with her hands ’clenched upon the rocky wall, trying to control her voice.

“At this moment,” said Jon, “I would lay any odds that he is handling or planning to handle someone else’s property. I don’t know; it’s simply that I know him.” “It’s a lie. If all this had been true, you would have warned me from the first.”

“How could I? I loved you; from the very first day I loved you; and I wanted you to be happy; and you believed in him so. Oh, he’s a wonder-

ful person, a brilliant, scintillating, restless person; but excitement is his

life, and he gets it where and how he can. He hasn’t any moral sense; that’s all. I hoped he’d change; I thought you could change anyone; so I gave him his chance. But now I’m fighting for myself; because 1 love you far too much to lose you to him 'without a word.”

Erica drew a deep breath. “It's quite useless. Even if everything you say is true, I'm his wife, and I shall stick to him. I don't believe it; I can’t; but if it should —”

Her voice snapped in an ugly sob. and she dropped her head into her hands. It was all so circumstantial; the smuggling, the gun-running, the present mysterious absence about which he could not tell her, ‘because it. was someone else’s secret.” And what did she know about him, after all? It was astonishing how little one could know of one's own husband. Except, of course that she loved him! That had never been' so plain. “I'm sorry you had to be hurt." said Jon. “I know you’ve loved him. But he was a mistake —your mistake. And you've a lifetime left. If you should want me, or my help—-everything I have is at your disposal. I know enough to put him in prison for years; but I’or your sake I can and will keep silent, whatever happens.” She said, in a , broken whisper: "Please take me home!” She had not quite understood even then that he was threatening her. She knew only that he was the one solid thing in her reeling world, and that he had, even in the moments when he was a monster, a strange sort of cynical, inverted chivalry about him. He.had done his work for that night. Behind her bowed shoulder ho glanced swiftly at his wrist-watch; then he slipped within her arm a hand which might have been a brother’s, and took her back to her hotel. CHAPTER X. Erica lay awake most of the night, trying in vain to collect her thoughts into some sort of order. She was not, she hoped, the most gullible of women. She would not. for the sake of one's opinion, revoke her whole system of ideas about a man she valued more than anyone else in the world. But if she assumed that Jon’s whole story was a tissue of lies, there remained some awkward points to oe explained away. Jon knew all about the early Australoved him! That had never been so plain. lian adventure, and about the Central American one-ship line; so much was plain; but whose version of these things was the true one. Martin’s, of course! But why should Jon lie about it? She had said that she would stick to Martin even if he were a criminal; and Jon had accepted her statement without question. Why, then, should he persist in-—no, she could not call it blackening Martin, for it was not quite that —in explaining him in criminal terms? Besides, Jon had a true way and a straight look. They could be assumed, of course, but not often so perfectly. And there was this wretched business of tonight. Where had Martin really gone, and for what purpose? Why should his eyes shine in that dangerous way unless there was risk in the business in hand? And —whisper this, even to your mind, because it’s the most insidious treason —would it be surprising if Martin, with his recklessness, and his daring, and his thirst for unusual, did in his heart despise the laws of property? Would it really be so very odd if he got a spice to his life out of smuggling, and gun-running, and that last, barely-mentioned crime, burglary? She felt sick, and frightened, and disloyal. It was the scene with Jon which had upset her, of course. In the morning she wolud laugh at herself for believing even for a moment in the possibility of such things. And Jon! She must not see him again. Or stay, had lie hinted that she must? That she must show him a little consideration or take the consequences? The consequences, of course, being Martin’s imprisonment on Jon’s evidence. Did he really know anything to her husband’s discredit’.’Even supposing there was anything to know —which of course there wasn't—did he know it? Could lie prove anything wrong? Of course lie couldn't. There I was nothing to prove. Tossing and lurning wretchedly, she | fell asleep at last out of sheer exhaus-i lion. I (.To be Continued).