Chapter XLI.—'Our Client.'—Continued.

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 298, 9 April 1874, Page 2

Chapter XLl.—'Our Client.' — Continued.

IDo you really, seriously mean that you think Mrs Sfc Quentin hiti clone viglit, Florenco, in bestowing upon me wealth which I don't wont, and which I won't use, m de- tI parting utterly from the — her husband's specific direction never mind his intentions; th« will i» a fact -and :i3 k »baudauiDg all her duties., in tke way ih6 ha& done ' '

* I not only think she has done right, but 1 canuot for moment imagine Minim's acting in any other way, when ■be discovered th«:. Mr Si Quentin would hare made a different will lia ' < 'mi own what she came to know.' ' And yet the sm. .• *.>man, with this lar-fttched sense of honour, and oxlvm.i I, n u ry delicacy of conscience, married Mr St Quentin tor tin- »«ke of his money, which there lmquishes for h »oruple ike this '' 'That is true,' sani Florence, little tluukii)>r \>liat a Initli ■he wa» Uttering ; ' but Miriam see* tiling-, Miriam understands things right und wrong, far ilillcrenth now ' ' Well, you wonwn are incomprehensible. You, too, are against me. I will say no more but tins. I shall never abandon my search lor her, never abandon my hope of finding her. Walter, you tell mo, is in ignorance of all thii.' ' Yei, she answered, with a heavy sigh ; 'it would have been useless to tell him. He could not have understood it.' ' No, indeed, nor any one el»e.' 'Do be persuaded. Let Miriam's intention be fulfilled. So long a* you do not accept it, fully and fiankly, you will make her wretched, and part us from her, for she" will never put herself within reach of you until you have done so.' ' It is vain to try and persuade me, Florence ; I am much more resolute in my purpoie than she in hers, though she thinks she has made it irrevocable — stronger by all the added strength of my motive.' She looked surprised, but asked no question. He continued. * You persist in refusing to tell me where she is ?' ' Yes, I persist. I promised her. I cannot break faith with Miriam. 1 1 She will not remain long away from you. Mind, I warn you, I will have your house watched.' She smiled faintly. 'I am not at all afraid of your doing any thing of the kind.' Shorly after, they parted, and Florence wrote to Miriam a full account of the interview. * Never mind, dearest Floreuce ' — so ran Miriam's reply. 1 1 only <uk a year's secrecy ; and, if a woman's influence should intervene before, not even that. If he falls in love and marries, or intends to do so, I need not care how soon after he finds me out. Hiding is so easy. He never saw me except in my weeds ; I have laid them aside ; and he passed me yesterday on the platform at London Bridge — the platform, Florence, where you and I parted with Walter —so close, I hud barely time to put my veil down.' Chapter xlii. — The Testimony of the Books. To search for a person who has a strong motive for concealment, without any such previous knowledge of that person's tmtes nnd habits as would supply a 'system' on which to w ork, is not an easy undertaking. Miriam had no friends in London, and Lawrence had no knowledge of her mode of bfo in Pans to supply him with data for his pursuit. The •orvants left in the houoo in Lonndes Square were all strangers ; and Monsieur Caux, to whom Lawrence applied, tas entirely unacquainted with Mrs St Quentin's habits or associates. He had seen her only onee — on the occasion of his giving her Lawrence's own letter ; and he knew nothing, except that he had been indirectly employed against her interests, and that he did not gather from her manner that *he resented that circumstance. To his first attempt, by letter, to induce Florence to reconsider her resolution, he reoeived a reply which made him desist. If he made any further reference to the subject, Florence must close their correspondence, and she begged him to spare her so great a sacrifice. If Lawrence had not had lurking, in the unexplored reoesses of his mind, something which was, and yet was not, a suspicion of the truth, an impression which he would not investigate, and could not banish, ho might not have shrunk, as he did, from the employment of any other person's services in this matter. He had indeed no right to set the detectives on the track of a lady, m no way bound to admit him to her presence, if she chose to hold herself aloof from him ; and yet he might have yielded to the temptation to do so, trusting to her pardon, if he had not been tormented by a vague surmise that there was in this mysterious restitution and disappearance something more than the avowed motire. The last person who had seen Mr St Quentin alive had not recognised the portrait which Lawrence knew to be that of Mr St Quentin, and that person had drawn up Mr St Quentin's will ' What did all this point at ? He dreaded to ask the question of himself, he dreaded the answer. There was a method by which he felt certain he could foroe Miriam to communioate with him, to come out of her conoealtnent at all events for once. It was by putting an advertisement in the Times, addressed to the persons who witnessed the will of the late Mr St Quentin. But he could not do this. It went too near to the half-uttered whisper of the truth within him ; it might possibly involve Miriam in danger, di3grace— and he loved her ! Lawrence went to Doctors' Commons and read the will. There was nothing to be learned from that. Ho went to Bover, and found that the head waiter, who was one of the witnesses, was still there. He was easily induced to talk of the old gentleman who died at the hotel, to the dismay of the proprietor, *o very unexpectedly, and of the beautiful lady who bad so much courage and presence of mind. Ho recollected the witnessing of the will perfectly, and that the gentleman did seem very ill indeed, though not so bad as to prepare any one for what had happened. There was only one circumstance connected with the event which no one thought of /nentioning, and which had never oorae to Law. rence's knowledge j this was the visit of Mrs St Quentin's brother to the hotel, just before the death of her husband. So trifling a fact did not hold a place in any one's mind, and thus the clue escaped Lawrence's grasp. He had taken the Indian portrait of Mr St Quentin to Dover, and displayed it conspicuously in his sitting-room. The head-waiter was looking curiously at the frame while he was answering Daly's questions, but without the slightest recognition of the face. His silcnoe was enough for Lawrenoe ; he would not ask him a needless question. After this, great discouragement fell upon Lawrence. He was a man to grow morbidly weary of his life because its lines had not been laid as he would have had them ; but he felt the position in which Miriam's unaccountable rashness plaoed him, false and irksome. The influence of the man ■who had made his youth desultory, and dependent, and unsatisfactory, was still pursuing him, and his future threatened to be as desultory andjas unsatisfactory as his past. Why should he not go away, and give it all up, putting his affairs into the hands of Messrs Boss and Raby, letting the London house, and leaving the money, whioh had hitherto done no one any good, to accumulate until such time as he should entirely solve the mystery, or Miriam should have come to her right mind ? Here was an easy way out of all his difficulties, and into some new mode ef life, which should dissipate the dreariness and perplexity in which he was living } with only one drawback to it, one little objrction, which neutralised every advantage. He loved Miriam, and no life unshared by her could ho any more bearable than this, into which there was, after all, a chance that she might come some day. Lawrence went to the Fire, and' wandered all over the empty rooms, and all the places which Walter used to talk about, and with which Miriam was associated. No one there could tell him anything about Mrs St Quentin, when he inquired, in a casual way. There was a story afloat that another will had been found, and that Miriam had been dispossessed ; and, ns no one m the neighbourhood knew the particulars of Mr St Quontin's death except Mr Martin, who did not think proper to repeat them, the explanation was accepted. Lawrenco stayed two days at Mr Martin's house, and had no reason to suspect that he was better informed concerning Miriam's place of abode than himself. One suggestion, not directly bearing on the subject, but which had an attraction for him, Mr Martin made. It was in speaking of Miriam's girlhood, and the manr adverse influences winch had warped her character, originally noble, as her act of restitution, however ill-judged and excessive, proved, that Mr Martin said- ' That Miss Monitor was an honest sort of person enough. I don't like eohoolmistresses in general, and I think they oan hardly be disinterested under a speoml miracle ; but she wasaVood friend to Miriam, on the whole. ' Of course she does not know where she is ?' ' I should suppose she does not. Miriam would naturally calculate upon your going to her in the first instance, and ■he would hardly burden her with «uch a confidence. Quite enough to impose it on Florence, I should say.' Miriam would naturally calculate upon his going to Miss Monitor in the first instance ! And he had not done so, and it had never occurred to him ! He did not say io to Mr Martin, but he determined the next day ihould find him at Ulackheath. He had a kindly recollection of Miss Monitor. Suppose the Good-natured, cheerj old maid were to find out his secret ? What then ? He was so solitary and so miserable, he hoped she might, or that she might give him some encouragement to reveal it to her. At leaet there would be some one to whom he might talk of Miriam. Miss Monitor's cottage at Blackheath was s pretty little dwelling, full of nooks and crannies, whioh were all filled with pretty appropriate furniture, and combined a delightful appearance of age and every modern convenience, and no small degree of elegance and refinement. The rooms opened into one anothor, and the longest flight of itairs in the building numbered only ten low broad steps. The prevailing tints of the furniture and hanging wero warm reds and tool greens and all the ornaments were of a quaint simplo fashion ; with one exception, which caught Lawrence* eye as soon as he was ushered into Miss Monitor's drawing-room, apparently to the displeasure of a very handsome gray parrot, whose cago stood at the open glass door-window leading into the secluded and richly cultivated garden, fenced oil' by a wire railing from tho field tacred to. Miss Monitor's cow. This exception was a cabinet of ebony, ivory, and silver, much too splendid for its surroundings, and which Lawrence instantly remembered to havo scon — where? Surely it had stood on a Üblo in Miriam's drawing-room, and Miriam had touched it on that first day! He was looking at the cabiuofc, lull of reminiscences, when" tho servant who had usuored him into the drawing-room returned, and, with much confusion and trepidation, informed him that she had been mistaken in telling him that her mistress, Miss Jlomtor, WHi) at home. She was not aware ol it, but Mua <

Monitor had gone out, and was not orpectad to return until evening. The girl spoke hurriedly, aud hold the door wido open, to intimate that the intruder win expected to take his departure instantly But thu did not nuit Lav revn:o's views. ' I had something important to nay to Miss Monitor, 1 he observed . 'sin.cc I cannot see lirr, 1 will write it.' Then he. seated himself at a wilting table, oppoeito the open glass door, and began to write, while the unh.ipp; parlour-mmd looking on helplessly, the \er\ linage of misery and irresolution. Presently, Lawrence henrd a 6tep upon the walk outside the window, and paused ior « moment It was a loitering, proprietorial step, and the two handsome Skye terriers, wlio lay close to the window-sill, in amiable proximity to the parrot, did not stir or bark. There was a snipping sound, as of the person outside cutting flowers from their stems, and presently a figure stood in the open doorway, arrested by the sight of the man mt the table, and from whose unnerved hands tumbled down a basket of gorgeous roses, which fell into the parrot's cage, and on the dogs' noses, and all over the carpet. Then the parlour-miid fled, and shut the door, and Lawrence looked up, and saw — Miriam !