THE LADY OF ROANAKI. A STORY OF CHRISTMAS EVE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1824, 15 March 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LADY OF ROANAKI. A STORY OF CHRISTMAS EVE.

BY WAIF WANDER (W.W.)

On the wooded slope that sweeps down from the Dargong Hills to the banks of the Boanaki Creek there stood many long years ago the home of the Hartcombes. If you paused at the end of the great creek, where its course turned suddenly toward the distant river, you could have seen on your right hand the long and low stone building with its battlement coping, and its deep, almost square windows and heavy chimneys. With the heavy background of the dark hills behind it, with its too close surrounding of English and indigenous trees, Koanaki House could not fail to leave a gloomy impression on the mind of even a casual observer. The house occupied a slight elevation within a hundred yards of the creek, and was surrounded by about an acre of cleared land laid down in English grass. This circumscribed Bpace was of a hard square, outlined •with a straight, dreary looking path, leading from the heavy stone portico to t le banks of the creek, where it was crossed by a strong wooden bridge. The path was broad and grass-grown, and terminated in front of the house with two hideous looking Griffins roughly cut in the same blue stone of which Mr. Roanalu's house was itself composed. Even summer could not make Eoanaki look cheerful, not even the Christmas Eve flun than burned on the hills and glittered on the waters of the creek brightened the gloomy f ayade of the grim-looking mansion. There -was no appearance of life about this place, there was not even the chirrup of a bird or the buzz of a bee, for there was nothing to attract a bird in the insiduous ivy that blackened great patches of the stone walls, and there was not a flower to tempt a bee. In a room with dark time-browned oak •walls, and a low massive ceiling of the same wood, sat the owne* of this gloomy property, a tall, erect, and almost fierce-looking gentleman, of some forty-five years. He had been, nay, was still a handsome man, but the regular acquiline features and the well placed dark gray eyes were disfigured by an expression of arrogance and pride, while tho habits of domineering acquired during a long period of military seivice had clung to him and intensified the proverbial disagreeability of the "Haughty Hartcombes." When we first see him Major llupert Harfccombe was seated at an oak table drawn near one of the deep windows. Prom his position he could see the stone Griffins and the square of grass down which the straight walk led to the bridge. He could see the glimmer of Boanaki Creek under its opposite steep bank, and he could see a portion of a ruined blue stone building of small dimensions that stood near the creek, and was half hidden by ivy and the original bush that had overgrown the site, and shadowed its broken roof. He could see all this I say, and he did when he occasionally glanced through the window, but his attention was too entirely devoted to the examination of a great roll of parchment he held open before him, with bith thin white hands, on which more than ole ancient looking ring sparkled when they passed a sun ray that lay like a golden spear across the faded colors and lines of the document. Major Hartcombe was slightly bald in front, and his broad forehead looked almost abnormally high in consequence. He was c'.ose shaved, with the exception of a heavy, gray, military moustache that drooped over his firm lips. His hair had been black, but already showing a preponderance of Bilver threads, and it was worn short and brushed back stifly from his hollow temples. His was not an attractive countenance, as he sat there bending over his parchment with something very like a scowl over his drooped eyelids. Suddenly he raised his head and looked out of the window. If there had been anyone there to note the changes in that man's face B3 he looked, I wonder for what feelings the watcher would have given Major Hartcombe credit ? It was a lovely picture he saw — that of a sweet looking and lovely woman, or rather girl, approaching up the straight walk, with a perfect, yet rather slender figure, and a pale, beautiful face, over which the shade of her hat rested softly, and the short, fair curls lay daintily over one side, where the upturned brim of the hat was hidden under a white feather. She was moving with a slow and languid step, and there was no appearance of the buoyancy of spirit that ought to have belonged to her eighteen years. Her melancholy eyes, that seemed heavy and dim in the shade of her hat, were raised to the gloomy building towards which she was advancing, and she visibly shuddered as she passed between the stone Griffins, with their hideous faces and winged sides streaked with the green, slimy Stains of fifty years. Major Hartcombe's face grew darker as he noted the feeling of repulsion evinced, as the young girl passed the Griffins, and drew her skirts yet closer, lest they Bhould touch one or other of the ugly things, and Major Hartcombe's face was yet at its darkest, when the door of his room opened softly and the young lady appeared. " I beg your pardon Major," she said hesitatingly, " I did not know you were here, I hope I did not disturb you ? " 11 No, come in Bay, I wish to speak to you."

As the gentleman spoke, he was placing *ome maible paper-weights on the corners of the great parchment, so that his hands were fieo as he rose with stiff courtesy, to place a f^nir for the fair being, we only knowjyet as Kay. " You have been strolling again, Eay ? " "Yes, I have been down to the ruin." She leplird gently as she laid her hat upon her lap, and met the piercing eyes of the Major with a calm gaze. "Have you seen Mrs. Harlcombe this morning ? " " No, not yet. I am always afraid of disturbing her, and she never sends for me Rupert." " It should not be necessary for my mother to send for you, Eay." The Major said sharply, as he resumed his seat at the table, " in becoming my wife you undertook many and more responsible duties than your former sphere of life made you accustomed to, and among the mo&t responsible of these duties was the most unbounded lespect to the best and most afilicted of women — I need not say that I allude to Mrs. Ilartcombe." A faint flush tinged Eay, Hartcornbo's cheeks, and she was compelled to make a strong effort at self control ere she could reply. " In becoming your wife, Eupert, I was fulfilling the greatest of all a daughter's duties. I was obeying the last wishes of a dear, dying mother ; and as your wife, lam most anxious to show respect to yours, but I do not know how." " You do not know how? Your words surprise me beyond measure, Eay 1 You know the helpless state of Mrs. Hartcombe." You know that a few feeble step 3 from one room to another is the greatest exertion she can make? You know that her hours are long and lonely, yet you spend your unoccupied days in useless strolls or listless dozes by the damp banks of the creek. You go and come without a request for Mrs. Hartcombe's advice or an enquiry for her health, yet you do not know how to show the last lady of a great race the respect that is her right 1 " Angry flashes were shooting from the Major's deep-set eyes, and the hand he laid on the great parchment trembled with passion. " No, Ido not know ; at least Ido not know in what form your mother would like me to exhibit the respect you wish me to show her. I have frequently presented myself at her door to be refused admittance ; I have not been intrusted with any of the household responsibility, so that I have no need of Mrs. Hartcombe's advice. The few hours she has permitted me to pass in her sooiety, and that of her maid, Hester Grimwade, have been devoted to reproofs of my conduct, which I could can afford to listen to, and sneers at my parents, which not even the atmosphere of Eoanaki shall make me accustomed to." " You are exhibiting a most unlady-like temper, Mrs. Hartcombe, and one which until lately, I had not believed you capable of ; and you aie strangely forgetting yourself in speaking of my mother with such disrespect." "I have repeated over and over again, that for my own sake as well as yours, I did not wish to be disrespectful to either Mrs. Hartcombe or yourself, but there are limits to even my endurance, and weak as I may be I will not be altogether trampled on. You did not make me your wife without knowing the truth, that I had no feeling, and never could have any feeling of preference for you ; that I accepted your hand to gratify the craving wish of a dying mother, who believed she was thereby securing my happiness ; but I respected you then Major Hartcombe, see that your harshness and injustice does not forfeit that respect for ever." The man was astounded, and sat staling at the beautiful woman, and his clenched fist lying heavily on the parchment outspread before him. "Was this the gentle, affectionate daughter, he had covited as his submissive wife ? was this the woman he was to mould to his views, in the lonely solitude of Eoanaki? "You have brought me to a solitude worse than that of the grave," Eay went on as she rose from her chair, and replaced the dainty summer hair upon her fair hair, yet you blame me if lam dull and low spirited. I am young, yet you think I must be resigned to the crabbed and the old beneath my eye for every. I am smothered in this tomb of a house, yet you begrudge me a rest amid the desolation of a ruin, or the air in which the poor bird vainly tries to sing. What have I done that I should bo condmned to Buch a life ? " The poor girl's voice broke as she turned away her face, but she did not weep — if her tears had risen just then she would have crushed them back, though, death had been the result. " You arc ill, Eay," the astonished master of Eoanaki cried. " You aie ill, you must be delirious, or you would never dare to speak so I What has come to you ? " " Words to tell the truth," she replied, facing him again. "To speak the truth at last. You have deceived me from beginning to end. What did you wed me for? I was only the child of a self made man, and you the last of the great line of the Haughty Hartcombes. What did you condemn me to an exile from my fellow beings for ? Was it that my mother's dower might prop up the old tumble-down walls of Eoanaki?" " No ! " he thundered with a sudden and fearful rage. "It was that the name of another Hartcombe might be placed below that of Eupert Hartcombe here 1 " "In vain," she said ; " there shall never be another name there. Your dishonoured one shall be the last of the line." As Eay spoke she turned and walked steadily to the door, opened it, passed out, and closed it behind her. Major Hartcombe lifted his hand so suddenly from the parchment that the weights were displayed, and with a loud rustle the skin rolled itself up and fell heavily to the ground. " Is it a prophecy you have heard, Major?" a voice questioned behind him. " Something awful must be going to happen when the great genealogical tree of the Great Hartcombes closes and falls with such a crash as that." The speaker was a spare, hard-featured woman in black, and she stood on an inner door the handle of which she held in her hand. It was Hester Grimwade the personal attendant of Mrs. Hartcombe, the Major's mother, and the woman spoke with her small glittering eyes fixed on her master, and a sneer round her thin, pale lips. " Evesdropping again," the Major said sharply as he lifted the roll of parchment and turned towards the woman. "Yes, its fine fun," she replied with a coarse laugh ; " makes my teeth water with envy to hear loving passages between a youthful bridegroom and his young bride." " You will say too much one of these days for your own safety, Hester Grimwade," was the angry retort. " I think I most likely shall," she said with emphaeis ; " but as long as Ido not say too much for your safety never mind mine, Maior." " Hold your impudent tongue — what do you want here?" " There's an amiable request and a question to follow it 1 In one breath lam ordered to hold my tongue — my impudent tongue by the 1 way, and to tell what my business isl Ha-ha 1 never mind, Major, it's all in the family. Your mother wants to see you," and she disappeared banging the door disrespectfully behind her.

Unhappy Eay Harteombe hastened out into the air again and down once more to her favourite seat by the walls of the ruined stone cottage near the creek. She was bound

by the hardest and most hopeless of chains — a loveless marriage — he and she could not even weep in peace within the dark walls of Roanaki. With an unselfish devotion that the had given up all the hopes of her young heart, all the dreams of a happy future she had once' indulged to sooth the last hours of a parent she had almost adored, but she had at least expected peace in doing the faithful duties of a wife, but even peace had been denied her. Was it only a horrid dream from which 1 lie should awaken to hear the birds sing in the long happy house of her girlhood ? Was that cold house with its dark ivy and its fabulous animals of stone, and its deep, i'loomy windows only the memories of a nightmare from which she should arouse herself to see her mother's smiling face among the wreathing roses at her bedroom window ? Hero were these ruined walls near which she sat down with the ivy sprays waving over her, {he memory of some picture ahe had seen and shuddered at, and was the deep water under the steep bank opposite to her the mirrow only of a memory she had rather forgotten? No! it was all too real, she was the wife of a man "who would make a slave of her, and the daughter-in-law of a bitter woman who hated her. " I haven't a friend," she murmured to hertelf as she bent her sorrowful face to her hands. " I have no communication with the woild; I am^buried for life in this Prison House of Roanaki. There is no hope for me save in death. Why, then, do I not die ? " At this moment something shot across the creek and fell heavily into Ray's lap. She started, looked at the article without touching it, and then lifted her tear-wet eyes to the opposite bank of Roanaki, where a tnick wood crowned the hill and crept down to throw its leaves and shade into the deep still water. There was there no sign of living presence viable to the young girl's eyes, but her every movement was watched by a handsome young man who had drawn back among the undergrowth on the bank. Ray's pale cheeks flpshed hotly, her eyes wandered round in a terror lest come one might have seen that paper flung across the creek into her very lap, and then she quickly unfolded the paper that was wrapped around a stone and read the few words it contained — read them while her heart beat with a great terror, but, thank God, not with a great love. She knew the signature well, but, thank God, she had never kissed it as girls kiss the name of the man they love ere they consign the treasured paper that bears it to rest above a heart that beats alone for him who has traced the lines. " I have found you, Ray my beloved," were the pencilled words, " and I have seen you weep I Darling, it was not for such a fate you refused my devotion — my adoration ! I know of your trials, of the insults you daily endure, of the slavery you are consigned to, and I implore you to let me save you from it all. Write me one word, Ray, only yes, and you shall be saved though a thousand tyrants were trying to hold you back from my arms. lam watching you while you read this. If you will have that dear word written for me by sundown, put it in the ivy over where you are seated and I will come for it when it is dark. Frederick Baltran." Ray rose when she had perused the lines and tore them into a hunded pieces ere she scattered them broadly over the bosom of the water, and then, without another glance at the opposite bank where the young man was hidden, she entered the ruined hut and leaned against the ivied wall to think without fear of observation from the writer of the obnoxious note. " How dare he I " she thought, " and I am so helpless — what am I to do ? What can I do ? If I tell my husband he will not believe that I am innocent; he will say that my encouragement must have brought Frederick Baltran here, and if the Major should encounter him hanging about Roanaki, only Heaven knows what may be the consequences. If I had one soul I could confide in, but I have no one— no one, and I must write to the villain who has insulted me, even at the risk of being discovered." With such a bitterness of heart as the young seldom feel — with such a hopeless regret making the light step heavy and the lithe form listless and weary as the young should never know, Ray Hartcombe returned to the one spot in which she could feel what comfort was left to her — her own room in gloomy Roanaki House. The window of that room looked out to the front, and from it she might have seen the ruin of the creek — nay, even the waiting form of Frederick Baltran, but she drew down the blind and hid it all from her eyes.

Major Hartcombe lost no time in obeying his mother's summons, and shortly after Hester Grimwade's disagreeable face had disappeared from the doorway he was making his haughty way in the direction of Mrs. Hartcombe's apartments. They were the best in the house, and she was waiting to receive her son in the straight-backed low chair in which most of her time was spent when she was not reclining on the oldfashioned brocaded couch not far from her chair. A gaunt lilmess of her handsome son was Mrs. Hartcombe— a stiff, hard, cold grim woman of the " Haughty Harcombe" blood. Did I say blood ? Was there any warm blood in the veins that showed rigidly on the woman's hard, bony hand? Did anything course through that square, stony frame? Was there any heart at all to pump a vital fluid into those angular limbs, or to rouse the thoughts in that selfish brain? She was dressed in deep mourning — a mourning out with the scantiness of her own heart, and of a material as harsh and unyielding as the woman's bitter nature. A cap of black net was on her dark hair, and in that hair there was not one bleached line for twenty that might have been counted in her son's. You wished to see me, mother ?" the Major said as hs sat down near this awful woman. " Tes, Eupert, I am afraid, sorely afraid. Do you remember what day it is ?" There was a pause, and then Bupert Hartcombe whispered impetuously "I had forgotten 1 it is Christmas Eve! But why are you afraid, mother ? We have passed safely through many a previous Christmas Eve." " Hester is so strange." " She has always been strange at this season Binee — since her illness." " Yes, but she is stranger than ever, and has been looking at me with awful eyes all day, and laughing sometimes as if in a great triumph over me. Eupert, if she should remember we are ruined." The Major remembered the woman's manner to himself but a short time previous, and his heart seemed to stop with fear. If Hester should remember — if she should recall the past the honour of the Hartcombes was lost for ever ! Did it ever occur to him that the vaunted honor of his great name had been laid in the dust years ago by him and his stern mother ? No, for the fact was as yet unknown to the world, he could brave the whispers of a half-smothered conscience, but not the outspoken sentence of his fellowmen 1 " Let us hope, it is not so, dear mother ; but if, if, I say, Hester should recall too much it must be our care to see that she keeps silence for ever I No half measures now, mother— we have gone too far to stop at any obstacle."

While the last members of the " Haughty Hartcombes " were thus plotting eyil against

her, Hester Grimwade was engaged in close conversation with the writer of the lines that bad caused Bay Hartcombe such feelings of indignation. He was a youth of about twentyone, with dark hair and aquiline features. He had the high, broad forehead of a man of intellect, but the deep-set cunning that so frequently denotes a dishonourable and unreliable nature. The woman held him by the sleeve as she spoke rapid words that seemed to anger as well as to astonish him, and he tried to free himself of the fingers she clasped around his arm. " I will go l n he was saying. " Why was I not told all this long ago ? I have been brought up as an office drudge, and dragged here once a year in secret and like a beggar to see you — for what have I done so ?" "For the money that supplied your debauches," the woman replied contemptuously, " and not to see the unhappy mother that bore you 1 Now, you had another object — it was to tempt the wife of Major Hartcombe to dishonor." The young man turned away his face and stamped his foot impatiently on the ground. " I loved her," he said, " you cannot understand, I loved he*." "No, I cannot understand. lam old, and I have forgotten 1 but there is one thing I shall not forget — I shall not forget the last of the Hartcombesl" " You are certain ? You have sure proofs ? You are not deceiving me ?" he asked eagerly as he looked into the flashing eyes that were so like his own. " You will see. Keep the appointment and you will see what this Christmas Eve will bring forth." She took her hand from his arm as she spoke and walked out of the bush, near the creek, where they had been talking; the bridge I have alluded to was between her and the stone ruin, and Hester paused in the middle of it to lean on the hand-rail and look down to the deep and silent water beneath. What did she think of as she saw her own reflection in the calm water ? Was it of the change weary years had made in the oncereunded and supple form, or of the insecurity of the old timber against which she leaned ? when a minnow or a water-spider darted across the surface and ruffled the water so that she could not see her own face for the quivering fluid ; was she trying to realise how it would seem with a pillow of water plants beneath it and a screen of deep water between is, and the blue heaven so far above it? Who can say ? for all she murmured was, " No one would ever know." She entered it by the opening next to the Boanaki House, but sheltered from view of the windows by the thick growth of underwood ; when the woman had entered within the ivied walls she saw standing opposite the door that faced the creek Eay Startcombe with a letter in her hand. It was the reply to Frederick Balkan's moulting lines and Eay was about to slip it behind the ivy when Hester Grimwade's whisper was at her ear. " Keep your letter," was what the woman said ; " keep it until I tell you a Christmas story." The young lady was so startled and terrified that she dropped the note, which Hester stooped and lifted. The woman was smiling, but when she noted the black border of the envelope she held a dark shadow came over her unpleasant face. " What is it black for ? It is mourning, and I don't like it. Why is it black, I say ? " "I had no other at hand," Eay returned, " but what right have you to question me ? How dare you follow me, and spy on my movements ? " " I did not follow you, but if I had, better I than your husband." Eay looked anxiously at the woman, for it was well-known to her that though a capable and useful attendant she was weak-minded and subject to strange moods, in whioh she was not always a safe companion. The young girl was afraid, and Hester Grimwade saw it, and recognised the fact with a triumphant laugh. " What would the Major give for this ? " she asked with a contemptuous wave of the note she still held closely. " I have a good mind to ask him." Bay's face flushed crimson, but it was with anger. " You may take it to him and welcome," she proudly returned. " There is not a word in it that he might not see." Hester looked steadily into the face of Major Hartcombe'B fair .young wife, and then she laid the envelope in her hand as she spoke in a quieter tone : "I believe you— l believe you from my heart, and I am sorry for you — sorry beyond all words of mine to tell." " Why should you be sorry for me ? " Bay asked with wondering interest. " Why indeed ? You are the wife of Major Hartcombe, and are to be the proud mother of a new line of haughty Hartcombes, while I am only Hester Grimwade the humble dependent of that great house 1 How dare I pity the Lady of Boanaki ? " The woman's manner terrified Eay, and she tried to pass her, but Hester stretched her bony hand acrosi the doorway and pointed through the ivy to the creek, now shimmering in the rays of a red sunset. 11 Stay and look at the water. Have you never wished to sleep below it, where you could see no living face and hear no earthly words ? " "I have, often," the fair girl replied sadly, as her mournful eyes followed the woman's pointing finger. '•And so have I, hundreds of times ; but I had to live for a day of reckoning, and the day has come — thank God it is here, and the sun of it is setting I Do not be afraid, poor child; I will not harm you with my hands, yet my words must kill you 1 " Bay had shrunk from her until the pale dress she wore was crushed against the dusty ivy, but as Hester spoke the last words pityingly, she let her arm drop from the door, and the young girl hurried past her and up toward Boanaki House, the grim windows of which the setting sun was now flooding with a red light as of blood. Bay shuddered as she looked up when she passed the stone figures of the unearthly Griffins, and entered the door of the home that had been to her but a prison since she crossed its fateful threshold a few months before. " I must bear it all," she thought, when she had reached the shelter of her own room. " There is no hope ot relief. But surely the day will come that must end it all too, and then I shall see my mother again." " I wonder if she knows how great was the mistake she made ? I wonder ii she sees me here with my hard and loveless taskmasters ? I wonder — I wonder ? " She was thinking it over and over as the last light faded in the west and the stars became visible in the pale solemn sky. She sat for long in the window of her room — s&t with her hands clasped on her lap, and her eyes wandering from the starlit heavens to the dark slopes of the Dargong Hills, and the shadowed hollows where the Eoanaki Creek slept and hid its secrets from the very night-birds that screamed by its waters. A lonely and saddening scene it was, and a lonely and sad heart beat slowly in the bosom of fair Bay Hartcombe. When does the tempter " go to and fro upon the earth?" Is it in the garish light of day, when men '.'make haste to be rich," or at night when the shadows of earth are darkest, and the burdens of sin axe heaviest ? ' Does he whisper bis lies when the Bun is abroad, or when the holy moon keeps watch over the graves of men ? Was he defiling the chambers ' of dismal Boanaki on the Christmas Eve we

wot of, or whispering in the ear of unhappy Bay, as she spent those lonely hours at the window of her room ? She heard the curlew's scream as a call to rest, down in the still waters where not even a ripple broke under the bank by the old ruin. The moon, as it rose, laid a path of light straight to her feet. Would she listen to the whisper of the tempter? Would Bhe obey the night-bird's call? Would she follow the path of silver that led to rest? There is yet no answer, for Bay awoke from her dream to find Hester Grimwade standing at her side, and Hester Grimwade's voice in her ears. 11 The Majar is ill, and he wants his wife." The woman spoke wildly, and as one in triumph, and her eyes were blazing like coals of fire in the gloom. " 111, are you sure ? lam sorry, but I can do no good. I think lam asleep." The poor girl pressed her hands to her head as she Baid the words brokenly, and Hester bent over her pitingly. "It is the moon," "she whispered, "I often feel it so, but it is Christmas Eve, and the end is near — come." Bay followed the woman out, and down the broad, low-ceilinged passage, until the door of Major Hartcomb's room was reached, when, without knocking, she entered, drawing the bewildered girl behind her. The Major sat by the table as he had sat earlier when Kay had almost defied him. His head was sunk on his breast, his two hands leaning heavily on the genealogical chart yet open before him. His mother's white face was bent over him, hard and cold no longer, but full of an agony and a despair that might have belonged to an unselfish woman and a devoted mother. She was trying to draw him back so that his chair might support the drooping frame, but he leaned still on his hands and watched the approach of his young wife. When he saw her he made a great effort, and erected himself for a moment. " She is mad I " he cried, lifting one hand and pointing it at the woman Hester. "Do not believe the lie ! She is mad 1 " " Are you so ill, Bupert ? " the low sweet tones of Bay asked. "What oan I do for you ? " " Send her away. She is mad ! " " Send the lady of Eoanaki away from the inheritance of her son, the last of the haughty Hartcombes? You must be ill, indeed, to give such advice I Stand back, Bay Woods, my place is here 1 " and she laid her bold hand firmly on the parchment near the thin fingers of the dying man. " What does she mean ? " Bay asked, as she drew back in fear. "Is she really mad, or am I dreaming still ? " "Neither, poor child," Hester answered pityingly. "I am the lawful wife of Major Hartcombe, and this is my son, the heir of Boanaki. Your hour of retribution has come, Bupert Hartcombe. Confess, and die in peace, since you are not the last of the Harfccombes 1 " While she was speaking, with one hand pointing to the inner doorway, a young man had advanced and stood before Mrs. Hartcombe and the Major. At one glance Ray recognised the young man she had known as Fredrick Baltran. What did it mean? What awful visitation had met the house of Hartcombe on this dread evening ? " Speak, Bupert, if but a word, to deny this I Mother, have you no words to put this shame from me ? Am I no wife ? Bupert, in the name of that God you are about to face, I charge you to tell me the truth ! " "Forgive me!" he murmured, and fell back into his mother's arms dead. Mrs. Hartcombe laid him back in the chair gently, and then turned her awful, drawn face toward the woman Hester. " You have killed him as surely as though you put a bullet through his heart," she said, in a tone that trembled as did the bony hand she raised in adjuration over the dead man's head. " May the curse of the widow and the mother rest on you and yours for ever and ever ! Go, and leave me with my dead 1 " Even the demented woman was cowed by the aspect of the despairing mother, and drew back to the side of her son, but her words were not silenced. " You are welcome to your dead son so long as I have my living one the heir of the Hart- I combe'a! Come away, my lad, lam the lady of Boanaki." No one noticed the terror-stricken Bay as she stole from the room of death, leaving the mother kneeling by the side of the dead man. No one saw the ghastly white face on the moonlit path down to the old ruin, and no living thing heard the spla&h in that deep water save the wondering curlew, and he rose on his broad wings and flew away from the dread spot with a scream of distress. It was an awful night at Boanaki, and when the sun rose again it shone on the pale beautiful face of lost Bay, as it lay on the grass near the creek from which she had been drawn. "An awful affair!" "Poor girl, what a fate ! " " There was always a mystery about Boanaki," were some of the whispers above the dead where Major Hartcombe and his young wife were laid to rest in the lone graveyard under the Dargong Hills. " Can any of you tell us the truth ? " " A sad truth," the minister, who had come many miles, replied. " Some twenty-two years ago he fell in love with his mother's maid, and married her clandestinely. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Hartcombe's mind gave way, and she was confined in an asylum for the insane where, as later events have proved, she gave birth to the son who now inherits. In some manner she concealed the fact that this son was alive until Christmas Eve, when she produced him and the necessary proof of his legitimacy with the sad results you know of. No, the family were not aware that she was alive until the ' Major had married again, when she returned to them so apparently disordered in mind that she remembered nothing of her marriage." }' But she was feigning all the time ? " "It is now to be supposed so. One thing is, however, certain, the young man waß quite ignorant that he was a Hartcombe until Christmas Eve." On the first day of the New Year, Boanaki was deserted. The unhappy mother of Major Hartcombe had hidden herself in another colony, and Fredrick, the heir, wss arranging his unexpected property in Melbourne. Already poor Hester had been consigned to an asylum once more, where she repeated constantly that she was the " Lady of Eoanaki." The ivy rustled sadly now round the lonely house, and onljr the curlew screams of the secrets hidden in the water he haunts by night when there are clouds in the moon's pathway.