“AN EVIL ANGEL”

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20503, 20 May 1938, Page 10

“AN EVIL ANGEL”

(By JOHN MIDDLEMASS.)

CHAPTER XIV.— (Continued.) She had seen Philip Morley rush forward with a cry, and carry Marie with a lover's tenderness out of the room, and such a rage of angry revolt had been awakened in her heart, that every humane feeling which the accident had evoked was stilled. Even terror, which most of the beholders experienced, was second to the jealous wrath she experienced, wtien Philip Morlev left her half-fainting on the divan,’and went to the rescue of the crushed helpless Marie. If, however, she would still retain power over this man, whom she had elected to appropriate, she was clever enough to know that she must stimulate interest in »nd love for the girl whom, since last night, she had been teaching herself to hate. "I will go to her, though I am very what the French call cliancelante." she said, rising as though active movement was almost impossible. “Xo —no please lie back on your soft. You are not fit to move—besides no one is allowed to see her, not even her mother —only Nina yonblanque who never leaves her—” In obedience to his recommendation that she should still rest, she lay back among her cushions which she allowed him to arrange, as well as the blue satin wrap which had fallen to the ground. "My dear Comtesse- I am sorry to see you so prostrated,” he said almost tenderly. She held out her hand to him. He took it in his, but it scarcely seemed to her as if there were aught of a lover's pressure in the grip. Even while he was gazing into her dark, subtly enquiring face, there was a far off look in his eyes. "Are you wisMing yourself back In Labrador?" she asked, seeking by this leading question to get at his thoughts. "Better—far better If I had stayed there," was the scarcely expected answer.

"Ah—you regret—" "I have but little cause to rejoice •—the catastrophe—if I had been ab-

An Exciting Mystery Story.

sent might not,”—he stopped. Once more she rose from among her pillows and stared at him. “You wish that you and I had not met—You—” “Pardon Comtesse, the meeting with you is the one ray that illumines the darkness. I know you will be a true friend.” “Comment—friend—What is it, mon pauvre Philip, that you would ask of my friendship?” “Sympathy and tenderness—for little Marie.” “To you—Marie, is—” “Most dear. Heartlessly as she treated me—determined as 1 was to for get her—this terrible accident has revived ail my love—Marie hovering between life and death! Great God, help f and help me —you know the story of our parting, Comtesse.” guely,” she muttered gutturally. The Comtesse seemed as much overcome as the man. It was as though she were choking from emotion. It was his Uirn to take her hand, which was flabby and inert.

“You love Marie, I know. In this dark hour you are suffering on her account as I am.” She bowed her head and in a low voice murmured. “Poor little Marie.”

“Oh, how she hated her! was ready even to offer up a prayer that she might die—but she must dissemble.”

There was a short pause—the new relations that had sprung up between these two were too strained for easy talk, but Philip Morley, engrossed by the old love that had been re-awaken-ed, and. thoroughly anxious as he was about the critical condition in which his darling was lying, seemed entirely to have forgotten that he had made adrent love to Comtesse Feodore, or perhaps he deemed that to her, as to himself, love-making had been a mere pastime. Any way he ignored all recollection of the past mad hours. Of Marie — Marie only, was his heart now full—that the Comtesse would sympathise and help, he not only hoped but expected, the mote so perhaps, because from her manner she had apparently every intention of doing so. “You are intimate with Jacob—you of course knew the late Lord Yesey?” she asked at last in her Trainante soft voice.

“Of course I knew him. The Xortheys and the Morleys have been friends for generations, nevertheless setting my own personal feelings on one side, caring for Marie’s welfare as 1 did, I scarcely thought she would attain happiness by marrying Yesey, and I did all I could to make her path thornless.” “You—what could you do?” “Yesey—as perhaps you may not know, was a poor man—” “So I have heard,” she murmured almost inaudibly. Morley went on. “He was under great money obligations to me—not only was there a mortgage, on which interest had never been paid, but a sum of money I had lent him in connection with—but we will not enter into these details, Comtesse —they are scarcely in good taste perhaps —how white and ill you are looking.”

“No —no —go on. lam not too ill to be interested in you and yours. You would have saved Marie from—?” “I went to Yesey the night before I left for the West.” “You —you were the gentleman the valet—let in.”

“I was. I saw Yesey, and told him, if at the end of twelve months Marie's life had been perfectly happy with him. I would wipe all his obligations to me off the slate. He knew as well as did Marie that she was mine by every law of honour.” "And Lord Yesey?”

“Yesey was touched and sensiblelie promised effusively, and we parted on far better terms than I had ever believed could exist between myself and the man, who had helped little Marie to become a jilt.” “How very Quixotic and sentimental.” said the Comtesse with something like a sneer—"l could not have believed that you—then you were the last person who saw Lord Yesey alive—” "Not so—since he was murdered, I must have had a successor. He was hale and hearty and lull of life when 1 left him.” “Do you know in making this confess:on you are giving yourself rashly away, my dear Philip?”

“Giving myself away to you, Comtesse—are not my secrets yours?”

“Naturellement,” she murmured, but it was scarcely a warm assurance. That yesterday his secrets and hers would* have been identical was probable. but to-day, with Marie between them, the case was different. “Have vou any theory about who

I your successor was?” she asked, ! evincinc feeble interest, as though ! too exhausted to be expansive, j “None, and I have had no intention i of making a search —Browne and f Jacob are hard at it. and expect to I prove goodness knows what, but my | r|rar Comtesse, you look as if you have had quite enough of painful sub- | jp,.fs—What a brute I am to worry j you—l’ll be off now—but may I come j again later, when 1 hope to be more • cheerful, more in tune with the plea- ! sant hours we have passed together.” I " Yes—yes —come again—I will try i —to sleep—last night’s accident has • shaken me more than I thought.” ‘ A hand pressure —a kiss among the t waves of her dark hair —was it the j first ? 1 ll» was zonr and she? ?he shivered as slir felt his touch, and Ition she ■ )av very still among l.er cushions, a i nieam'ng look in her dui'k eyes as of a tigress at bay. CHAPTER XV. A Gifted Ring j “j am forgiven—l am your own little Marie once again. Tell me, Philip, you will quite forget the past you will not —” “Darling, do not let us even think of it. Let the horrors of those months be obliterated from our minds.” I She looked at him with wide open ! eves, and did not answer. The practi- : cal s*ide of her nature, inherited from ! tier commercial father, told her that ; forgetfulness was not so easy, as his words would lead her to believe. She ' did not. however, expostulate, her lips wei p sealed by a kiss, t he first that Philip Morley had ever da'-ed to bestow i n the loved face he had for many months agone never expected he w oil Id have the right to kiss. • A jilt and a lliit he had called her

in all bitterness, but now, as she sat there by an open window in the kindly warm October sunshine, there was no epithet too dear—too loving that he could bestow.

It was only the second time Philip Morley had seen Marie since the night of the terrible accident, now' three weeks ago. She had been so seriously injured, that the doctor had forbidden all excitement. Now os she sat by the window, the bandages about her head artistically concealed by Nina’s deft manipulations, she looked very fragile and sweet.

How could he have any grudge against her. how could he do otherwise than take her back into the heart she had never really quitted. Forget, ay, he would fain forget all that was gone, save his love for Marie —even the episode of stormy passion with Comtesse Feodore was past, it belonged to the dark hopeless days in which Marie was not. That Comtesse Feodore might perchance remember the ardent love he had made to her with both eyes and lips, did not occur to him, and when Jacob had laughingly enquired what the lady thought of the change of front, he had answered, that being a woman of the world he did not suppose she had thought about it at all, with the theatricals that had engendered his attentions they had been a pleasant pastime. Jacob shrugged his shoulders. He did not altogether gauge the matter in the same way. Like all outsiders he saw more of the game than did the principal actor, and the sight did not altogether satisfy. In very truth, honest Jacob, Lord Yesey, was scarcely satisfied with many inexplicable happenings that lie perceived in his frequent comings to the Grange, during the time that Marie lay In a darkened room. life slowly quickening in !• " fragile frame. Jacob, though not a very clever, was a silent man. he resolved to wait and watch. What 11m watching would produce for himself and his friend Morley, he did not altogether dare to contemplate. All he hoped was that in his mental calculations lie was wrong. To win Nina was his own dream of happiness, but the winning of Nina did not seem any nearer to*lav. Ilian il had been a month ago. She ever repelled him—somewhat inconsistently it is true, still she did repel him. lor if in one hour she was kind, in the next she was cold. be Continued.j