THE STRONGER PASSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19485, 15 November 1926, Page 22

THE STRONGER PASSION.

BY ROWAN GLEN.

CHAPTER Vlll.—(Continued). Luck, rather than any scheming on his part, saw to it that he and Elaine should be alone for nearly half an hour, before tho breaking up of the party, and Macßae used that half-hour skilfully—and callously. Ho and the girl were seated together on the small verandah of the house and were watching the moonlight-spattered water, when, for the second time that night, MacRae referred to that half-love speech which ho had made on Ben Alsh. " If you tell me you won't listen, I'll have to wait still longer," he said slowly, " but the waiting will be difficult. It isn't a thing that needs any explaining, and I couldn't explain it if I tried. It simply comes to this —I've got to thinking about you as I've never in my life thought about a woman before. " I always told myself that love wasn't to bo for me, and I believe I was glad to think that work would bo my only big interest in life. That's all altered. I've got another interest now." He saw the twitching of her lips; saw how her bosom rose and fell in a short sigh. Still she did not answer, and he laid a hand on tho clasped ones lying in her lap. " Elaine," ho went on, " it's love! You understand? I must know whether _ or not you caro for mo. If you don't I promise not to pester you in the future. If you do—" "Yes?" she whispered. "What then ?"

" Why, then, everything'll be different. My whole life will be changed. I'll know success, instead of failure. You're very wonderful, y'know. It isn't only your beauty—for you are beautiful —and it isn't only that personality of yours which makes everyone love you. I don't think it's even a blend of the two, though, of course, they count. It's something bigger than either of them. It's you—you yourself. Oh! I can't explain. I can only say again—l love you." Slowly, she turned to him. " I do care," she said. " I care very much; far more than I've wanted to care." " Why do you say that ? " " Can't you guess ? I was terribly afraid that I was beginning to love a man who didn't think about me seriously. But before I say anything more to you about that, and before you say anything, I've got to ask you about Lilian Manton. I didn't want to see you and her in tho woods an hour or so ago, but I couldn't help it. I saw her put her hands against your face, and kiss you, What did that mean ?" " You suspect me ? " he asked. "Surely, it isn't that, Elaine? You didn't think I could kiss a girl and make love to her. and then come and make love to you ? Still, it's got to be explained, and the explanation's going to be difficult." " You don't care for her, then? " " I do, very much—as a friend. I've known her for years, but never even for a second have I imagined myself to care for her in the way you mean. I wish you'd help me out with things, my dear. " When we were walking back from the cottage I must have said something or other that Lilian misconstrued. Anyway, she realised almost immediately that she'd made a mistake and—well, she gave me a sort of sister-to-brothcr kiss that sealed our friendship and marked it for all time as friendship only. Do you understand ? I feel devilish awkward, speaking about it, but—" Nodding, she interrupted him. • " I think I know," she Said. " I think that you are feeling toward Lilian just as I feel to Maurice Rollingward. Blair! Can you believe it ? That love has come to us ? I can't yet. It's too marvellous for me to grasp." He put an arm about her and, drawing her close, kissed her. _ When the kiss was over he bit on his lips sharply, but he did not feel pain. " And now, my beautiful girl,'' ho said, as, rising, ho took her hands and swung them this way and that. " are we going to tell the foik to-night?" "Please—no," she begged. "In one way I'd love to do that. I'd love to go out and shout to the whole world that the man I love loves me, but there are things to think about." " \\Tiaft things ?" " Lots, dear. First father. He likes you and admires you, of course, and, as he says, he'll always be in your debt, but he's set his heart" on my marrying Maurice. I'll need to handle him gently —father, I mean. That's why I don't want any engagement between us yet!" " But dear, you wouldn't think of marrying Rollingward now ?" "Of course not. Still, my conscience will be easier if wo don't get engaged for a bit. It's good enough meantime, isn't it, to know that we love each other 7 I could never possibly love any other man. But I want to go slowly." " When will you tell your father ?"

V "Soon, but not yet." " It seems to me," Macßae said, "that the sooner he's told the better. And now, though I'd love to sit out with you hero for hours and hours, it's getting late and Miss Fairweather may be wanting to make a move."

When, some twenty minutes later, he saw his guests' off in the boats which were waiting for them, he was at his gayest. ® Yet he sobered once while he met Rollingward's eyes. There was suspicion there, and a dawning enmity. As lie walked slowly back to the house, Macßae wondered why that look had come. fie did not know that the younger man had seen him and Elaine coming arm in arm along the veranda. CHAPTER IX. OLD ACQUAINTANCES. On the next morning Macßae was helping old Robin Fergusson in the garden when, within an hour of each other, two visitors came to him. Maurice Rollingward was the first and seemed surprised to find that Sir Charles Hart had not preceded him. j " A dam nice business this, Macßae," he began irritably. " You needn't look as though you couldn't understand, for I'm sure you do. I'm here to talk about you and Elaine Hart. The whole thing came out last night. " While we were waiting for the cars on the shore over yonder, I got rather ratty with Elaine and challenged her with haying flirted with you. I said that I'd seen you and her coming, arm in arm, along the veranda here. Dash it all! you know, she admitted it!" "Well ?" Macßae prompted. " What next?"

" What next ? Well, it was a bit of a facer for me, considering the fact that I've asked her to marry me twice since I've been up here. The old man blew up when she and I were scrapping about it. He and Elaine and I were well away from the others —thank the Lord—and, if you please, Elaine seemed to lose her head suddenly and blurted out that, though she wasn't engaged to you and didn't intend to get engaged for a bit, she was in love with you and you were in love with her. " I thought Sir Charles was going to have some kind of fit of something. He tried to keep himself in hand, but I could see how things had hit him. He's always worked on my side, and he's terrifically keen for Elaine and me to get spliced. And now you come, dodging along and trying to spoil the whole business. I thought he'd have been to see you already this morning. Anyway, he's coming." Macßae smiled. On the whole he liked Maurice Rollingward very well. He liked his good sportsmanship and his enthusiasm and his cheery, almost schoolboyish outlook on life. But he had no intention of allowing his liking to interfere with Mr. Justice Hart.

" Now look here, Rollingward," he said. " We're not going to quarrel, you and X* 'At lf**t I'm not coin# to anm-roi

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with you. I like you and I'd always rather help you than hurt you. But I'm not going to have you lecturing me as though I'd stolen something belonging to you. That's not the way of it at all. " I suspected that you wanted Elaine to marry you, but there was no engagement, and the field was open. You've admitted that you asked her twice to marry you—and she must have refused. Well then, where's your kick ?" Still Rollingward grumbled, and the grumble remained when he went away. " All right," he remarked, as a final word. " I see your point well enough and I'm not going to try emptying a revolver into you, or anything of that sort. But all the same I warn von that I don't consider myself out of the running. Till you and Elaine are openlv engaged, or even till you're married, I'll take any chance that happens to come my way to do you down where she's concerned." " Have it that way then," Macßae agreed. " But you're even younger than your years, Rollingward, and I wouldn't be surprised if you changed your mind about things. It's different with me. My mind's been made up for a long time. I've seen a goal, and I'm walking to it just as fast as I can." With Sir Charles Hart his interview was touched bv many more points of danger. Hatred's voice urged him indeed toward physical retribution. It said: " Take your revenge with your hands now. You had a chance once before, and you let it jslip. Tackle him as man to man and get it over." But a voice, more subtle, urged caution. It . urged that when Mr. Justice Hart suffered, he should suffer slowly, and that the suffering should affect not his body but his mind. Macßae had guessed rightly that the judge, though at a comparatively early age he had climbed high, was ambitious to climb higher still. He loved his daughter, but, dull-sighted in certain ways, did not see why a marriage between her and young Rollingward should in the end mean unhappiness for her. What he did see was that, almost certainly, it would mean progress for himself. Maurice Rollingward was the son of Lord Clayhurst and Lord Clayhurst was one of the most powerful members of the Cabinet. There was no knowing to what heights Mr. Justice Hart might climb if Mr. Justice Hart's daughter became the daugh-ter-in-law of Lord Clayhurst. Thus it was that Macßae knew his first taste of revenge as hj« listened while the man whom ho hated stated his case. " I don't say tlia*, I'm blaming you," the judge remarked. " But Ido say that I'm very deeply disappointed by what my daughter told me last night, and by what you've admitted this morning." " Admit is scarcely the right word, Sir Charles," Macßae returned. " That implies error, and I made no error in speaking to Elaine as I did- After all, the case is quite simple. Rollingward wants to marry your daughter. You want her to marry him. She doesn't want to marry him. She want", to marry me—though Lord knows why—and I want to marry her. Well, there you aire! You're not going to play the heavy parent surely, and urge this girl of yours, whom you love as I know you do, to give herself to some man who isn't her mate at all."

" Ah! So you conceive yourself as being her ideal mate, Macßae?" " Why not, Sir Charles ? I'm older than she is, but not too old. I've an attractive home to offer hej, and an adequate income. If I wished, I could augment that income by working." And then the judge re-put his case, and, on the whole, re-put it blunderingly. He said that he was thinking only of Elaine, but added, incautiously, certain half statements which showed that he was thinking more about himself. He pointed out that while Macßae had a certain position and a certain guaranteed income, the position of Maurice Rollingward was infinitely better, and his income and prospects infinitely greater. One of these days he would be Lord Clayhurst, master of great estates and securely placed in the highest stratum of England's society. It was toward the end of their talk that Macßae, himself entirely cool, had the satisfaction of knowing that the ' older man had lost control temporarily. " I wish to God," the latter said, ' that things had worked out differently. I wish, for instance, that someone other than you had saved Elaine that day when she was drowning in the loch. I wish, too, that I hadn't given you my word of honour to keep your secret." "My secret?" Macßae repeated. " Yes. You know what I mean. About having been a convict." Macßae was smiling, and there was no suggestion of bitterness in his voice when he replied: " Isn't that as much your secret as mine, Sir Charles? After all, it was you who sent me to prison and time proved that you made a pretty grave mistake Jn doing that. I wasn't to blame. You were, you see." He had spoken with so evident an air of good humour that the other, trained, in a sense, to bo suspicious, was yet untouched by suspicion. "Do a you seriously shink," Macßae went on, " that if Elaine knew that I d been a convict —even an innocent one—she'd change toward me ? " " I seriously do," said Hart. " You think you know my girl very well, MacRae, "but I don't suppose you'd presume to a knowledge of her comparable with mine. My view is that if she knew you'd worn the broad arrows it would alter her outlook very greatly." " May I say then then I think you're being rather insulting to Elaine? " MacRae returned. " But there's no reason why she should ever know that I was in prison. To my way of thinking, it's justificable for a man to keep certain secrets from his—'wife, if he thinks that the telling of those secrets may distress her. I don't see, though, that we can do any good in talking more about the matter now. Because Elaine is considering you, she won't agree to an engagement at the moment. She was forced into telling you that she and I had come to an agreement. Let things take their course." " You mean ? " " Well, as you know, Rollingward has been here this morning. He was frank and sportsmanlike. He says that he's still going to try to get Elaine. If he does get her, good luck to him. If I ?et her—then good luck to her, and me! 'here's only one thing I'd advise, Sir Charles." " And that ? " " Elaine and I have arranged to go motoring together this afternoon. No doubt you could stop that if you wished. My advice is that you don't try to stop her meeting me. If you do—well, you must know more about women than I do, but I'd take a guess _ that you'd be hurrying her marriage with me along instead of preventing it." " I'll remember that," Sir Charles remarked. "1 stick to my opinion that I'm in your debt, Macßae, but I'll be as frank as you've been and say that I'll go on working for Rollingward as against you. And I usually get my way." " I don't," said Macßae, "but I'm making a start. ,T

(To be continued daily.) [