LADY GAY'S PRIDE; OR. THE MISER'S TREASURE.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 288, 4 December 1889, Page 7

LADY GAY'S PRIDE; OR. THE MISER'S TREASURE.

By Mrs Alex. McVeigh Miller.

CHAPTER XXII.

With almost a moan Lady Gay winds a long white lace scarf in picturesque fashion about her head, and stepping lightly through the *ow French window, disappears in the odortius gardeiij lying sbill and lonely under the moon's cool light.

The nights are unusually warm for the season. There has onlybeenfrostenoughto tatfi the leaves and scatter a few of the brightest onenalong the trim walks bordered ttithlate-bloorriihg flowers whosespicy scents make thenightair heavy with perfume. Lady Gay, unconsciously almoot, gathers a little bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hardy roses as she glides along the path, the long train of her white dress making a eoft rustling as it trails over the dry autumn leaves. Then, with the spicy scented flowfera in her hand, she turns aside into the laurel avenue.

It is Idflg, and dark, and lonely—fit trysting spot for a secret interview—the boughs meet overhead, keeping the path in the shadow, save where here and there the moon throws a beam of brightness through the interstices of the dark Jeaves. Lady Gay is not afraid. She harries along to the end of the walk, then pauses, and looks around her. * ' A man in dark habiliments comes out to meet her. The dark slouch hat drawn over his face completely hides his features. He pushes ie back, and reveals a black mask.

Lady Gay starts back with a low cry. 'Take off your mask,' she says imperatively. 'I canhbb hold any intercourse ,with you until it is removed. . With a slight laugh he puts up his hand and tears if off. The girl looks up into the uuforgotten face of the islaud miser. * You recognize me—do you not, Lady Gay ?' he inquires. ♦ Why should I recognize you ? For whom do you take.mo?' she asks, elowly. 'For Gixbrielle Thßrndyke—my little friend of Chesapeake Bay—away over in America, 1 he answers, in a slightly lowered VOice. 'Am I not right ?' ' Yes, yoa are right," she answers after a moment's pause. ' Bub how did you know I was here f 'I did not know until I saw you to-day," he answers. • Until that moment I thought you dead. I had heard that you were drowned, but as soon as I saw you to day I knew that it was not true. So you have come home to live ab Elmer Court? Is your mother with you ?' 4 No," Lady Gay answer.", With a sigh; •fehe is not.'

In the stillness she fancies that a sigh, almost of relief, quivers over his bearded lips—b'r is it only the night wind V 1 Is she dead? he asks, slowly. .'Oh; I hope nob!' Lady Gay cries out, tfith a quiver of pain ifi her young voice ; •but I do not know.'

There is a moment's pause. He studies her intently as she stands there, drooping like a White lily weighted with dew, under the influence of the mournful thoughts he has suggested to her mind. • Can you guess why I have come here ?' he asks, his voice growing suddenly hard and stern.

• Yes,' she answers, in a troubled tone; * you have come to— , • To ask you why you have betrayed my trust. Where is my precious tre&suro, Lady Gay Elmer? , he asks, sfcerriiy. Frightened by his sudden sternness and by her own uneasy consciousness of betrayed trust, Lady Gay falters in the effort to !ipeak. Many and many a time in her remorseful thoughts she had pictured some such meeting as thisj and vaguely framed to herself the words she would say and the excuses ehe would make. But now, confronted by the stern reality, she istanda dumb before the accusing eyes of the old miser. And in that pause the old miser .repeats* sternly: • Where is my precious treasure, Lady c.Gay .Elmer ?'• ' I—oh, I cannot tell you,' she begins, her small hands tightly clasped, her eyes shin--ing with excitement. ' I sstayed—indeed I did—although you did not come when you promised. I could not have left—there was no boat, you know 5 but I would not have deserted my charge if there had been. I stayed, but 1 fell asleep in the doorway, where I sat to watch the little treasurechest. I must have slept for hours, for ' when I awoke it was night. I was frightened at the silence and loneliness, and ran down to the shore to see if you were coming. Bnt there was no sign of anyone. At last my mother sent some one for me.' She stops for breath. The man lcoßs at her with a passionate kind of anger in his

eyes. 4 And you went,' he breathes in a hoarse nndertone of anger. • You left the treasure to be the prey of the lurking robber !' • Oh, no ; I did net!' cried the girl, co intent on making her excuses that she does not recent the stem tone. ' I refused to go until you came. Mr Warren went back to the hut with me, and—and could you believe it?—in that lonely, isolated spot, where I thought myself so safe in the solitude, some one had gone into the hut while I was down at the shore—the trcaeure-chest wa3 gone ! The old muer looks at her with a stern disbelief in his eyes. • Girl, how can you expect me to credit Buch a ridiculous tale ?' he cries out. Who could have taken the treasure ? _ How could anyone have gotten away with it ? 'These questions have puzzled me as much as they do you, . Lady Gay answers sadly. ' I can only suppose that someone was secreted on the" island watching a chance to rob you, and thab the robbery was effected while I was down at the shore watching for your return. It mu*t have been the way, for when we went back to the enbrd, after discovering your loss, some person had taken away Mr Warren s boat \Of course it was the thief, who had thus gotten safely away. , . Her bosom heaves, her lips trembtoas Bhe speaks. The remembrance ot that night comes over her fresbly-the mgbt a»r seems to blow in her face, again sweet with the salty breath of the sea; the sob ot tAβ : waves is in her ears ; the stars eh™? down upon her uncovered head ; the handsome, careless face of the young correspondent ■with its bright, kind smile, lookadoivn into her own-then, with a start, she w_akes from the sudden fancy, and lifts her eyes to "the cold, stern face of the mieei, an£ realises that those hours of which eh« are far back in the ««»™f ™ past, and that scene far, far away from her eafely home under the foggy skies ot -England. She breaks out with almost a . sob in the sweet young voice : . • _ • I am so sorry-oh, you cannot know ho* sorry! ' It is I who should be angry, ior '..you can never know what it bar cost me! Oh ! why did you stay away?. You should 'have come back! You had no right to leave me in the night and the darkness to .pay the bitter penalty of your ra^nesa. _ The sternness in his face softens into I Mrprwo ab the anguish of her looks and ] *°"child, didyou tbink I stayed willingly t ?€ was compelled to go ; bub I fcp h ™. ?,Mm, before dark-well,' .wmejhing bened. I dare not venture. bac* then, for 1 |pd to go into temporary hiding frott ,? Ie :4entleeß enemy. When I ventured P days and foundtflni gorie, I \f«™ a /to the island to find you and my treasure jtgone.'

'And then? , the girt asks listlessly, Whab did you do then V 'I was enraged a 6 the.loss of the treasure chestj ■__ you may. be sare,' he answers. • I wished to see you so much thab I rowed oVor to Warren Hall ostensibly to return the little boat you had lent me. The sen ants told me of your supposed fate—that you had drowned yourself by jumping over bhe balcony into the sea.' •Did they tell you why I took that terrible way of ending my life and its sorrows V asks Lady Gay. ' No, they did not, and I have wondered many times as fco the cause of it. Why did you do so V he inquires, looking at her curiously. 'No matter,' she answer's, after a moment's grave reflection, 'I cannot tell you. I wish no ask you one question. , ' Well V The tears come into her eyes as she looks at him, the sweet voice trembles : • Did you sea my mother V she asks anxiously. The island miser starts, and crushes the soft black hat over his brbws, that Lady Gay may see no. sign of the inexplicable emotion that is written all over his inscrutable face.

' No, I did not see her, , he answers, iti a low, a very low Voice. 'The servants told me that old Mrs Warren—my curse be upon her forever !— had driven her away, homeless and shelter* less, in the darkness.'

With a low cry of agony the girl sinks down among the beds of chrysanthemums and spicy autumn pinks by tlie side of the path, and drops her lovely convulsed face into her hands.

' Lady Gay,' the man cries out, anxiously, 'I give you my word I tried to find your mother and befriend her for your sake. She stayed at a humble house in the little town that night. I found out that much : but that is all. Do what I might, I could learn ho more. I have never been able to find a single trace of her, although I have never relaxed for a moment my frantic search. It was for that I came to Elmer Court. I fancied—'

Hβ stop 3 suddenly, as if all at once conscious that he is betraying too much. But the young mistress of Elmer Court does not seem to hear him. She is weeping bitterly sfcill, her golden Read bowed humbly on her clasped hands. Tile truth has come upon her with a terrible shock. Until now she has never dreamed of her mother as being anywher&butab Warren Hall safely sheltered beneath its roof from all the storms of adversity. Those low, deep words from the man's lips, ' Hoaiele'ss, shelterless, , seem to have divided the .shfEktaring chords of her heart; For tne first time since that fatal night, b<3r desertion of her mother appears to her in the , light of a terfibie mistakealmost a crime. 'Lady Gay, I must be going,' he continues, after a moment. 'lam in peril every moment I remain. I would ask one question of you.' She lifts her head wearily and looks at him, with the dew of tears shitting on her golden lashes. •It ie this, , he continues* * Waa there no clue to the robber who carried my treasure away ? No slight token left that in skilful hands might lead to his discovery V His eager, anxious eyes search her face. Sho starts and looks up at him. 1 Yea—one ! I found a man' 3 dark kid glove outside the door of the hut.' ' Surely you kept it,' he cries. ' T meant to,' she answers, hesitatingly. ' In my anger at the robber I vowed to keep it, and to track him down by it. But I gave it to my Companion to carry for me— I believe t had no pocket—and—things fell out so that—we never met but ohco after— so that I lost the clue. .

'la it impossible to get it back ? Could you not write to him ?' But she shrinks from him iti horror. « Me—write to him ! No, no ! Hβ thinks me dead. I would nob have him know the truth ier worlds, , ~ ' , ' Theti tell m(3 tvhefe to find him. If he is anywhere on earth I will find him. His name —his address! the old miser patits, eagerly And the girl's come startlingly

•Hβ is here—at Elmer Gourfa to-tix^hb!

4 Here,' the man pants joyously. • Yes, here. He is my father's auest. His name is Alex Warren. Could you—ah, could you get the glove from him without betraying nic V ' How is it possible he could see you and not recognise you ?'• is the wondering question that greets her. 'I recognised you instantly.' ' It could not interest you to know, she answerswith feverish impatience. ' Suffice ft that Ido ribfc choose for him to know. It mfcy be he has kept the glove. You must devise some means of getting it without betraying me. Hβ will go with Lord Annesley over to AnnSsiey Towers to-night. Perhaps you know the place ?' 'Yes, 1 know it quite well. Hark— !' For the sudden sound of a footstep rustles in the dead leaves lying along the path— the subtle fragrance of a cigar is borne on the night *ir, and in the instant a man who has come 1 alone the laurel avenue unheeded and unheard steps before them. But in that instant of time the island miser, with a muttered curse in bis beard, has darbed away; Lady Gay, thus left alone, start-up from her drooping posture, among the pinks and chrysanthemums with a sfcitted cry upon her lips. The light of the cold November moon shines down upon her, looking bride-like in her rich white robes and the white lace scarf wound about her golden hair, her sweet young face all pale with emotion. Alex Warren, for it is he, turns a stare of momentary surprise upon the girl's white face, then— ..... , • That tramp 1 He has frightened you again. Well, he shall pay dearly for it this time, , he cries out, and darts forward after the form that has disappeared on the instant in the tortuous windings of tho ga ßuTthe girl is too quick for him. _ Before he has taken a dozen , steps she is flying after him. Her slender white hands fasten around his arm and cling there tightly. With rill heir strength she pulls him bacs, clinging to him with such a dead weighb that he is forced to come to a stop. (To be Continued)