A LOST WITNESS,

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 260, 9 November 1897, Page 6

A LOST WITNESS,

THE MYSTEET OE LEAH PAGE!

. BY LAWRENCE L. LYNCH, Author of "Shadowed by Three," ".A Slender Clue," "Dangerous Ground, > Madeline Payne," " A.Mountain Mystery," "The Diamond Coterie," " Romance of a Bomb Thrower," "Out of a Labyrinth."

re CHAPTER XIX. ' ' - p ,jj| TROUBLE. IN DANGER.' In telling Sir Felix of Fabrice's troubled night, Madam Congreve had exaggerated nothing. And yet, in spite of her sleeplessness, her sighs and groans and tears, La Belle Fabrice was a very lovely creature to look upon when she turned her steps briskly up Fifth Avenue that morning. Sparkling eyes, charming faces, and bewitching toilets are the rule upon this aristocratic thoroughfare. But the charming face and daintily poised fcead, the easy, self-reliant springing gait, and the perfectly-adjusted, ele-g-antly-simple street dress, with its unmistakable' 'English' air, drew many eyes and elicited many admiring comments.

A few minutes of brisk walking brought into the face of- the pretty little comedienne a brighter look, for youth and health yield readily to the influences of a fair morning, and Fabrice possessed a naturally brave and buoyant temperament. In her hand, concealed under the fringes of her mantle, she carried a letter. After she had walked for half a dozen blocks, in. the direction of the Park, she gave a swift glance up and down, crossed the street, and deposited her letter in a box, standing for a moment after the deed was done, upon the shady corner, and looking about her again. , After a final glance at the letter box, as if to assure herself that the letter had been quite swallowed by it, i she walked toward Central Park, recrpssing the street after a block or two, and turning finally upon 57th Street, going eastward, and coming out with slackened step and alert eyes upon Lexington Avenue. At the corner she paused, and involuntarily put up her hand, as if to pull closer down the filmy veil Which half covered, but did not conceal, fler piquant face. It seemed as if she were about to turn and go back as she came, but the hesitation was only for an instant. She set her red lips together and walked on slowly, with her eyes fixed upon the object of her momentary surprise and seeming alarm. This object was a woman, elderly and ugly, with eager black eyes and a hooked nose —a woman in shabby garments which yet bore evidences of having been donned with an effort at twadry smartness —a woman whose bonnet was younger than, her years, and whose step was so steady and brisk that Fabrice was compelled to quicken her own pace in. order to keep close behind her. The woman hurried on, and the face of Fabrice became very grave and determined as she followed. When the old woman slackened her pace, sls ..they were approaching a longrow of apartment houses, the girl halted and took up a position beside a fruit stand, near the street corner. 'Yes,' she said, half aloud in her preoccupation, 'she's going there.' The old woman was already half way up the long steps, and in a moment had disappeared behind one of the stately double doors of the entrance.

'I shall make no call to-day,' La Belle Fabriee murmured, as she turned away. 'I may as well go back.'

Madam Congreve was seated in her favourite place by one of the long •windows, with a book in her lap, and Bhe welcomed Fabriee with a smile.

'You have just missed Sir Felix,' she said.

'I know it,' said Fabriee. 'I saw him going.'

'And he saw ycu?' 'No, I think not.'

Madam looked down at her book and out of the window.

'He expects us to drive with him,' she said. 'Yes,' tossing1 aside her hat and mantle.

'Shall you go?' The face of the elderly woman was actually flushing.

Fabriee was quick to see it. She Went over and sat down on a hassock Hear her friend.

'Conny,' she began, seriously, 'I came in feeling like a culprit, but really you look like one.'' She drew the hassock closer and rested her arms on her friend's lap. tHave you been abusing Sir Felix?'

'Abusing Sir Felix.' Madam CongTeye could speak now and she did. She had thought of herself as confessing; owning up to her share in a little plot; well meant to be sure, but a plot for all that. But now she was felling her story, and the story of Sir Felix in a tone more narrative than confessional; telling it pithily, sarcastically; telling it well, throughout.

From the first, Fabrice had listened with dpwncast eyes and drooping head. Once or twice only did she look up or change her position. When the end was reached she was sitting with her :hands clasped about her knees, and the hassock drawn close to Madam's feet, so that her curly head rested against the lady's arm.

When Madam finally ceased, the girl drew a long sighing breath, and nestled closer to her companion, her head drooping so that it could not be seen.

For many moments they both so sat in silence. Fina-lly, Madam broke the spell. Tabrice,' gently stroking the soft hair, 'are ym angry?'

'No, Conny;'

i Another lag silence, then \ 'My dear, answer me one question.'

'Well?'

'In telling you all this, have you been surprised at anything? Have you not guesed as much all along?' 'I have guessed, I have known, of course, somejhing.' 'How muci?'

'Conny, thit is two questions.'

'I know it. Fabrice, don't you Tealise that you are an especially fortunate woman? 1

•Unfortunate is the* right word, Con.'

'Nonsense, child; you make me angry with you. Youth does not last always. Even beauty and talent and popularity such as yours will wane some day. Look at yourself as you are now, this very day. The foremost actress in this great country, with, all the world of wealth and fashion at your feet. Witli such youth and beauty, such health and strength, with 'one fortune already half made, the other half at your back, a second fortune, a title, a noble name and peace and serenity to your dying- day are also at your command. You know what it will be when you have once made your bow before these New Yorkers. Next week will be an ovation. Do you think there is a woman in all this great city who would not be glad to stand in your shoes? And then, Fabrice, think, from the very zenith of success, with the city ringing with your name, with society at your beck, it is in your power to step from fame to fame, from the stage to an earldom. Think. Even La Belle Fabrice must lay down her honour some day and lose her name in oblivion; but from La Belle Fabrice to Lady Wyntoun—Ah, think, dearie.' She bent over the bowed head and tried to lift it. She was surprised and pleased to find her favourite so quiet, so seemingly susceptible to reason.

'Fabrice!'

Suddenly the still little figure sprang erect, and standing" a little aloof from her friend, the girl faced her —faced her in silence for a moment, with blanched cheek, parted lips, and eyes that burned in their sad intensity and glistened with unshed tears.

'Think!' She thing herself: down beside her friend once more, and burying her face in the fold of Madame's flowing gown gave way to a burst of tears.

For many moments the sobs shook her frame, and madam sat quietly, passing her hands caressingly over the bowed head, and letting the storm rage on. At last the sobbing became fainter, then ceased altogether, and only long- shuddering sighs were heard. Finally, she laid quite still, with her arms clasping her friend's knees, and suffered her tear-stained face to be dried upon madam's soft handkerchief.

The lady still sat patiently caressing the humbled head, when, after many minutes of silence, the g-irl sighed heavily and breathed out in disjointed syllables her friend's name. 'Conny.'

'Yes, my dear.'

'Conny, listen. When we left London —I didn't thihk—l didn't think, surely—that he was serious.'

'Serious? He was always sincere, child, from the very first moment. Why, Fabrice, you ought to know, girl as you are, that such a man as Sir Felix Wyntoun could not trifle.'

Fabrice sighed heavily,

'Isuppose I ought. But, Conny, I want to believe, I want you to make him believe, that if I had known, it! I had been, sure, that he would follow me here, I would have tried to prevent it, I would have forbidden it.' Fabrice! Nonsense, child!' 'Yes, I would. I—l am sure that I would. I must have done it.'

'Fabrice, what are you saying? Are you going to refuse him now?'

The girl raised her head with a weary motion. "lie must not ask me. You must not let him ask me, Conny.'

Madame Congreve rung her hands despairingly.

'Oh, child! child!' she cried, 'do you think I con control him now? It is too late, Fabrice. You must hear him and answer him. There is no other way.

Again the girl's head went down upon Madam's lap.

'Oh!' she moaned, 'this is so hard! Conny, you have been his friend; be mine now. Don't let him talk to me of this. Tell him he must not. Tell him anything.'

'I wish I could tell him anything reasonable.' There was a note of sternness in Madam's tone. 'I wish you would trust me, Fabriee. What has come over you since yestei'day? Would you have talked like this, or felt like this, two days ago?'

Up again came the bent head, and in the eyes that met hers Madam saw a new 100k —a look of terror, of startled remembrance. And then, in atone of deepest self-reproach, the girl answered :

'Oh, Heaven forgive me, I had forgotten—base, ungrateful little wretch that I am! Conny,' catching her friend's hand convulsively, 'you must have patience with me. You must let me think.'

Again she hid her face in the friendly shelter of Madam's gown, and remained thus, silent, for many long moments. Then she looked up, passed a hand over her forehead, smoothed the .ruffled ring-s of hair above her brows, and, rising1 from her halfcrouching, half-kneeling- posture, resumed her place upon the hassock as at first.'

'Conny,' she began, q\iite humbly, 'bear with me for a little longer. I can't tell you much—anything, in fact —at least, not now. Stop—oh, I know how well I can trust you. It isn't that. I know how you would try to comfort me. But it mustn't be —not yet. It is punishment, not comfort, that I deserve. Conny, dear old Conny. how long have you known me?'

'Why, for two good years. What a question, child!'

'Yes, I know. Eitt this is what T mean: Ask yourself what I have been in these two years. Have I been good? Have I been frank and true? If you had a sister, would you like her to be what I have been, or seemed to be, in these two years?'

Madam Congreve was too thoroughly English to relish a scene, even of a moderate and private sort, off the stage. But she was fond of Fabrice, and she felt sure that the girl's distress was genuine, though" possibly she thought the cause was exaggerated.

'Honestly, my dear,' she said, 'in all the time I have known you—and remember, I have known you under no ordinary circumstances, no ordinary temptations—you have been an honest, kind, truehearted girl. You have been generous, unaffected, and modest in the midst of flattery that would have turned the head of a saint. Do I need to tell you that in your profession you have been a paragon, and in and out of it always the lady? I should be very proud of such a sister, my dear.'

Pabrice laid her cheek caressingly upon her friend's hand, and then sat down beside her.

'I am grateful for your good opinion, Conny.' During- Madam's long speech she seemed to have regained her composiire, and she now spoke like her usual self, although with unusual gravity.

'In the eyes of the world, I may be all that you say, and in the eyes of Sir Felix Wyntoun also. You have known me two years, and that is suf-

ficient for you. All that remains behind you accept upon faith. But Sir Felix —for him, should I listen to him, all that lies behind these last years must be unveiled; for him and for his family. You realise that?' 'Yes, I suppose so—of course.' Fabrice got up and stood before her friend, For a moment she was silent; then she clasped her hands, lifted them above her head, and with an impetuous gesture flung them apart and let them fall at her side. 'I wish with all my heart and soul,' she cried, 'that I were not and never had been an actress !' Madam regarded her in silence, but with a shade of coldness in her glance. 'If I were Fabrice the milliner, Fabrice the mantua-maker, Fabrice the saleswoman,' the girl went on, 'I might do as I would. But as La Belle Fabrice, favourite for the moment, my every act blazoned in the newspapers as soon as I have stepped before the public — I am alone.' Madam Congreve arose. 'One would think that you were rehearsing a new part, child,' she said. Fabrice caught her arm and walked beside her slowly the length of the room. 'I may never rehearse a new part, Conny. ' I am in trouble, and 1 may be in danger. Don't ask me any questions, please. Sometime, soon I hope, I may speak freely. I may need your help. But now, just now, oh, be patient with me !' There was a sob in her throat, and Madam Congreve, alive to the present and all that was practical, turned upon her and put two firm hands on her shoulders.

'If we are going to drive with Sir Felix you must not show him and half New York a pair of tear-swollen eyes. Haven't I told you, child, that there's nothing in this world worth crying about ?'

'Oh !' sighed Fabrice, 'if I could only make myself believe it !' She slipped from under her friend's caressing hands. 'At any rate, I won't cry now,' she said, and vanished behind the tall screen.

(To be Continued.)